Combining Choice Analysis with Stakeholder Consultation to Assess Management Options for New Zealand’s Hurunui River

Choice experiments can be designed using information gathered in stakeholder consultation processes. Information from these two sources can be used to consider both consultation outcomes and population preferences in environmental decision making. This approach is demonstrated using a case study of New Zealand’s Hurunui River which has been hotly contested between those who seek to divert water and increase agricultural production and those who would like to see the river undeveloped and the natural resources in the river and catchment improved.