A recreational valuation of the freshwater inflows into the Keurbooms estuary by means of a contingent valuation study

This paper reports on a contingent valuation made of the freshwater inflow into the Keurbooms Estuary near Plettenberg Bay, South Africa, in April 2001. The value of this water was estimated in terms of the services yielded to recreation users of the estuary, to be between R0,012/m3 and R0,046/m3. This value is currently lower than what farmers are willing to pay for the water in this area, as measured by the income capitalisation method, namely R0,125/m3, but may increase in the future as more and more South African estuaries are undermined through upstream river water abstraction, and recreational substitutes are diminished. A willingness-to-pay function was also estimated and show annual levies paid and investment in goods to access the estuary services to be important determinants of willingness-to-pay.