estimating the value of improvement in lake urmia’s environmental situation using choice experiment

The lake urmia and its satellite wetlands have been selectedas a demonstration site for the united nations developmentprogram/global environment facility/department of environmentconservation of iranian wetlands project. this projectaims to demonstrate reduction of the major threats of thiswetland protected area coordinated through an integrated managementplan. a choice experiment was developed to examinepublic preferences and elicit their willingness to pay on improvementsin lake’s indicators toward good environmentalstatus. a pilot choice experiment study was administered inurmia municipality and the data were analyzed using a randomparameter logit model. the results revealed that residents ofthis municipality might strongly prefer improvement in waterquantity and were willing to pay significant amounts to promotecurrent water level to the highest level. furthermore, waterquality, numbers of flamingos and artemia stock were identifiedas the next important issues which warranted additional managementattention.