Economic Valuation of Air Force Environmental Resources: A Contingent ValuationCase Study

摘要

The Air Force spends $1 billion each year to preserve, maintain, and restoreenvironmental resources under its control (Budget of the United States Government, 1994). Assessing the benefit of this spending is a central issue in federal environmental management. As federal environmental management moves from a clean it up at any cost mentality to one which carefully considers the costs and benefits of spending, a fundamental question arises: What value of environmental resources does our environmental spending provide. As in any rational economic exchange benefits must exceed costs; the value of an environmental resource which benefits from public spending must exceed the amount spent. This thesis explores a method to measure the value of environmental resources more completely and applies the method to measure the value of cleaning up two dormant landfills affecting a military housing area.