Using Choice Experiment to Value Zarinehroud s Environmental Functions Improvement

Zarinehroud River in Basin of the Urmia Lake is one the major lake's water provider that recently its water controlled to use in agriculture, industrial and domestic sectors. Development projects on the river basin didnt consider sustainability and consequently caused environmental changes like species extinction, direct habitat destruction and reducing environmental quality in the region. These also accelerate lake drying. Due the important functions of Zarinehroud, in this article using choice experiment technique we tried to estimate individual's willingness to pay to improve environmental attributes of the river. Result shows that people are willing to pay for environmental services. They choose diversity of species in first rank and willing to pay 6200 Iranian Rials in average to improve this attribute. Environmental amenities improvement with 6040 Rials, Environmental perspectives improvement with 4310 Rials, Improving recreational potentials with 2770 Rials and saving resource's water for other environmental uses with 2400 Rials were ranked in respect after diversity of species.