Acids 2 Value

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Socioeconomical considerations

Diagram showing relationship between the pressure on aquatic systems, ecosystem services and human wellbeingAMD poses significant challenges to ecological systems, impacting both environmental and human health. Addressing these challenges not only involves technical solutions for water treatment but also necessitates a thorough socio-economic evaluation of the potential benefits and costs associated with such interventions.

The information below relates to ongoing work – this will be updated during the project period when results and outputs become available.

Diagram: Relationship between the pressure on aquatic systems, ecosystem services and human wellbeing. Picture Credit: Adopted from Grizzetti et al. (2016)

 

Link to our Reference Paper here.

Benefits of AMD Treatment

Economic Value of Recovered Materials:

  • Private Benefits: The extraction of valuable metals and minerals from AMD offers substantial economic benefits, primarily accruing to private entities or businesses that engage in these recovery activities.

Environmental and Health Benefits:

  • Public Benefits: Treatment of AMD improves water quality, thereby reducing the environmental health risks associated with toxic water bodies. These benefits are typically enjoyed by the public at large, improving community health and ecological biodiversity.
Cost Considerations

The financing of AMD treatment could potentially be covered through various means:

  • Polluter Pays Principle (PPP): Ensuring that the entities responsible for pollution bear the costs of mitigation.
  • Public Funding: Utilization of government or relevant public agency resources to fund treatment processes.
  • Hybrid Models: A combination of public funding and private contributions, potentially through taxes or direct payments from polluting entities.
Costs and benefits of AMD remediation. Picture Credit: Marie Lautrup
Economic Valuation Framework

The total economic value derived from AMD treatment can be categorized into several components:

  • Use Values: Direct benefits such as drinking water and fishing, and indirect benefits like ecosystem services that support agriculture or natural vegetation.
  • Non-Use Values: Values associated with the existence of a healthy ecosystem and bequest values which concern the environmental legacy left for future generations.

Potential values of AMD remediation. Picture Credit: Marie Lautrup
Stakeholders Impacted by AMD
  • Farmers: Poor water quality affects irrigation and can lead to reduced agricultural productivity.
  • Local Households: Increased costs for water treatment and negative impacts on domestic water use.
  • General Population: Broad societal impacts include increased public health costs and reduced availability of clean water.
  • Tourists: Degraded natural sites can lead to lost revenue from tourism and recreation.
Methods for Socio-economic Assessment

Psychological and Sociological Approaches:

  • Engage with communities through interviews and focus groups to gauge the perceived value of water bodies post-treatment.
  • Conduct field trips and site visits to directly observe community interactions with water resources.

Environmental and Economic Approaches:

  • Implement choice experiments to understand public preferences for different scenarios of AMD treatment and associated costs.
  • Literature reviews and statistical analyses to establish baselines and predict outcomes.
Choice Experiment Details
  • Survey-Based Assessments: Ask respondents to choose between various scenarios involving improvements in water quality, each associated with different costs or changes in utility bills, taxes, or access.
  • Price Valuation: Determine the willingness to pay for incremental improvements in water quality, thus quantifying the public’s valuation of environmental enhancements.
Progress and Next Steps
  • Completed: Literature reviews, expert consultations, and initial focus groups to draft the survey.
  • Ongoing: Refinement of the survey based on focus group feedback and pilot testing in realistic settings to ensure the applicability of the choice experiment.
  • Future: Finalize data collection and perform comprehensive analyses to determine the net socio-economic benefits of AMD treatment.
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