Assessing the intangibles in water pollution control

Abstract

Three methods of assessing the non-pecuniary benefits of good quality water are suggested. One depends on calculating the implicit valuation accorded them by the existing expenditure on pollution control and from the amount of "damage" caused. A second method consists in calculating all the costs imposed on users of water before and after a control programme is put into operation. Both these methods require more information about expenditure than is at present usually available. A third proposal uses biological assessment of water quality as a representative of the other "intangibles". Since high biological quality indicates a water suitable for any other use this could be a useful approximation. When information on expenditure is also available, it is possible to calculate a cost for achieving a given quality in a particular situation, which could be used in cost-effectiveness comparisons of different programmes or different situations.One of the ways in which technical change affects human life and safety is by pollution of the environment. The most direct interfaces between industry, the outward manifestation of technology, and the environment are contamination of air and water. The need for a means of bringing such factors as the "amenity value" of water into economic assessments is instanced by the fact that studies which have so far been made have only measured it when it could be costed in relation to leisure activities, especially sport fishing, 1 " 3 which makes adequate assessment of control programmes on Cost many waters impossible. And yet few would deny that amenity, in the form of a reasonably healthy stretch of water, has an objective existence, or that society does place some value on it.The object of the present studies, carried out as part of a larger programme,t 4a>4b was to find ways in which the intangibles connected with water quality could be collectively identified and valued.The method used for industrial safety, risk to † "Human Life and Safety in Relation to Technical Change" full report £6 available from SPRU, University of Sussex, Brighton, England. Total value of reduction in damage Value of remaining damage Water quality FIGURE 1 Cost and water quality. 289 Downloaded by [Computing & Library Services, University of Huddersfield] at 02:23 26 December 2014 290 P. K. MARSTRANDusers and third party risk is described by Sinclair elsewhere. 5 It can be applied to the water pollution situation. If it is assumed that the amount, currently being spent on damage control, in this case prevention of pollution, is considered to be optimal, then it will be approximately equal in value to the cost of the damage, (Figure 1). The cost of damage will be made up of measurable costs, such as damage to fisheries, imposed costs on users of water, and intangible costs, such as deterioration in appearance or smell. Prevention costs are feasibly obtainable, the costs of dealing with the results of pollution which occurs are more or less identifiable, and in this way it should be possible to arrive at a valu...