Assessing indigeneous values associated with water resources and floodplain development

Considerations of equity and cultural factors are important components of sustainable development criteria, but remain difficult to incorporate in economic analysis. Various nonmarket environmental valuation techniques have been developed and refined to incorporate environmental factors into economic valuation but often, little consideration is given to equity and cultural factors. This paper will describe a Choice Modelling study that included Aboriginal cultural heritage as an attribute of floodplain development, and assessed the values and opinions of both the Indigenous and the general community for tradeoffs between development and protection options. Differences between the two groups are examined and the policy implications discussed.