ECONOMICS UNIQUENESS

86 ■ THE ECONOMICS OF UNIQUENESS
BOX 4.3
Contingent Valuation Is Used to Estimate Both
the Cultural and Ecological Value of Lake Sevan
in Armenia
Environment as Cultural Heritage: The Armenian Diaspora’s Willingness
to Pay to Protect Armenia’s Lake Sevan
Lake Sevan is one of the largest high-altitude (alpine) lakes in the world.
How ever, as of 2005, the level of the lake had dropped by 18 meters and its
volume of water had fallen by more than 40 percent. These changes had various
signifi cant adverse effects on Lake Sevan’s ecology. Perhaps more important
was the threat to Armenian culture, in which Lake Sevan has fi gured prominently
in history, art, poetry, and music over many centuries.
A study was undertaken of the Armenian diaspora in the United States
regarding the willingness to pay to protect Armenia’s Lake Sevan. Dichotomous
choice-contingent valuation questions were asked by surveys to elicit respondents’
willingness to pay for the protection of Lake Sevan. The results indicate
that, on average, each household of the Armenian diaspora in the United States
would be willing to provide a one-time donation of approximately US$80 to
prevent a further degradation of Lake Sevan, and approximately US$280 to
restore the quality of the lake by increasing its water level by three meters. At the
time of its writing, the paper based on this research was believed to be one of
the fi rst willingness to pay studies in which a natural asset was also considered
as a cultural site of interest. It also appears to be the fi rst time that a diaspora
constituted the target population.
Source: Development Research Group, World Bank, 2005.
attention has been directed toward the analysis and valuation of the loss of biodiversity,
both locally and globally.
Economic valuation aims to provide a monetary expression of biodiversity
values. Th e reason for this is that the theoretical basis of economic valuation is
monetary (income) variation as a compensation or equivalent for direct and
indirect impacts of a certain biodiversity change on the welfare of humans.
Both direct and indirect values related to production, consumption, and
non-use values of biodiversity are considered when pursuing the economic
valuation of biodiversity. Explicit biodiversity changes, preferably in terms