Capitalized amenity value of urban wetlands: a hedonic property price approach to urban wetlands in Perth, Western Australia

Up to 60 per cent of potable water supplied to Perth, Western Australia, is extractedfrom the groundwater system that lies below the northern part of the metropolitanarea. Many of the urban wetlands are groundwater-dependent and excessive groundwaterextraction and climate change have resulted in a decline in water levels in thewetlands. In order to inform decisions on conserving existing urban wetlands, it is beneficialto be able to estimate the economic value of the urban wetlands. Applying theHedonic Property Price approach to value urban wetlands, we found that distance tothe nearest wetland and the number of wetlands within 1.5 km of a property significantlyinfluence house sales price. For a property that is 943 m away from the nearestwetland, which is the average distance to the wetland in this study, reducing the wetlanddistance by 1 m will increase the property price by AU$42.40. Similarly, the existenceof an additional wetland within 1.5 km of the property will increase the salesprice by AU$6976. For a randomly selected wetland, assuming a 20 ha isolated circularwetland surrounded by uniform density housing, the total sales premium tosurrounding properties was estimated to be around AU$140 million (AU$40 millionand AU$230 million).