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Abstract:
The government of common agricultural and forestry land is a topic that is currently enjoying a revival of interest. Many local communities have shown the ability to pursue sustainable use of natural resources thanks to their self-governed authorities. In this context the relationship between public and private interest which is established in use of the resource is a fairly controversial. The paper proposes a dynamic model to analyse the behaviour of a user of a common property resource in a "real option" framework, where the value of the right to use the resource is affected by: 1) uncertainty on the future amount of the resource; 2) entry and exit costs and 3) the number of users competitors.

Common property resources, option value, uncertainty

Abstract:
Water pollution in the Venice Lagoon and its catchment is a main environmental issue. In Italy public funds are made available by specific national and regional regulations in order to support the realisation of initiatives for the abatement of pollutant loads that travel from the catchment into the lagoon.

Local agencies in charge of water management may apply for funds by presenting suitable projects in the field of hydraulic and environmental engineering particularly modifications to the surface water network aimed at reducing diffuse pollutant loads in the Venice Lagoon.

Because the need to support those agencies in choosing among options often arises, together with the need of presenting and supporting choices that are made, in front of the funding administration.

The decisional context of the present study was determined by a given amount of public funds made available by the regional administration, to be used in an optimal way by choosing what to do (within a list of possible interventions like flow regulation, plantation of riparian vegetation, etc.) and where (within the surface water network of the district).

A multi-stage multi-criteria evaluation approach was developed, which subdivided the decisional problem into two operational phases.

In a first step a priority sub-area was chosen within the district with a multi-criteria evaluation procedure which took into account several decisional criteria, formulated by the authority responsible for the decision. Those criteria were quantified by using thematic maps (GIS layers), as spatial indicators for prioritising the location of pollution control initiatives.

In a second step the choice among alternative projects within the chosen area was supported by a second round of multi-criteria analysis developed in collaboration with a decisional board.

The results of the application of the proposed method to the case study demonstrated the potentials of collaborative multi-criteria analysis in supporting the activity of operational agencies during the whole process of development of proposals, plans for interventions and projects, both internally to share information and build consensus within the various component of the board, and outside, in the relationship with external bodies (funding agencies, local stakeholders, etc.), to present and support the decisions proposed.

Abstract:
This paper reports on a contingent valuation study eliciting willingness to pay for a public program for the preservation of lagoon, beach and infrastructure in the island of S. Erasmo in the Lagoon of Venice. A referendum dichotomous choice approach with a follow-up question is used to obtain information about willingness to pay from a sample of residents of the Veneto Region in Italy.

We use split samples to investigate the effect of providing different levels of information to respondents before asking the payment questions. Our experimental treatment is a reminder of possible reasons for voting in favor or against the proposed program before the referendum question. We find that reminding respondents of the reasons for voting for or against the public works increases WTP among less highly educated respondents, and decreases WTP among more highly educated respondents.

Contingent valuation, Effects of information

Abstract:
The paper proposes an approach for evaluating the effect of flow fixed costs on the evaluation of environmental benefits with travel cost method. On a full annual perspective when recreational users incur relevant annual direct fixed expenses, their behaviour could be influenced by them. The approach introduces a) the notion of the minimal number of annual visits that justifies the annual fixed expenses incurred by the user and b) a method to estimate it. The estimate of this minimal number permits to forecast the user behaviour on a full annual perspective, taking into account a more accurate estimate of the number of visits at different additional fees.

Travel Cost Method, Fixed Cost

Abstract:
Contingent Valuation (CV) is one of the most used methods for environmental resources evaluation, within cost benefit analysis. Here, CV is used to estimate boating demand function of an important wetland in Italy: the Venice lagoon. Demand functions have been utilised to assess the consequences of annual charge for lagoon recreational use by boats. Valuation has been carried out using the classic "bidding game" approach during interviews to a representative sample of boat owners which go on a trip to the lagoon. The representative group has been gained from a preliminary search within the wet docks facing the lagoon and within the moorage holders on the canals in the Venice historic centre.

Lagoon use-value, contingent valuation, recreation management

Abstract:
This paper presents a model for the evaluation of environmental and urban improvements on the islands of the Venetian lagoon. The model simulates the changes in residential real estate values using a value function integrated in a geographical database which provides spatial distributions of values changes. The fairly weak market signals, fragmented demand and strong externalities, and the scarcity of market data available do not permit the use of econometric models for value appraisal. Appropriate hedonic-hierarchical value functions are calibrated on the basis of a set of indicators of the characteristics of the buildings and the location. Some applications of the model are illustrated simulating two scenarios of future interventions which are actually being discussed or realised and involving the island of Murano, Burano and S. Erasmo in the Venice Lagoon. The interventions considered are: subway beyond the lagoon connecting Murano with Venice and the mainland, and the solution of "high water" problems on Murano, Burano and S. Erasmo.

Public work assessment, Property value, Hierarchical analysis

Abstract:
Tools for recreational resources management are topics of great theoretical and practical interest. The most commonly used tool undoubtedly is the licence or permit. The implementation of a system of licences to regulate the use of a natural resource is far from simple as it presupposes the answer to a number of questions. This paper focuses on the point of view of the purchaser and, in particular, models his behaviour when considering the purchase of a licence that authorises him to benefit from a natural resource in accordance with certain rules and procedures. The model assumes that the behaviour can be compared to that of an investor faced with a Call option, i.e. the right (but not the obligation) to make an investment at any time in a given financial unit at a pre-established price. The model was used to study the effect on purchase timing and licence duration of certain factors such as the uncertainty of the benefits and the irreversibility of the purchase. The results show that under uncertainty the consumer tends to delay the purchasing time and, then, to purchase a licence of longer duration than the one that would be purchased considering only the present value deriving from the expected flow of benefits.

Option value, irreversibility, natural resources, licences

Abstract:
This paper reports the results of a Travel Cost Method (TCM) study about the recreational use of the Lagoon of Venice for sports fishing. In April-July 2002, we conducted a mail survey of anglers with valid licenses fishing on the Lagoon of Venice to gather data on their fishing trips, behaviors and expenditures over the previous year. We also asked questions about trips that would be undertaken under hypothetical changes in the price of a trip and/or in the catch rate. Actual and hypothetical trips are combined to estimate single-site TCM demand function for trips. We propose several models to test whether it is acceptable to pool hypothetical and actual trip data, focusing on the respondent heterogeneity in the contingent behavior questions. Our models suggest actual and contingent behavior are driven by the same demand function, and can be pooled for estimation purposes. We use this estimated demand function, and its shift when the catch rate is improved, to compute angler surplus at the current catch rate and the change in surplus accruing from a 50% improvement in the catch rate. For the average angler in our sample, the former is about Euro 1,700 a year, while the latter is about Euro 2,800.

Sports fishing value, Travel cost method, Environmental improvement

Abstract:
Infill redevelopment - the transformation of previously used urban sites - is generally regarded as an important way to attain environmental and urban sustainability goals. At many locales, however, such urban renewal, community development, and tax revenue goals must be reconciled with historic preservation objectives. Are economic incentives and regulatory relief useful tools for encouraging reuse of abandoned or underutilized urban sites with historic buildings? Answering this question is of key importance for many European cities and for older US cities, and has important implications in terms of urban sustainability and "smart growth" initiatives. We use conjoint choice experiments to explore the relative importance of economic incentives, regulatory relief, land use and property regime offerings at underutilized historical sites in Venice, Italy. We survey real estate developers and investors, and ask them to choose between pairs of hypothetical projects in three Venice locations, as well as between one of these projects and the alternative to do a development project elsewhere. Statistical models of the responses to these choice questions indicate that respondents are sensitive to the price of acquiring the land (and hence to any policies that influence prices), and especially sensitive to the property regime that would be granted to developers and investors and to the allowable land use. Contrary to expectations, our respondents were insensitive to tightening or relaxing the stringency of building conservation restrictions. Our findings sound a common theme with Howland (2004), who warns that redevelopment of previously used sites in Baltimore is impaired by obsolete land uses, zoning and infrastructure (but not by suspected or actual contamination). We conclude that the City should focus on offering land uses and property regimes that are more in tune with developer demand.

Conjoint Choice Experiments, Real Estate Developers, Building Conservation Restrictions, Redevelopment Incentives, Brownfields, Infill Redevelopment

Abstract:
Speed limits were introduced in the Lagoon of Venice in 2002 to reduce wave motion, which damages environmentally sensitive areas in the broader Lagoon as well as buildings in the city of Venice. In this paper, we estimate the welfare losses experienced by recreational boaters as a result of the speed limits. We fit a single-site travel cost model to a sample of boaters intercepted as they depart from or arrive to marinas and launching ramps on the Lagoon. Our Poisson model is corrected for truncation and endogenous stratification. We construct three measures of the price per trip, which allow us to check the sensitivity of models and welfare estimates to possible measurement errors in the opportunity cost of time. Our results are robust to the measure of price used and conservatively peg the welfare losses of boaters to EUR 7.7-9.6 million per year. Even under conservative assumptions, the welfare losses of boaters are sufficiently large that, given current monitoring and enforcement of the speed limits, we believe there is a strong incentive for boaters to disregard the limits.

Travel cost method, Single-site model, Speed limits, Natural resources management

Abstract:
Italian historical buildings require urgent and costly maintenance and restoration works, but neither the local, nor the national public administrators can afford these expenditures. Nevertheless the built cultural heritage represent a unique resource of the territory, as it embodies the local social, historical, and cultural values, generates positive externalities (Musgrave, 1959), and stimulates economic activities mainly related to tourism. Is it possible to quantify how much we care about historical buildings and to measure this value in monetary terms? The aim of this paper is to answer to this question via the hedonimetric approach. Specifically, we try to verify if the proximity to historical villas, districts, palaces, squares, fortresses, religious buildings and archeological site systematically influence the house market equilibrium price in the Veneto region (Italy). The paper is organized as follows: in section two a brief review of the literature is reported, in section three the database used for the hedonimetric estimates is described, in section four the econometric models and the results we had obtained are illustrated, and in section five some final comments are drawn.

Cultural Heritage Externalities, Hedonic Housing Price Method

Abstract:
The paper presents a multiple criteria model for the evaluation of the sustainability of projects for the economic re-use of historical buildings in Venice. The model utilises the relevant parameters for the appraisal of sustainability, aggregated into three macro-indicators: intrinsic sustainability, context sustainability and economic-financial feasibility. The model has been calibrated by a panel of experts and tested on two reuse hypotheses of the Old Arsenal in Venice. The tests have proven the model to be a useful support in the early stages of evaluation of re-use projects, where economic improvements are to be combined with conservation, as it supports the identification of critical points and the selection of projects, thus providing not only a check-list of variables to be considered, but an appraisal of trade-offs between economic uses and requirements of conservation.

Economic Reuse, Historical Building Conservation

Abstract:
Infill redevelopment-the transformation of previously used urban sites - is generally regarded as an important way to attain environmental and urban sustainability goals. At many locales, however, such urban renewal, community development, and tax revenue goals must be reconciled with historic preservation objectives. Are economic incentives and regulatory relief useful tools for encouraging reuse of abandoned or underutilized urban sites with historic buildings? Answering this question is of key importance for many European cities and for older US cities, and has important implications in terms of urban sustainability and "smart growth" initiatives.

We use conjoint choice experiments to explore the relative importance of economic incentives, regulatory relief, land use and property regime offerings at underutilized historical sites in Venice, Italy. We survey real estate developers and investors, and ask them to choose between pairs of hypothetical projects in three Venice locations, as well as between one of these projects and the alternative to do a development project elsewhere.

Statistical models of the responses to these choice questions indicate that respondents are sensitive to the price of acquiring the land (and hence to any policies that influence prices), and especially sensitive to the property regime that would be granted to developers and investors and to the allowable land use. Contrary to expectations, our respondents were insensitive to tightening or relaxing the stringency of building conservation restrictions. Our findings sound a common theme with Howland (2004), who warns that redevelopment of previously used sites in Baltimore is impaired by obsolete land uses, zoning and infrastructure (but not by suspected or actual contamination). We conclude that the City should focus on offering land uses and property regimes that are more in tune with developer demand.

conjoint choice experiments, real estate developers, building conservation restrictions, redevelopment incentives, brownfields, infill redevelopment

Abstract:
In many developed countries, abandoned (derelict or underused) industrial areas often occupy important parts of the cities. This raises issues about the possibilities of reusing these areas as well as on the conservation of industrial heritage they often entail. Conjoint Analysis (CA) can shed light on these issues as it can elicit the preferences of inhabitants for different scenarios of reuse. So far, only a limited number of applications of CA have been made on this topic. In this article, we present the results of a CA experiment on the reuse of a large, mainly abandoned, port area in Trieste (Italy) featuring buildings with some historical and industrial heritage value. Three hundred computer assisted interviews have been made on a representative sample of Trieste inhabitants, eliciting their preferences for different reuse hypotheses and building conservation scenarios. The survey explores two original topics: the impact of the time horizon of the payment (single or decennial special purpose tax) and the consideration of various mixes of future uses. The collected data have been processed using latent class and mixed logit models to explore heterogeneity among interviewees' preferences. Our findings show that, while preferences clearly emerge in favor of tourism and leisure oriented uses, preferences in terms of conservation and the impact of cost are much more difficult to measure. This difficulty persists even when specified or non specified heterogeneity is taken into account, although Mixed Logit estimate provides more convincing results.

Land Use, Port, Trieste, Conjoint Analysis

Abstract:
The paper presents a multiple criteria model for the evaluation of the sustainability of projects for the economic re-use of historical buildings in Venice. The model utilises the relevant parameters for the appraisal of sustainability, aggregated into three macro-indicators: intrinsic sustainability, context sustainability and economic-financial feasibility. The model has been calibrated by a panel of experts and tested on two reuse hypothesis of the Old Arsenal in Venice.

multiple criteria valuation, economic reuse, historical building conservation