LAUSR

Significance Many waterbodies across the United States do not meet water quality standards. To help determine where and to what extent improvements should be sought, policymakers must consider the costs of regulations with their monetized values. We developed a flexible survey approach for valuing water quality changes that uses a simple quality metric that incorporates both ecological use and ecological health. Our measure can be broadly applied to different waterbodies and locations and understood by the public. We surveyed a large number of households across the US Midwest and estimated values for potential policies that vary in their location, spatial scale, and the extent of water quality improvement. The methods and estimated values have the potential to support various regulatory analyses.