Testing benefit transfer with water resources in Central Queensland, Australia

Several techniques are available for estimating the value of environmental and social impacts where the information is not directly available from market information. These include related market techniques, such as the travel cost and hedonic pricing methods, and stated preference techniques such as the contingent valuation method (CVM) and choice modelling (CM). There are often demands for results of non-market valuation experiments to be transferred from an original study to another application, but there is some uncertainty about how accurate that benefit transfer process might be (Loomis 1992). Questions about benefit transfer (BT) relate particularly to the stated preference valuation techniques, where there are concerns that any inaccuracies or biases in the values may become exacerbated in the transfer process (Brookshire and Neill 1992).