Back-End

The final survey was constructed as follows: starting with introductory questions about what people know and think about Canterbury rivers; and a list of likert-scale statements related to importance of different uses of water; the second part of the survey is the choice experiment

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followed by five validating questions regarding the CE; the final part includes socio- demographics and a place for feedback. In addition, in order to reduce some biases an example of a choice set (that is not included in the quantitative design or analysis) and an enquiry about attribute attendance were used. Four different surveys were created that differed first by question framing (citizen or consumer) and, secondly, by choice set ordering (control design or utility design):

1. Citizen view with control design (Canterbury Rivers Survey A)

2. Citizen view with utility design (Canterbury Rivers Survey B)

3. Consumer view with control design (Canterbury Rivers Survey C)

4. Consumer view with utility design (Canterbury Rivers Survey D)

Otherwise the surveys are identical. An example of a final survey is in Appendix C.

The survey target population was residents of Canterbury. The sampling frame was provided from the Electoral Roll of all Canterbury that includes approximately 399,000 people (7.2% Māori) aged over 18. The sample size of 2000 was chosen in expectation of getting at least 15

to 20 per cent response rate45 _{which would then give a confidence interval of 95 per cent}

(Dillman, et al., 2009, p. 57). Of 2000 surveys, 1500 surveys were allocated to the general Electoral Roll list and 500 to the Māori Electoral Roll list. In order to get a representative sample, the allocation was geographically stratified into the different local authorities throughout the Canterbury region including Ashburton, Christchurch City, Hurunui, Kaikoura, Mackenzie, Selwyn, Timaru, Waimakariri, Waimate and Waitaki. The final sampling design is illustrated in Figure 4-4 below.

45 _{Fairweather et al. have conducted a nationwide longitudinal panel study of farmers’ attitudes and practices in} farming. In their 2008 postal survey, they found that the response rate of 22 per cent dropped from 32 per cent in 2005 survey (Fairweather et al., 2009, p. 17).

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Figure 4-4: Sampling design

The survey was mailed out in the first week of November 2012 and the reminder card was sent three weeks later. The respondents were able to reply either to the paper survey with a free-post return envelope, or complete the survey online. The online survey was administered in Qualtrics web survey tool. The two answering formats differ in that the online survey instrument did not let the respondents navigate back through the choice sets unlike with the paper format. An example of the complete survey and the reminder card can be found on Appendix C.

4.10 Conclusion

This chapter described the survey that was constructed to meet the study objectives. First, the introductory questions provided context for the choice experiment to evaluate all Canterbury rivers. In addition, the attitudinal statements were developed in order to define different user groups. The second part of the survey was the choice experiment. The CE attributes related to four elements of well-being and the literature review and the focus group were utilised in attribute selection. The main criteria were that the attributes could be measured with a single metric and that they were based on scientific data. A key feature in this CE was the inclusion of the cultural attribute. A Dp-efficient design was used to create 15 choice sets.

In addition, split-sampling was used to test differences across four survey formats. The first split was between two CEs where one asked respondents to make choices from the citizen

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point-of-view and the other asked the choices to be made from the consumer point-of-view. Another split-sample was conducted between two surveys where the order in which the choice sets were presented were different.

The final parts of the survey included validating (i.e. follow-up) questions related to the CE and demographics. These questions can be used to assess whether the respondents answered the CE in the way it was expected and whether the sample was representative. The chapter finished with an overview of the final survey and sample size requirements.

The next chapter presents the data-analysis and results for this survey. This includes descriptive analysis, choice analysis, testing of the study objectives and calculation of the welfare estimates.

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Data-analysis and results

5.1 Introduction

This chapter presents the data-analysis and results for the Canterbury rivers choice experiment survey. The results are linked to the literature as discussed in the previous chapters. The first part of this chapter, the descriptive analysis, describes the number of the survey respondents, demographics of the sample and the results from the introductory survey questions (i.e. those prior to CE). The second part, the choice analysis, presents first the initial results of the choice data employing the MNL model. This is followed by testing the study objectives that employs the more flexible model assessments. The third part includes the choice analysis with welfare estimates. Unlike part two, this uses a pooled data set from all surveys. All survey data were entered into Excel 2010. The descriptive data-analysis was then completed using SPSS 20 and Excel 2010. The choice analysis employed NLogit 5.0 and Biogeme (Bierlaire, 2003).