Animal Waste, Water Quality and Human Health

economically efficient to improve recreational bathing water quality and reduce thehealth risks involved.Summing up then, economic evaluation should be carried out whenever anintervention is being proposed in order to help policy-makers and stakeholdersmake an informed decision. Economists and health/environmental scientistsneed to work together in order to provide more complete economic evaluations.Economists require information on economically meaningful environmental andhealth effects in order to undertake their evaluations and hence must clearlyconvey their needs.At the same time, economists and health/environmental scientists need to beaware of the limitations surrounding their disciplines. Economics merelysupports the decision-making process, it does not substitute the decision-makingprocess. The reason economics is relevant is that no society has the resources topursue any social goal in absolute terms – whether it is health care, environment,crime prevention or education. All such goals entail the use of limited resources.Hence, of necessity, there must be ‘trade-offs’. And, reduced to its bareessentials, economics is about the analysis of these trade-offs.REFERENCESEconomic evaluation 457Barton, D. (1998). Applying NOAA Panel Recommendations to Contingent ValuationStudies in Developing Countries – A Case Study of Coastal Water Quality in CostaRica. Discussion Paper #24/98. Ås, Norway: Department of Economics and SocialSciences, Agricultural University of Norway.Bateman, I. J., Carson, R. T., Day, B., Hanemann, W. M., Hanley, N., Hett, T., Jones-Lee,M., Loomes, G., Mourato, S., Ozdemiroglu, E., Pearce, D. W., Sugden, R., & Swanson,J. (2002). Economic valuation with stated preferences techniques: A Manual.Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.Bateman, I. J., & Jones, A. P. (2003). Contrasting conventional with multi-level modellingapproaches to meta-analysis: An illustration using UK woodland recreation values.Land Economics, 79(2), 235–258.Bennett, J., & Blamey, R., (2001). The choice modelling approach to environmentalvaluation. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.Bocksteal, N. E., Hanemann, W. M., & Kling, C. L. (1987). Estimating the value of waterquality improvements in a recreational demand framework. Water ResourcesResearch, 23(5), 951–960.Bockstael, N. E., McConnell, K. E., & Strand, I. E. (1989). Measuring the benefits ofimprovements in water quality: The Chesapeake Bay. Marine Resource Economics,6, 1–18.Bockstael, N. E., & McConnell, K. E. (2006). Environmental and Resource Valuation withRevealed preferences – A theoretical guide to empirical models, Dordrecht, theNetherlands: Springer.