Clean water is a human right that is vital to life; however, billions of people do not have access to clean water. While progress has been made, additional advancement will require coordination with stakeholders, public education, and collaborative solutions (United Nations, 2023). Additional information about how people value water could improve this process.
Delay discounting is a behavioral economic model which examines how a resource’s value is decreased when its access is delayed; traditionally, examining how varying delays decrease the value of money. Delay discounting has been applied to humans and animals as well as to other socially significant challenges (e.g., gambling, substance use, other health behaviors; Odum, 2011). Berry and colleagues examined how individuals discounted air quality using delay discounting and found that, overall, air quality was discounted similarly to money (Berry et al., 2017). Furthermore, later studies found that interventions could affect how air quality value is discounted (Berry, Repke, & Conway, 2019). This model could be applied to better understand how humans value water quality.
During this presentation, we will describe how resources’ values decrease with delays within a delay discounting model. We will describe interventions that affect how the value of air quality is discounted. We will outline how delay discounting could be used to understand how water quality is valued and possible interventions. Finally, we will discuss future directions for the use of delay discounting and water quality.