How environmental beliefs influence the acceptance of reallocating government budgets to improving coastal water quality: a hybrid choice model

ABSTRACT

In this study, we analyse how beliefs concerning environmental action influence choices in a stated preference survey on coastal water quality and marine habitat areas. Survey respondents were presented with a series of choice tasks featuring improvements in water clarity, reef health, seagrass area and a series of costs in the form of reallocated state budget against a baseline of no new improvements and no change in the budget. The reallocated budget scenario was used as it is likely to be realistic to respondents. Estimates of willingness to reallocate were obtained using a hybrid choice model which included the choice data, attitudinal data regarding support for environmental action and sociodemographic characteristics. Our results suggest that beliefs supporting environmental action influence the willingness to reallocate for attributes that change coastal water quality. A decision support tool for policy analysts was developed to illustrate how public support, as a probability of supporting reallocation, is shaped by beliefs and changes with sociodemographic characteristics.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental beliefs
• water quality
• hybrid choice model
• budget reallocation
• decision support tool

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://www.theoru.com/about.htm.

2 We used the psychometric scales from Leonard et al. (2014) and a subset of the Ryan and Spash (2012) scale that measures beliefs supportive of environmental action.

3 A respondent’s beliefs regarding environmental action are long-held or established beliefs. In contrast, a respondent’s perceptions of the choice task attributes might be shaped by recent experiences, e.g. the perceived benefit of increased water clarity (for more on the issue regarding attitudes/beliefs versus perceptions see Borriello and Rose (2021)).

4 Almost three-quarters of the sample indicated that they had some interaction with coastal waters which would not seem unusual when a large portion (approximately 77% of the state population lives in the greater Adelaide area), in close proximity to Gulf St Vincent. However, we have no reference population data with which to compare.

5 As the latent variable approaches zero, there is a diminishing positive attitude towards environmental action, resulting in a WTR that is statistically insignificant from zero. This means that, for example, for the attribute Water Clarity there will be around 68% of respondents who have a (main effect) WTR within 0 (mean parameter) ±0.488 (standard deviation parameter). Ignoring the role of the standard deviation reduces the quality of the model that attempts at shedding light on the heterogeneity of the WTR within the sample.

6 All original dollar values are converted to 2022 amounts measured in $AUD. A CPI calculator inflated each value based on the year the data was collected for each study. Next, the appropriate average 2022 foreign exchange rate was applied.