Cost-benefit analysis: Applications to restoration of rivers

Abstract

This paper draws on the author's 30+ years of experience teaching and applying cost-benefit analysis. For the past nine years he has also directed a large research program at The Ohio State University to develop estimates of the benefits and costs of various water quality, infrastructure, scenic and historic river corridor impacts and improvements as a guide to investment planning and public policy on river and related watershed restoration. The research is focused on the evaluation of eight rivers in the Great Lakes region of the United States and involves a team of environmental economists, an ecological engineer and two aquatic biologists. When the various river corridor benefits or values broadly conceived are expressed in a common economic metric and compared to their full economic costs, one has a basis for assessing river corridors in an investment planning, economic development, welfare economic and public policy context.