Valoración Económica Ambiental del recurso aire en el cantón Francisco de Orellana

Abstract

The aim of this research was to carry out an environmental economic valuation of the air in Francisco de Orellana County with the use of the contingent valuation method. So, it was necessary to establish the air quality baseline, using the technical information obtained from the monitoring of atmospheric emissions provided by the decentralized and autonomous government of Orellana Province (GADPO), which documented the annual concentration of six pollutants like: Particulate Matter (PM10), Carbon Monoxide (CO), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Sulfur Dioxide (SO2), Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S), in 17 monitoring stations from 2011 to 2019, except for 2016 and 2017 due to technical problems. Then, it was necessary to apply a 21- item survey for a representative sample including older people divided in three groups: urban, marginal / urban and rural. Of the four criteria pollutants, only CO fully complies NECA parameter, NO2 and PM10 partially complies and SO2 does not comply. Once the survey information was processed, it generated cross bar graphs, and estimated the individual willingness to pay (WTP) in 0.9036; 1.6516 and 0.4847 dollars, for the urban, marginal / urban and rural strata respectively and resulting in an average of approximately 1 dollar per year. By means of ANOVA variance analysis, it was possible to evidence a significant statistical difference between the WTP of the marginal / urban stratum in contrast with the other strata. It was concluded that 96.6% of the population considered are willing to contribute US$1.00 a year per family for the implementation of air quality control monitoring. It is recommended to improve the emissions monitoring and carry out additional environmental and economic valuation studies to readjust the WTP.