Analyse économique de l’érosion côtière au Vietnam : une approche empirique
Author: Anh Nguyen, Thi Lan
Under the direction of: Michel Simioni
SupAgro, Montpellier
English text
Keywords: Economy, Vietnam, Coastal erosion, Vietnam, Discrete-choice experience, World heritage, Tourist, Resident.
Abstract
The objective of this thesis is to assess the economic valuation of tourists and residents on coastal erosion management programs in Hoi An, Vietnam. Hoi An - a UNESCO World Heritage Site was selected given the frequency of coastal erosion events which have caused increasing damages to property, tourism activities and the livelihood of local people in an iconic tourist destination. Chapter 2 aims at assessing tourists’ preference of coastal erosion management programs in Hoi An and their willingness to pay for each attribute. There exists a preference heterogeneity across domestic and foreign tourists. Domestic tourists support hard protection construction while foreign tourists incline to both soft and hard protection structures. While foreign tourists value the presence of trees on beaches, domestic tourists prefer a beach having both restaurants and trees. Unlike previous literature, our study shows that tourists support visible protection structures on beaches even though these hard measures might affect the natural aesthetics of the beach. Chapter 3 explores local residents’ preference to a coastal erosion program in Hoi An and how acknowledgement of coastal erosion problem and level of education affect their choice behavior. First, residents prefer wider, more public beaches having both trees and restaurants. Second, residents place a higher value on a beach that is protected by robust permanent structures. Finally, there exists preference and scale heterogeneity across respondents, which are driven by level of education, knowledge of the problem, and the stated level of choice certainty. Fourth, acknowledgement and experience of coastal erosion problem are shown to have a strong influence on residents’ preference of protective structures. Chapter 4 provides an in-depth comparison of tourists’ and residents’ preferences for different coastal erosion management programs in Hoi An. Moreover, by the implementation of a split-sample choice experiment, we assess how preferences of respondents vary across beach segments affected by coastal erosion in different ways. We find that both tourists and residents express strong preferences for a wide public beach protected by structural defenses. However, tourists differ from residents in that they place a higher value on the construction of hard protection structures, while residents incline to groynes, which preserve the accessibility to the sea. Residents are only willing to support a facilitated beach with trees and restaurants, whereas tourists favor more a pristine beach with only trees. Our results also reveal strong heterogeneity across respondents, especially for the group of residents. Moreover, estimation results suggest the need to account for specific characteristics of each beach segment. From a policy perspective, a tourist tax is shown to be a relevant instrument to fund coastal erosion management policies in Hoi An. Chapter 5 brings about the spatial dimension of valuation on coastal erosion management programs. The chapter uses the MIXL model as the baseline specification and incorporates distance decay function into the individual utility. Estimation results confirm that the spatial patterns are complex in different directions and are better represented using a multidirectional distance decay function compared to a unidirectional one. Moreover, the spatial patterns of respondents’ preferences for coastal erosion management programs vary according to the beach segment considered. This result supports the evidence on spillover benefit that a coastal erosion management generates across adjacent coastal communities. In addition, the chapter finds that some observed characteristics of respondents contribute to the heterogeneity of spatial preferences towards coastal erosion management programs including income and having children.
