Guofang Zhai

Flood Risk Acceptability and Economic Value of Evacuation

The economic value of evacuation and its relationship with flood risk acceptability in Japan were studied by applying the contingent valuation method (CVM). Flood risk acceptability here refers to the extent to which people accept the occurrence of floods, in terms of scale and frequency. The economic value of evacuation refers to peoples willingness to pay (WTP) for avoiding evacuation inconvenience because of its inconvenience and the potential for certain losses as a result of evacuation. Our main finding was that over half of the people (56%) who actually evacuated in a real flood situation reported inconvenience. The greatest inconveniences were the shortages of information and food. Evacuation inconvenience can be regarded as an important factor causing the low rate of evacuation in Japan. The WTP for avoiding current inconvenience was approximately half of the estimated economic value of evacuation, implying that the current budget for evacuation is too small and should be increased to improve the conditions of evacuation sites. The economic value of evacuation can be taken into consideration in the risk assessment process in order to evaluate the efficiency of risk reduction measures. Flood risk acceptability and home ownership are two major statistically significantly determinants of the WTP. Considering that those who accept flood risk have a lower WTP for flood risk control (ex ante measures) than those who reject it, it is reasonable to think that there may be a tradeoff between the public WTPs for ex ante or ex post measures.

An Empirical Model of Land Use Change in China

The aim of this paper is to develop an empirical model of land use change that integrates the growth of regional economy and land use change in a developing country such as China. The concept of ecological growth in terms of regional resources and population is introduced to make an empirical model of land use changes. It is shown that the model might be an efficient tool to analyze and predict regional land use change, and that the policies based on it can play an important role in land use change in China.