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Title
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ASSESSING THE ENVIROMENTAL EXTERNALITIES OF EXCESSIVE GROUNDWATER WITHDRAWALS USING THE CHOICE EXPERIMENT METHOD ‒ A CASE STUDY OF KERMAN, IRAN
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Type
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JournalPaper
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Keywords
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CE approach; conditional logit; ecosystem; natural resources; Orzooiyeh plain
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Abstract
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The main sources of water supply in Kerman province of Iran are groundwater resources. In recent years over-exploitation of groundwater has declined water table and created environmental externalities. Reduction of groundwater reserves, reduction of vegetation, loss of plant and animal diversity, soil erosion and increase of the potential for flooding in the area are of the adverse environmental externalities. The aim of this study is evaluation of externalities caused by the excessive withdrawals of groundwater from Orzooiyeh plain of Kerman province in Iran. For this, preferences of the people in this area were studied and values of the residents' willingness to pay to improve the environmental attributes of Orzooiyeh plain was extracted using the choice experiment method and conditional logit model. The results showed that the mean the total area households' WTP for the restoration and protection of groundwater resources so that it returns to the situation before the onset of externality was obtained 136676 USD annually. The results provided an argument in the debate on the new policy recommendation for groundwater withdrawals and helped to promote the ecosystem services of groundwater resources
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Researchers
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Abbas Rezaei Estakhrouye (Fifth Researcher), Hamid Reza Mirzaei Khalilabad (Fourth Researcher), Hossein Mehrabi Boshrabadi (Third Researcher), Mohammad Reza Zare Mehrjerdi (Second Researcher), Mostafa Baniasadi (First Researcher)
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