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Abstract
Bang Ka Chao, the largest green area in the Bangkok metropolitan area, delivers significant ecosystem services to sustain society free of charge. It is therefore difficult to achieve socially optimal services because of inefficient allocation of resources, over-consumption, and negative externalities resulting from market failures. This study assesses the value, or consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP), for enhanced ecosystem services from the Bang Ka Chao Green Area and to investigate factors influencing the WTP of Bangkok residents. The choice experiment approach was applied by interviewing 200 respondents living in the Bangkok metropolitan area. The data were collected between July and September 2016 and analyzed using a conditional logit model. The results reveal that the respondents are willing to pay USD41.5 per year to improve the ecosystem services provided by the Green Area. The respondents identified air purification as the most important service, while food products and recreational benefits were somewhat important, and bird habitat was the least important. We therefore suggest that the government take immediate steps to establish restoration projects with the concrete objective of enhancing regulating services, especially air purification. Traditional agricultural practices (mixed fruit orchards), agroforestry, and agritourism should also be implemented and promoted in the green area. Therefore, a payment for ecosystem services (PES) scheme funded by Bangkok and recreational users should be a possible approach to guarantee the quality of the ecosystem services provided by the landowners within the Bang Ka Chao Green Area.