INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES Volume 3, No 5, Copyright by the authors - Licensee IPA- Under Creative Commons license 3.

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1 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES Volume 3, No 5, 2013 Copyright by the authors - Licensee IPA- Under Creative Commons license 3.0 Research article ISSN Valuing recreational benefits of urban forestry-a case study of Chandigarh city of India Alternate Hydro Energy Centre, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, India pradeepifs@yahoo.com doi: /ijes ABSTRACT Urban green spaces carry a number of non market or intangible benefits, which make a city healthy and perfect place to live in. Recreation and aesthetic benefits are among such ecosystem services being generated by these resources. Unfortunately studies involving quantification and valuing these benefits are lacking in most of the developing countries including India. With the result, these assets are not given as much importance as they deserve in a city development plan. The article presents a brief summary of the research study carried out in Chandigarh city during for estimating recreational use value of city s urban green spaces. The results can prove useful for urban policy makers, planners and academics including landscaping architects, foresters, ecologists and environmental economists. Keywords: Non market benefits, recreational and amenity value, contingent valuation method, travel cost method, consumer surplus, willingness to pay, residents, tourists. 1. Introduction Urban forests consisting of public parks, gardens, boulevards have significant amenity values with provision of leisure and recreational opportunities. These values, generally, fall outside market transactions and lack a market price. Therefore such non market benefits are often ignored or grossly underestimated by policy makers while framing development options for the cities. On the other hand, various development options to the area may be attractive to the politicians and bureaucrats due to immediate returns from development projects. In developing countries especially, space left for developing urban parks and gardens in future are subject to extreme pressure for constructing shopping complexes, housing flats, community centers etc because their real worth in terms of various intangible benefits is not assessed. Once the monetary valuation of recreational, aesthetic and other non-market benefits is done, it can be introduced into public decision-making and cost-benefit analysis of the projects. Therefore, quantitative information and assessment regarding residents and tourists opinions attached to urban green spaces is needed for assessing urban land use and planning. Chandigarh is one of the planned cities of India, known world over for its art, architectural beauty, gardens and greens; was selected for quantification of recreational use value of urban forestry. Being one of the greenest cities of Asia, it is attracting tourists from all parts of the globe. The non-market value of recreational and aesthetic benefits provided by the urban forestry of the city, from the point of view of residents and tourists was estimated. The focus of this study, in the form of Ph.D thesis awarded by FRI University, Dehradun, India in 2006, was on city s parks, gardens, tree-avenues, reserved forests and the Sukhna wild life Received on January 2013 Published on April

2 sanctuary. The present article presents the summary of this study for the benefit of the readers interested in this field. The main objectives of the study were to estimate the recreational use value of above areas from the point of view of residents as well as tourists coming to the city and to assess the predictive abilities of various functional forms for developing suitable models to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) on the part of residents & tourists for the cause of greenery and better environment. Two economic valuation methods namely Contingent valuation method (CVM) and Travel cost method (TCM) were used (Chaudhry, 2006). 2. Study Site Tree plantation and landscaping has been an integral part of the city s Master plan. The city s green cover rose from 21 % in 1991, 29.3 % in 2003 to 35.7 % in 2007 as per Forest Survey of India s Report 2007 (Narula, 2009). The per capita green space availability in the city presently is around 55 sq m which is better than most of the European cities (Chaudhry and Tewari, 2011). The most peculiar feature of the city s landscaping is the tree planting along roads, open spaces, green belts and around building complexes. The road plantations were based on study of the movement of sun in relation to direction, scale, size and architecture along avenues. To minimize glare along the avenues running north-east to south-west, dense foliage evergreen trees like Ficus infectoria and Schleichera oleosa were planted to form green tunnels. The shopping streets were planted with flowering species like Cassia fistula, Cassia javanica and Jacaranda species. Ornamental tree flowering species have also been planted in groves in parks/gardens to present colorful sight in all seasons. Few exotic species like Chukrasia tabularis along the roads form an attractive foliage in all seasons and have been almost localized. Important parks and gardens of the city include Bougainvillea Garden, Zakir Rose Garden, Bamboo Valley, Hibiscus Garden, Garden of Fragrance, Topiary Park, Terraced garden, Moonlit Park, Garden of Annuals, Cactus and Succulents Garden, Shiwalik Garden, Dahlia Garden and Leisure valley (Figure 1). 3. Valuation 3. Valuation by the residents The mean willingness to pay (WTP) for the improvement of existing parks & gardens and for creating new green spaces on the part of each reasonably earning family residing in the city was found at Rs. 153/-per year for a period of five years, which converts to an annual recreational use value of city s urban forestry assets to Rs millions at prices. Contingent valuation method (open ended) was used for this purpose and primary data was collected from 2358 residents of the city. The data was collected from business men, private service, government servants, women and professionals categories. It was found that city s residents consider the urban green assets responsible to the extent of 55.65% in attracting people to reside and work permanently in the city. This shows that people of the city give more than 50% weightage to city s planned green landscape and urban forestry in comparison to other factors like employment, infrastructure etc. available in the city for settling down for residence purpose in the city (Chaudhry et al. 2007). Statistical tools like ordinary least square (OLS) and weighted least square (WLS) methods were used to establish functional relationship of willingness to pay (WTP) towards Environment Fund supposed to be maintained by Chandigarh administration, with other variables. Various socio-economic and environmental factors influencing willingness to pay 1786

3 function on the part of tourists and people of city were analyzed. It was found that education and household income had positive correlation with WTP function i.e., willingness to pay increases with increasing income and education status. Educated society was found to have more environmental concerns and social awareness. In general, younger generation was found more inclined to contribute towards urban greenery. People of the city having interest in environmental activities were more interested for contribution towards Environment Fund. In other studies conducted in developing countries like Guanbzhou, China; annual income also showed positive influence on residents WTP for recreational and amenity benefits of urban forests, where value of such amenities attained RMB x 106/year (Jim and Chen, 2006). 3.1 Valuation by the tourists Contingent valuation method, open-ended version (CVM-OE) and Zonal travel cost method (ZTCM) were used to assess the annual recreational use value of city s urban green assets on the part of domestic tourists coming to the city. Inherent tendency of most of the Indian middle and upper middle class, which has the capacity to move as tourists, to reveal actual income on record (except Government servants) due to huge black economy of the country, has been found as one of the major reasons for poor results in CVM (OE). Estimate of recreational use value provided by the ZTCM was found more reliable in Indian context, which was estimated as Rs millions (Chaudhry and Tewari, 2006). Therefore, total annual recreational (use) value of city s parks/ gardens, boulevards, green avenues, reserve forests, wild life sanctuary and other landscape features on prices, comes out approximately Rs millions. This amount is the recreational use value on the part of people using or having liking for this particular environmental asset and should not be misunderstood as environmental or ecological value. As reveled through the study, the urban forestry in Chandigarh city contributes to the extent of 87.67% in making the city attractive from tourism point of view. City s unique architecture, openness, comparative cleanliness and other features account for the rest of 12.33%. This exhibits the immense power of urban forestry in attracting tourists (Chaudhry and Tewari, 2010a). 4. WTP vs WTA measure Environmental Economics literature provides for two measures under contingent valuation method i.e. willingness to pay (WTP) on the part of an individual to obtain a particular good or service, which is clean and green urban parks/gardens of the Chandigarh city in the study or willingness to accept (WTA) compensation i.e. amount of money that must be given to an individual by not allowing him/her to utilize a particular environmental asset i.e. parks or gardens of the city. The people of the city seem to have rejected the idea of receiving compensation (WTA) in lieu of not visiting green areas of the city for different purposes. Only 14% of the respondents chose to quote WTA value in monetary figures. This low response to WTA question was not found as a reliable result. Therefore, WTP questions are the best option, instead of WTA measure, to assign a monetary value to the recreational aspect of an environmental amenity like urban parks or landscapes (Chaudhry et al, 2008). It was suggested in the study that an entrance fee of Rs 25/- could be charged at Rock Garden, without fear of reduction in tourist population, in place of Rs 10/- charged presently (Chaudhry and Tewari, 2010b). This would result in generation of 150% more revenue than being realized at present and could be used for maintaining urban parks/gardens of the city along with Rock Garden. 1787

4 5. Conclusion It is relevant to mention that surveys for assessing non-market benefits of urban forests, public parks and gardens are more common and familiar to the western countries where rate of literacy is higher. Generally respondents who are familiar with some sort of economics and who have had at least some experience with marketing surveys, feel more comfortable in answering contingent valuation surveys. In the present study, the respondents (mainly domestic tourists) who were not familiar with these ideas were more suspicious of the questions and they tended to be hesitant in providing personal information such as income, mode of travel, make of cars etc. Figure 1: Zakir Rose Garden of Chandigarh: A panoramic view It was also observed during the survey that a sizeable number of tourists mentioned low monthly income and at the same time they were enjoying the luxuries of staying in good hotels and traveling in big cars of recent models as found using Participant observation method and Unstructured interview schedule in addition to Structured interview schedule. A general model depicting the relation of TCM and CVM ratio with Corruption perception index was developed in case of tourists of various countries with different ranking in the world as far as parallel economy and levels of corruption were concerned. A clear cut conclusion was drawn from the study that CVM (open-ended) has to be applied with great care and precaution in case of even educated and well-off respondents belonging to developing countries like India where a huge black economy, from which majority of middle and higher income group belong to, can influence the final outcome. It is always better to employ indirect valuation techniques like Travel cost method and Hedonic pricing method for assessing economic value of some assets like forests, parks, gardens, lakes, wetland etc, wherever possible. Such studies involving quantifying and valuing urban environmental amenities like green spaces, water bodies, clean air etc are seriously lacking in India. Deeper understanding of the ecosystem services generated by these assets can provide plausible information for costbenefit analysis of development projects competing with such green assets. Municipalities or 1788

5 local bodies, who generally face shortage of funds in developing countries, can utilize findings of such studies for generating more revenues. 6. References 1. Chaudhry P, (2006), Valuing recreational benefits of urban forestry, A case study of Chandigarh city, Ph.D thesis awarded by FRI University, Dehradun, India 2. Chaudhry.P and Tewari.V.P, (2006), A comparison between TCM and CVM in assessing the recreational use value of urban forestry, International Forestry Review, 8(4), pp Chaudhry.P, Singh.B and Tewari V.P., (2007), Non market economic valuation in developing countries: Role of participant observation method in CVM analysis,journal of Forest Economics, 13(4), pp Chaudhry.P, Tewari.V.P and Singh. B., (2008), WTP vs WTA for assessing the recreational benefits of urban forests: A case from a modern and planned city of a developing country, Forests, trees and livelihoods, 18(3), pp Chaudhry.P and Tewari.V.P., (2010a), Role of public parks/gardens in attracting domestic tourists: An example from City Beautiful of India, Tourismos, 5(1), pp Chaudhry.P and Tewari.V.P (2010b): Managing urban parks and gardens in developing countries: A case from an Indian city. International Journal of Leisure and Tourism Marketing. 1(3): Chaudhry.P and Tewari.V.P., (2011), Urban forestry in India: Development and research scenario, Interdisciplinary Environmental Review, 12(1), pp Jim.C.Y and Chen. W.Y, (2006), Perception and attitude of residents towards urban green spaces in Guangzhou (China). Environmental Management. 38: Narula S, (2009), Chandigarh Gardens and Greens. Book edited by Satish Narula, #1203, Sector 21-B, Chandigarh. 1789