Investigating Willingness to Pay to Improve Water Supply Services: Application of Contingent Valuation Method

Abstract

Safe water supply is one of the important Millennium Goals. For development of market water supply services, the willingness of consumers to pay is essential. The consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for piped water supply using the contingent valuation (CV) method with different starting point bids was investigated for the Pavlodar Region, Kazakhstan. The results showed that households with access to groundwater (well or borehole water users) perceived this as of good quality. Consumers without access to groundwater used open-source, standpipe or delivered water for which they had to travel and spend time or to pay. Open source water and standpipe water quality was perceived as bad or satisfactory. More than 90% of the consumers were willing to pay for better water quality and regular water supply. The mean WTP was estimated to be about 1120 in bids and about 1590 KZT per household per month in open-ended question format (150 KZT is ~1 USD as of January 2012). The results can be used to better identify the proper technological choice and the level of service to be provided making rural water projects both sustainable and replicable at a larger scale.

Keywords

• willingness to pay
• rural water supply
• contingent valuation method
• Kazakhstan