Economic appraisal guidelines and methodologies in Japan for river projects are compiled. The scope of the appraisal system in the whole range of social cost-benefit elements is delineated. Then, available nonmarket goods valuation techniques are discussed. We find that some of these techniques will be useful to aid the realization of the holistic appraisal of river projects although more accumulation of empirical studies in Japan is needed to assess how far these techniques should be incorporated into the appraisal system. The criterion of the assessment should be whether decrease of the allocative inefficiency can be expected more than the increase of the x-inefficiencies caused by the surveys. Some supplementary discussion on empirical use of nonmarket valuation techniques in overseas countries is also made.