Improving Water Quality in an Iconic Estuary: An Internal Meta-analysis of Property Value Impacts Around the Chesapeake Bay

This study conducts a meta-analysis and benefit transfer of the value of water clarity in the Chesapeake Bay estuary to estimate the property value impacts of pollution reduction policies. Estimates of the value of water clarity are derived from separate hedonic property value analyses of 14 counties bordering the Bay. The meta-analysis allows us to: (1) estimate the average effect of water clarity in the Chesapeake Bay, (2) investigate heterogeneity of effects across counties based on socioeconomic and ecological factors, (3) evaluate different measures of water clarity used in the original hedonic equations, and (4) transfer the values to Bayfront counties in nearby jurisdictions to estimate the property value impacts of the total maximum daily load (TMDL), a policy to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution entering the Bay that is expected to improve water clarity and ecological health. We also investigate the in-sample and out-of-sample predictive power of different transfer strategies and find that a simpler unit value transfer can outperform more complex function transfers. We estimate that aggregate near-waterfront property values could increase by roughly $400–$700 million in response to water clarity improvements from the TMDL.