Willingness to pay among households to prevent coastal resources from polluting by oil spills: a pilot survey.

In many coastal regions oil spills can be considered to be one of the most important risks for the coastal environment. Efficient contingency management in responding to oil spills is critically important. Strategic priorities in contingency management highly depend upon the importance attributed to different economic and ecological resources such as beaches or birds. Due to the lack of a market for natural resources in the real world, these resources cannot be directly measured in monetary terms. This increases the risk that natural resources and their services are neglected in contingency decision making. This paper evaluates these natural resources in a hypothetical market by using the methodology of stated choice experiments. Results from a pilot survey show that according to the perspective of individuals, an oil spill combat process should focus on the protection of coastal waters, beaches and eider ducks.