J. ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS, Vol. 10(1), 1980-81 zyxwv RECREATIONAL BENEFITS FROM WATER QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS: THE CHICAGO RIVERS CASE* zyxw EUI-GAK HWANG zyxwvut Department of Economics Yeungham University, Korea GUNDARS RUDZITIS Department of Geography University of Texas at Austin ABSTRACT There has been increasing attention paid to the recreational benefits from cleaning up waterways. This paper briefly reviews the theoretical and empirical aspects of estimating benefits from water quality improvements. Two pragmatic approaches for estimating river related recreational benefits are presented and applied to rivers in the Chicago Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area. INTRODUCTION The purpose of this paper is to review briefly the theoretical and empirical aspects of deriving recreational benefits from water quality improvements, and to determine an approximate estimate of these benefits for the river system in the Chicago Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA). In arriving at an estimate of the approximate recreational benefit from the improvement of water quality in all rivers within the Chicago SMSA the important consideration is the magnitude of the benefits rather than their exact dollar amounts. In attempting to obtain a measure of recreational benefits there are two basic ways of approaching this problem. The dollar benefit of a river or stream at a given level of water quality can be determined by simply listing all uses which *This paper was written while Eui-Gak Hwang was a Research Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. 93 © 1980, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc. doi: 10.2190/U12X-KBB2-71HV-U52J http://baywood.com