Valuation of wetland flood protection services in the new territories of Hong Kong using a stated preference approach

Valuation of ecosystem services has recently been emphasized to arouse the attention of policymakers on natural capital. Stated Preference (SP) approach is a well-established method to estimate the Willingness to Pay for valuing ecosystem services. Flooding is a concern for the people in Hong Kong – a coastal city. Adopting SP's Choice Experiment approach and a randomized intercept survey, this research examined whether residents of Yuen Long District (YLD) in Hong Kong recognized the flood protection service provided by the Mai Po mangrove wetlands in YLD. By using Latent Class Modelling analysis, we found that most respondents supported the adoption of mangrove wetlands and green infrastructure (GI) for flood risk management and were willing to pay for the ecosystem services. Respondents that had past experiences with flooding, seemed to have greater concern on flooding and sea level rise and more willing to pay for flood risk management options.