Capturing the Value of Rural Amenities

摘要

In numbers 25 (1993) and 26 (1994) of this Journal the author (Tsutsui) published the article "World-Irrigation IV; Irrigation and Environment-The Aral Sea Basin in Central Asia." The paper discussed the environmental implications of an enormous irrigation development project in central Asia, in the former U.S. S. R. where some 8 billion ha. of desert were brought under cultivation thanks to massive water withdrawal amounting to some 100 km~3 from the Amu Dar'ya and Syr Dar'ya Rivers. However, environmental problems such as waterlogging, declining and contaminated aquifers, shrinking lakes and inlaid seas, and destruction of aquatic habitats combine to hang on irrigation a high environmental price. Mounting concern about these damages is making newly large-scale projects unacceptable. Such concern recognizes that the social costs of a damaged environment are more expensive than the benefits that accrue from the projects. Environment, as this case indicates, has become a central issue in recent decades that needs to be seriously examined in designing and implementing any kind of development action, not limited to irrigation projects.