4.6 Conclusion and Discussion
The study found a general lack of awareness about the suggested offshore platform
project off the Liuqiu Island. Our results highlight the concerns about environmental
effects of the platform and the unknown effects on existing industries, such as fishing
and fish processing. Other concerns from respondents include questions about who
will be responsible for the platform’s construction and operation. Most residents
were worried the platform could be destroyed by storm waves. Sustainable tourism is
regarded as positive by local stakeholders. The findings suggest that current project
public relations activities were not proactive and indicate the need to improve
involvement of local people and existing industries before the project could potentially be carried out. Sie et al. (2018) use a group model building approach to
improve the stakeholders’ understanding of the complex systems and multifunctions of the TROPOS platform. Under the approach the stakeholders are able
to discuss and present abstract opinions, expected system behaviours and important
factors in a macro-system structure (Sie et al. 2018). Their general findings are in lieu
with our results from social acceptance study. They also find, for example, that
stakeholders concern about the negative side of tourism including potential decline
of quality of service, traffic jams and negative effects on marine ecological system.
The stakeholders also agreed that the platform will enhance fishery ecology nearby
the island when the platform plansan integrated multi-trophic aquaculture.
Our findings further show that costs and environment effects are factors that
influence stated preferences to a high degree. The presence of energy and leisure
facilities moderately affected preferences, and GDP effects and job creation were not
deemed very important factors when preferences were stated. Tourists would support the installation of the platform only if renewable energy and leisure facilities
were provided. The total willingness to pay for the whole of Taiwan would amount
to NT$ 618.25 million. Due to the large investment costs of the platform, the social
SNPV is negative, even if the environmental benefits are considered.
In the end a couple of issues need to pay attention to but have not mentioned
explicitly in our study. The SNPV analysis implies that the GDP impact, capital
investment and operational costs as well as the ecosystem service values are additive
and mutually exclusive (Munda 1996). GDP impact is calculated by input-output
model and considered only the economic sectors related to platform investments
during construction and operation.Therefore, it does not overlap with the production
service and cultural service values obtained from choice experiment. The sectors
covered by input-output analysis can be found in TROPOS (2014). Our social cost
and benefit study assume that the environmental effects have the same time span as
Table 4.9 Sensitivity analysis SNPV with WTP for sustainable development r ¼ 4% and t ¼ 70
(unit: million $NT)
Aquaculture + OTEC + leisure
Without WTP for sustainable development With WTP for sustainable development
SNPV À46834.10
À32370.48
76
W. Chen et al.
The study found a general lack of awareness about the suggested offshore platform
project off the Liuqiu Island. Our results highlight the concerns about environmental
effects of the platform and the unknown effects on existing industries, such as fishing
and fish processing. Other concerns from respondents include questions about who
will be responsible for the platform’s construction and operation. Most residents
were worried the platform could be destroyed by storm waves. Sustainable tourism is
regarded as positive by local stakeholders. The findings suggest that current project
public relations activities were not proactive and indicate the need to improve
involvement of local people and existing industries before the project could potentially be carried out. Sie et al. (2018) use a group model building approach to
improve the stakeholders’ understanding of the complex systems and multifunctions of the TROPOS platform. Under the approach the stakeholders are able
to discuss and present abstract opinions, expected system behaviours and important
factors in a macro-system structure (Sie et al. 2018). Their general findings are in lieu
with our results from social acceptance study. They also find, for example, that
stakeholders concern about the negative side of tourism including potential decline
of quality of service, traffic jams and negative effects on marine ecological system.
The stakeholders also agreed that the platform will enhance fishery ecology nearby
the island when the platform plansan integrated multi-trophic aquaculture.
Our findings further show that costs and environment effects are factors that
influence stated preferences to a high degree. The presence of energy and leisure
facilities moderately affected preferences, and GDP effects and job creation were not
deemed very important factors when preferences were stated. Tourists would support the installation of the platform only if renewable energy and leisure facilities
were provided. The total willingness to pay for the whole of Taiwan would amount
to NT$ 618.25 million. Due to the large investment costs of the platform, the social
SNPV is negative, even if the environmental benefits are considered.
In the end a couple of issues need to pay attention to but have not mentioned
explicitly in our study. The SNPV analysis implies that the GDP impact, capital
investment and operational costs as well as the ecosystem service values are additive
and mutually exclusive (Munda 1996). GDP impact is calculated by input-output
model and considered only the economic sectors related to platform investments
during construction and operation.Therefore, it does not overlap with the production
service and cultural service values obtained from choice experiment. The sectors
covered by input-output analysis can be found in TROPOS (2014). Our social cost
and benefit study assume that the environmental effects have the same time span as
Table 4.9 Sensitivity analysis SNPV with WTP for sustainable development r ¼ 4% and t ¼ 70
(unit: million $NT)
Aquaculture + OTEC + leisure
Without WTP for sustainable development With WTP for sustainable development
SNPV À46834.10
À32370.48
76
W. Chen et al.