Estimating The Willingness to Pay for Air Quality Improvement with Emphasis on Agriculture and Natural Resources in Ahvaz County

Dust phenomenon with the effect on different parts of society, is one of the important challenges in the world. So, accurate assessment of the effects of dust and consequently codification of regional and global policies are necessary for reducing the negative effects of this phenomenon. Therefore, in this study, the willingness to pay of Ahvaz County people for improving air quality in the face of the dust phenomenon was estimated using contingent valuation method and logit model. Data were gathered by 144 questionnaires using dual two-dimensional method of people in Ahvaz County in 2016. In this study, willingness to pay was estimated for improving air quality in Ahvaz at two levels of typical decrease in pollution (appropriate for doing everyday tasks) and decrease to international standards which was a study performing for the first time in Iran. In current study, in both levels, the variables of income and age positively impacted on the probability of accepting the offered price and while the variable of suggestion negatively impacted on the probability of accepting the offered prices. In addition to the two mentioned variables, the number of household members showed a significant and negative for reducing pollution to typical levels. In case of international standards, membership in organizations related to natural resources and agriculture department and gender variables had negative influence while education showed a significant and positive impact. In this study, the proposed value to pay in the first and second levels (suggested levels) were 10619 and 24851 Rials, respectively.