Contingent environmental valuation of water resources: Willingness to pay as a strategy for resource recovery and maintenance

One of the main problems caused by water pollution is the transmission of diseases to humans. According to Merten and Minella (2002), this contamination can be acquired through the misuse of the environment, such as the discharge of domestic effluents, which consist mainly of organic contaminants, nutrients and microorganisms that may be pathogenic. Contamination by industrial effluents, on the other hand, can result from the raw materials and industrial processes used, and can be complex due to the nature, concentration and volume of the waste produced. Considering that the processes of change must start with society, especially with regard to river pollution in urban areas, since the population is jointly responsible for river pollution, as a form of compensation that seeks to end the pollution of its waters, recovering them and maintaining this healthy state for future generations. Based on this assumption, we aim to investigate how much the population would be willing to pay to recover/preserve available water resources.