jailcd2019-044: Residents' Willingness to Pay for Mitigating Heat Island Effects in Beijing (China)

Abstract

Urban heat island effect has become a serious environmental problem posed to Beijing citizens. As an important  measure  to  alleviate  the  urban  heat  island  effect,  Beijing  government  plans  to  replace  the conventional paving surface with permeable materials within 20% of the constructed area by 2020. In order to elicit policy implications, this paper  applied the  contingent valuation  method to investigate the Beijing households’ willingness to pay for the benefit of the permeable pavement in alleviating the heat island effect. We chose double-bounded discrete choice format with spike model to collect and process the research data for a considerable number of zero responses appeared during the interview. The mean annual willingness to pay was 1640.2040 Chinese Yuan (239.7110 US Dollars) per household. In addition, we found that covariates such as previous knowledge, presence of children, perceived behavior control, and social norms, can greatly affect respondents’ pro-environment behavior. This paper provided suggestions for encouraging public participation in  heat  island  effects  mitigation  such  as  enhancing  the  credibility  of  government  and  promoting  pro- environment education and publicity.