Recreation and environmental value of Zayanderud river flow in Esfahan City: A double bounded discrete choice approach

Valuing the ecosystem services provided by flowing rivers especially in urban riverside parks is a way to the productive management of basin's water allocations and uses. This paper attempted to quantify the value of Zayamderud river flow in Esfahan City using a double bonded discrete choice approach. A survey including 430 randomly selected visitors of this area was used to do this in 2010. The results reveal when respondents face the follow-up bids, they learn to revise their willingness to pay related to their income and education level while the social variables including age, sex, and household size has no effect on their repeated choices. This behavior made the average willingness to pay for uses and non-uses of flowing river across urban riverside parks of Esfahan equaled by 11,400 IRR monthly per each household who are resident in or out of Esfahan City. If this value is implemented in the basin's water resource management measures, a cost-effective way would be achieved to raise utility of river visitors.