Using a geographic information system to estimate an hedonic price model of the benefits of woodland access

The hedonic price method may be used to investigate the effect that the attributes of a product have on its market price. In the case of housing, this methodology has been used to look at the premium that the amenity offered by nearby woodland adds to house prices. The interpretation of the results of these studies is difficult and is the subject of some debate. In particular, it has been argued that the aesthetic benefits of woodland, as a component of landscape, cannot be enumerated using the hedonic approach. This paper adopts a broader approach and uses hedonic pricing to estimate the amenity benefits gained by local residents from access to woodland. To accomplish this a geographic information system is used to improve the data available to the hedonic price model from which estimates of the residential access benefits of woodland are derived