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Almost in every contingent valuation method study, it is customary to include some space at the end of the questionnaire, in order to enable respondents to write their free opinion or comments regarding the contents of the survey or anything that they feel free to express. It is the only in this part, where respondents get the opportunity of free expression without any direction from the researcher and thus bears higher significance. But unfortunately, there are very few research papers, which brought these free comments into light by publishing them. This chapter of this book aims to explore this aspect by summarizing the free comments of environmental valuation survey conducted on the Isahaya Bay Wetland (details of the original study are provided in Gotoh et al. 2002 and Ahmed et al. 2002c, 2003).

The environmental valuation made by using CVM has been questioned by many researchers. The way of asking question, response rate, unfamiliarity with the problem, behavior of the respondents etc. can make the valuation made by CVM biased. One suggestion which is put forward to as countermeasure to this problem is to verify the results of CVM by conducing valuation by other techniques. This chapter endeavors to do so by comparing the valuation made by CVM with valuation made by applying remote sensing technique. Thus the objectives of this part of the book are to conduct environmental valuation through the integration of remote sensing and CVM; and to see the difference in valuation of environmental impact by behavioral economic tools based survey and thematic mapping of land cover derived from satellite remote sensing images. Both the Isahaya Bay Wetland (IBW) and Huis Ten Bosch (HTB) case study database are used to conduct this verification.

As it is well known, there are different ways to ask willingness to pay (WTP) questions in contingent valuation (CV) surveys, which are known as elicitation methods. Presently four types o f elicitation methods are commonly used in CVM studies e.g., open-ended (OE), bidding game (BG), single-bound dichotomous-choice (1DC) and double-bound dichotomous-choice (2DC). Among them especially dichotomous-choice (DC) format is the most widely used one. Follow-up questions are also used to increase the precision o f the estimate with DC question. The NOAA blue ribbon panel advocated this method as the most appropriate one in most circumstances (Arrow et al. 1993). While among others bidding game (BG) approach has been almost deserted because it tends to result in a starting point bias. However, all these methods o f asking questions have their relative advantages and disadvantages and none is free from criticisms. In this context, this study is a modest attempt to study the impact o f different elicitation methods onwillingness to pay o f the same respondents by using the CVM study data o f two environmental assessment case studies.

The case studies discussed in this book have several implications on the society and policymakers and can be translated into policy recommendations as follows: