The environmental costs of Asian dust damages in Korea: applying a choice experiment

Asian dust, blown by winds from the arid deserts of Mongolia and China in springtime, is causing extensive environmental damages in Korea. However, when evaluating any policy or regulation that reduces them, it is necessary to estimate the costs of Asian dust damages. Therefore, this study attempts to apply a choice experiment to quantify the costs of three Asian dust damage attributes (the frequency, the concentration level of particulates, and the range of the damaged district). According to the estimation results, the average annual marginal willingness to pay per household to reduce the frequency of Asian dust for 1 day is 785.61 Korean won (USD 0.75) and that for reducing the level of particulates by 100 μg/m3 is 701.77 Korean won (USD 0.67). These results show that respondents are more concerned about the particulate level than frequency of Asian dust. However, they are less concerned about the range of the damaged district than frequency and particulate level. This study is expected to provide policy makers with useful information for evaluating and planning environmental policies relating specifically Asian dust. © 2018, Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies and Springer Japan KK, part of Springer Nature.