ecosystems (Loomis 2000, Bishop 1989) the respondents represent a much broader geographic

range and are therefore not as closely tied to the resource as the participants in many other CVM

studies of water quality. The aggregate WTP is also much larger than in other CVM studies due

to the large population size. The Ichetucknee is a much smaller river than those valued in the

previous studies and our study will encompass a much smaller geographic area, Columbia

County, FL.

 Many early CVM studies met with a great deal of criticism and many researchers were

skeptical of the "hypothetical market". Many of the criticisms were addressed by several validity

studies that took place in subsequent years, the most crucial being Bishop and Heberlein's (1979)

validity study. Their study compared CV to two more widely accepted valuation methods, travel-

cost method (TCM) and cash transactions showed that CVM generated values that were quite

comparable to TCM estimates and slightly conservative compared to cash transactions.

 Mitchell and Carson's (1989) book on contingent valuation made a large impact on the

practice of CVM, and provided recommendations for designing a CV study, a broad overview of

the method for novices, and prescriptive recommendations that led to a new standard for research

on the validity of the method (Brown, 2003). While there continued to be doubts pertaining to

the reliability of CVM, the 1993 NOAA Blue Ribbon Panel to evaluate the credibility of utilizing

CVM to estimate non-use values for environmental goods helped to increase the reliability of the

method (NOAA, 1993). The panel provided guidelines and procedures for CVM study design

and implementation that develop "reliable" estimates of non-use values (Arrow et al. 1993).

Most of the guidelines suggested by the NOAA Panel (Arrow et al. 1993) and Boyle (2003) were

taken into account in this study in order to ensure validity and reliable estimates for the value of

water quality improvements in the Ichetucknee.