Author(s): Salem R. Buhammoud, Ahmed O. El-Kholei and Omar Al Ubaydli
Article publication date: 2020-09-01
Vol. 38 No. 3 (yearly), pp. 172-188.
470
Keywords
Air quality, willingness-to-pay; hedonic prices; GIS; Advanced Multivariate Statistical techniques.
Abstract
In 2017, the World Bank estimated the cost of air pollution in Bahrain at 0.1 percent of the Gross National Income (GNI) using health statistics that the World Health Organization (WHO) publishes. Anthropogenic activities in an area cause environmental pollution. Using Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to estimate the cost of air pollution appears to be more accurate. In Bahrain, between 2009-2019, respiratory diseases were not among the top four causes of death. The paper quantifies the cost of air pollution in Bahrain’s urban areas using real estate prices. The researchers adopted the willingness-to-pay approach to investigate the connection between air quality, the spatial distribution of population, and real estate price using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and advanced multivariate statistical techniques. The usage of GDP is adequate and trustworthy compared to GNI. Air pollution accounted for 16.7% of the variation in house prices, leaving 83.3% to other confounding variables, such as transboundary sources of air pollution.