Nature-Based, Structural, or Soft Measures of Adaptation? Preferences for Climate Change Adaptation Measures to Limit Damages from Droughts

The objective of this paper is to examine preferences of citizens of three European countries regarding various adaptation plans and measures to limit damages from drought under climate changes. For this purpose, we conducted a survey in the Czech Republic, Italy, and the United Kingdom. We utilize discrete choice experiments and estimate marginal willingness-to-pay for a variety of technical, nature-based, and non-structural soft measures. The results differ substantially between countries and across the adaptation measures with the mean willingness to pay to be in a range of 5 to 26 PPS EUR. However, there is a large heterogeneity in willingness-to-pay across and within the countries. Rainwater harvesting is found to be one of the most preferred measures in each of the three countries, followed by small water reservoirs and wetlands in the Czech Republic, large reservoirs in the UK, and tax relief on water efficient technologies in Italy. We gather data on the perceived effectiveness and perceived base level of implementation of the various measures to explain the differences in preferences across populations. We identify three distinct latent classes implying large, modest, and even negative willingness to pay estimates in each three countries. The results can be used to inform policy makers about the acceptability of policy mixes.