Estimating willingness-to-pay for adaptations to climate change in water resources projects: demonstration for Lesotho irrigation investment

A broad set of tools, frameworks, and guidance documents are available for water resources project planning, design, evaluation, and implementation in an ever-evolving world. The principles underlying most of these resources aim to advance the practice of water systems engineering under uncertainty,...

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Main Authors: Tolulope Odunola, Benjamin Bryant, Petrina Rowcroft, Samson Zhilyaev, Jeremy Richardson, Brent Boehlert, Diego Castillo, Kenneth Strzepek, Ethan Myer, Casey Brown, Patrick Ray
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2024-12-01
Series:Frontiers in Water
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Online Access:https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frwa.2024.1442023/full
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author Tolulope Odunola
Benjamin Bryant
Petrina Rowcroft
Samson Zhilyaev
Jeremy Richardson
Brent Boehlert
Diego Castillo
Kenneth Strzepek
Ethan Myer
Casey Brown
Patrick Ray
author_facet Tolulope Odunola
Benjamin Bryant
Petrina Rowcroft
Samson Zhilyaev
Jeremy Richardson
Brent Boehlert
Diego Castillo
Kenneth Strzepek
Ethan Myer
Casey Brown
Patrick Ray
author_sort Tolulope Odunola
collection DOAJ
description A broad set of tools, frameworks, and guidance documents are available for water resources project planning, design, evaluation, and implementation in an ever-evolving world. The principles underlying most of these resources aim to advance the practice of water systems engineering under uncertainty, preserve and enhance project benefits, and achieve investment goals. Approaches to financial and economic evaluation under climate uncertainty in civil infrastructure investments, in particular, are currently being reviewed by academics and practitioners in the field to assess their ability to deliver resilience, sustainability, and equity. In climate-sensitive projects, adaptation measures that help mitigate the adverse effects of climate change and preserve project benefits are required, and stakeholder willingness-to-pay (WTP) for these must be assessed. Typically, stakeholders and decision-makers utilize the outcomes of economic assessment methods such as cost–benefit analysis (CBA) to justify large capital investments. Synthesizing previous advancements in water resources planning and evaluation, this study illustrates how a CBA framework can be augmented by applying a Climate-informed Robustness Index (CRI). The analytics underpinning the CRI, as well as the summary metric itself, help characterize project climate vulnerability, while conducting CBA with and without potential adaptation measures can be used to estimate WTP of investors for adaptation to the identified climate vulnerabilities. The case study of a planned irrigated agriculture project in Lesotho highlights critical climate conditions for which adaptation measures such as integrated catchment management (ICM) plans can be introduced to safeguard project robustness.
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spelling doaj-art-cb9fcd61adf54bb38a28b31d75f9f4f62024-12-11T06:44:43ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Water2624-93752024-12-01610.3389/frwa.2024.14420231442023Estimating willingness-to-pay for adaptations to climate change in water resources projects: demonstration for Lesotho irrigation investmentTolulope Odunola0Benjamin Bryant1Petrina Rowcroft2Samson Zhilyaev3Jeremy Richardson4Brent Boehlert5Diego Castillo6Kenneth Strzepek7Ethan Myer8Casey Brown9Patrick Ray10Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, United StatesMillennium Challenge Corporation, Washington, DC, United StatesPegasys, London, United KingdomDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, United StatesPegasys, London, United KingdomIndustrial Economics, Incorporated (IEc), Cambridge, MA, United StatesIndustrial Economics, Incorporated (IEc), Cambridge, MA, United StatesIndustrial Economics, Incorporated (IEc), Cambridge, MA, United StatesMillennium Challenge Corporation, Washington, DC, United StatesDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, United StatesDepartment of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, United StatesA broad set of tools, frameworks, and guidance documents are available for water resources project planning, design, evaluation, and implementation in an ever-evolving world. The principles underlying most of these resources aim to advance the practice of water systems engineering under uncertainty, preserve and enhance project benefits, and achieve investment goals. Approaches to financial and economic evaluation under climate uncertainty in civil infrastructure investments, in particular, are currently being reviewed by academics and practitioners in the field to assess their ability to deliver resilience, sustainability, and equity. In climate-sensitive projects, adaptation measures that help mitigate the adverse effects of climate change and preserve project benefits are required, and stakeholder willingness-to-pay (WTP) for these must be assessed. Typically, stakeholders and decision-makers utilize the outcomes of economic assessment methods such as cost–benefit analysis (CBA) to justify large capital investments. Synthesizing previous advancements in water resources planning and evaluation, this study illustrates how a CBA framework can be augmented by applying a Climate-informed Robustness Index (CRI). The analytics underpinning the CRI, as well as the summary metric itself, help characterize project climate vulnerability, while conducting CBA with and without potential adaptation measures can be used to estimate WTP of investors for adaptation to the identified climate vulnerabilities. The case study of a planned irrigated agriculture project in Lesotho highlights critical climate conditions for which adaptation measures such as integrated catchment management (ICM) plans can be introduced to safeguard project robustness.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frwa.2024.1442023/fullwillingness-to-payadaptationsLesotho irrigationclimate change uncertaintyrobust water investmentscost benefit analysis
spellingShingle Tolulope Odunola
Benjamin Bryant
Petrina Rowcroft
Samson Zhilyaev
Jeremy Richardson
Brent Boehlert
Diego Castillo
Kenneth Strzepek
Ethan Myer
Casey Brown
Patrick Ray
Estimating willingness-to-pay for adaptations to climate change in water resources projects: demonstration for Lesotho irrigation investment
Frontiers in Water
willingness-to-pay
adaptations
Lesotho irrigation
climate change uncertainty
robust water investments
cost benefit analysis
title Estimating willingness-to-pay for adaptations to climate change in water resources projects: demonstration for Lesotho irrigation investment
title_full Estimating willingness-to-pay for adaptations to climate change in water resources projects: demonstration for Lesotho irrigation investment
title_fullStr Estimating willingness-to-pay for adaptations to climate change in water resources projects: demonstration for Lesotho irrigation investment
title_full_unstemmed Estimating willingness-to-pay for adaptations to climate change in water resources projects: demonstration for Lesotho irrigation investment
title_short Estimating willingness-to-pay for adaptations to climate change in water resources projects: demonstration for Lesotho irrigation investment
title_sort estimating willingness to pay for adaptations to climate change in water resources projects demonstration for lesotho irrigation investment
topic willingness-to-pay
adaptations
Lesotho irrigation
climate change uncertainty
robust water investments
cost benefit analysis
url https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frwa.2024.1442023/full
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