The Evaluation of Cost and Economic Benefit for Agriculture in Landslide Hazard Area: Case Study Mae-Phrong Watershed, Mae Phul, Lablae District, Uttaradit

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the cost and economic benefits by comparing the effects of land use between the current-conditioned area and the land use-changed simulation model. The model was simulated to represent the change of current land use to be a monoculture area. The questionnaire survey was used to collect the data of the cultivation cost and revenue from 66 samples of the agriculturist in Mae-Phrong watershed, Lublae district, Uttaradit, Thailand. The analysis results presented the average cost and revenue at the current condition are 14,862.25 and 34,615.65 THB/rai/year, respectively. Nevertheless, the simulation model showed that the monoculture-modified cultivation leads to a higher cost at 14,899.12 THB/rai/year and higher revenue at 63,505.29 THB/rai/year. In addition, the effects of landslide disaster on the cost and benefit more further investigated. The results revealed the highest impacts on economic benefits with the assumption of landslide occurrence at 8^th year, providing the values of NPV at -69,852 and -47,965 THB for the case of the current condition and land-use change, respectively. This study should prove useful for agriculturists as a decision-making guideline to facilitate an investment decision on agricultural cultivation around a landslide-prone area, due to the perception of economic impacts resulting from the change in land use from agro-forestry to monoculture.