녹조 발생의 심미적 환경비용 추정

Not only does algal bloom cause the destruction of river ecosystems and an increase in the cost of water purification, it also gives rise to growing public anxiety about the quality of tap water. Therefore, the government is making efforts to reduce the instances of algal bloom occurrence and improve water quality using artificial flood methods with dams and operating advanced water treatment facilities. This paper attempts to measure the aesthetic and environmental costs caused by algal bloom occurrence. To this end, the study presented applied the contingent valuation method and analyzed public willingness to pay (WTP) to avoid algal bloom occurrence. Moreover, a nationwide survey of 1,000 randomly selected households was carried out, and yearly income tax was used as a payment vehicle. In the course of the survey, a considerable number of respondents reported zero WTP and thus the spike model was utilized to deal with the zero W TP responses. The results show that all the parameter estimates are statistically significant at the 1% level, with yearly household WTP estimated to be 4,129 KRW, which is also statistically significant at the 1% level. Expanding WTP to the national population results in a total of 80.8 billion KRW per year. Therefore it is of paramount importance that policymakers take steps to alleviate public anxiety about tap water quality arising from algal bloom occurrence as well as work to reduce instances of algal bloom occurrence.