Valuing Urban Wetlands: A Property Price Approach

This study estimates the value of wetland amenities in the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area using the hedonic property price model. Residential housing and wetland data are used to relate the sales price of a property to structural characteristics, neighborhood attributes, and amenities of wetlands and other environmental characteristics. Measures of interest are distance to and size of wetlands, including distance to four different wetland types; open water, emergent vegetation, scrub-shrub, and forested. Other environmental variables include proximity to parks, lakes, streams, and rivers. Results indicate that wetlands influence the value of residential property and that wetlands influence property values differently than other amenities. Increasing the size of the nearest wetland to a residence by one acre increased the residence's value by $24. Similarly, reducing the distance to the nearest wetland by 1,000 feet increased the value by $436. Home values were not influenced by wetland type.