Presentations – Tuesday June 21
10:30-10:39AM A deliberative valuation approach to assess perceptions of Massachusetts Bays ecosystem services
Jennifer Lyon-Mackie, University of Massachusetts Boston
Prassede Vella, Massachusetts Bays National Estuary Program
Pamela DiBona, Massachusetts Bays National Estuary Program
Noora Shehab-Sehovic, University of Massachusetts Boston
Allison I. Kreiley, University of Massachusetts Boston
Samantha Roche, University of Massachusetts Boston
Dr. Georgia Mavrommati, University of Massachusetts Boston
Deliberative methods to assess ecosystem services values formalize stakeholders’ involvement in decision-making related to natural resources management. This paper presents the application of a deliberative multicriteria evaluation (DMCE) method to assess community-based values of four coastal ecosystem services (Water Quality, Blue Carbon, Scallop Landings, Fish Abundance) and explore the spatial variability of group values along the Massachusetts coastline. We obtained qualitative and quantitative data from four workshops consisting of stakeholders from four Massachusetts Bays estuarine categorizations according to statistical differences in resources and stressors with the goal of informing future habitat protection efforts. Our results show that coastal stakeholders place emphasis on access to clean water and services that provide direct economic benefits. Differences in the quantitative and qualitative results of these deliberative tasks between groups provide insight into the need for localized policymaking. Environmental managers will use these observations to address local values and priorities when implementing habitat restoration efforts.
10:39-10:48AM Measuring and valuing the impacts of coal, oil and natural gas.
David Batker, Batker Consulting LLC
Tania Briceno, Conservation Strategies Fund
Recent experience as expert witnesses in court cases involving the damaging impacts of coal, oil, and natural gas provide many lessons for the measurement, valuation and environmental justice aspects of fossil fuel extraction and transport. Court actions also provide a path and funding for remediation and restoration of landscapes and communities damaged by fossil fuel extraction and transport. This also has significant lessons for how ecological economics can be applied to help local governments and individuals. Finally, there are important environmental justice lessons in this work.
10:48-10:57AM Reconciling Weak, Strong, and Just Sustainabilities with a Conditional Usufruct Right
Seth Binder, St Olaf College
This paper introduces the idea of a conditional usufruct right (CUR) to land for the economically disadvantaged and argues that it serves as a conceptual and practical connective tissue among the paradigms of weak, strong, and just sustainability. The paper establishes the normative underpinning of the CUR, independent of sustainability concerns. It then explains, drawing on the work of Anand and Sen (2000), how the CUR represents a natural and necessary extension to the ethical principle underlying the sustainability “constraint” on efficiency-oriented economic development in the weak sustainability paradigm. Next the paper shows how the CUR helps to operationalize the strong sustainability notion of “critical” natural capital by anchoring it to a requirement for social justice. The paper then sketches the contours of what a CUR program might look like in practice and it reports preliminary results from related work assessing the feasibility of such a program. It concludes with a discussion of implications for the achievement and measurement of sustainability.
10:57-11:06AM Mental Modeling to Examine Perceptions of Freshwater Coastal Sand Dunes
Robert B. Richardson, Michigan State University
Coastal sand dunes are of critical ecological importance, but little is known about the cultural values of these dynamic ecosystems. The shorelines of the Great Lakes in Michigan are characterized by more than 275,000 acres of sand dune formations, which represent the largest area of freshwater coastal dunes in the world. Coastal area management often involves confronting tradeoffs between conservation and development, and these fragile ecosystems are threatened further by invasive species and erosion. The objective of this project was to advance understanding of the perceptions and understanding of the drivers of change in freshwater coastal sand dunes using mental modeling, a common tool used within social sciences to examine how an individual, or groups of individuals, understand a particular issue, including natural resource conservation. Mental modeling is based in Fuzzy-Logic Cognitive Mapping, a parameterized form of concept mapping that allows for the development of qualitative static models. Our team deployed this tool to elicit feedback and perspectives from Michigan residents. The results have implications for coastal management policy for state and local officials.
11:06-11:15AM The Effect of Payment–for–Ecosystem Services on CRP Land Enrollment: A Nonlinear Regime-Switching Approach
Eugene Adjei – Auburn University
Wenying Li – Auburn University
Wendiam Sawadgo – Auburn University
This research studies how per acre ecosystem service payment affect land enrollment for conservation use. The main idea of this paper is to determine non-compliance in conservation practices in the United States. We determine non-compliance by integrating a land-use framework with Panel Smoothing Transition Regression (PSTR) model to analyze the relationship between per acre ecosystem service payments and the conservation reserve program (CRP) acreage under different crop-price regimes. From our analysis, we confirm the presence of non-compliance as the nexus between CRP acreage and per acre ecosystem service payment is nonlinear after testing the data generating process with the transition variable: crop price index as a measure of row-crop market strength. The results indicate that a $1 increase in per acre ecosystem payment is associated with 0.2944% increase in CRP acreage under low crop prices. However, the relationship between per acre ecosystem payment and the CRP acreage is negative under high crop prices. The results indicate that a 1% increase in per acre ecosystem payment is associated with a -0.0473 decrease in CRP acreage.
11:15-11:24AM MAGLAR VIVO IN CUBA: COSTS AND BENEFITS OF EBA. Ecological-economic analysis in the South Artemisa and Mayabeque provinces
Dr. Miguel A. Vales, Agencia del Medio Ambiente-CITMA, Cuba
Dr. Bernardo Aguilar-Gonzalez, PhD., Eco-EJE Consultants, Masters in Environmental Law Program, University of Costa Rica
In Cuba, the populations of the southern provinces of Artemisa and Mayabeque have been affected by the indiscriminate elimination of their mangroves for years. In this contribution we account for the main monetary costs and benefits of Ecosystem-based Adaptation actions on mangrove ecosystem services in these localities. These actions included restoration and support for sustainable production actions focusing on diverse agricultural and forestry activities.
Five provision services and six regulation and support services were considered. Three scenarios were developed: a base scenario and two modified ones. The benefit-cost ratio varied from 6.81 to 14.91 according to the reported scenario among the three developed.
Our work represents a pioneer application in Cuba of monetary Ecological Economic methodologies using a hybrid mix of direct and indirect valuation methods. Equity considerations were integrated into the analysis in order to account for the social impacts of the actions undertaken.
11:24-11:33AM Residential Development in the Darby Creek Watershed: Are Profitability and Sustainability Mutually Exclusive?
John A. Sorrentino, Department of Economics, Temple University
The Darby Creek Watershed is one of five major watersheds in the Philadelphia metro region. The objective of the work in this paper is to determine and compare the energy and environmental impacts of placing housing in the Watershed according to profitability and environmental sustainability criteria, respectively. Future population in the Watershed has been projected by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. Housing requirements in each municipality will be computed, and their location influenced by the local zoning ordinances. Suitability analysis using ArcGIS 10.8.1 will generate areas for development based alternatively on profitability and local sustainability. CommunityViz 5.2 Scenario 360 software will be used to place buildings within the appropriately-zoned areas. Using Argonne National Laboratory’s GREET1 2021 software and water quality monitoring information from the Philadelphia Water Department, impacts will be estimated. The impacts of the two scenarios will be related to ecosystem functioning, ecosystem goods and services, and broad value estimated for the latter. The effects will be used to indicate what might be appropriate policies to reduce the negative effects of continued development.
11:33-11:42AM Risk-based benefit-cost analysis of ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction with considerations of co-benefits, equity, and sustainability
Meenakshi Chabba, Extreme Events Institute, Disaster Risk and Resilience in the Americas, Florida International University
Mahadev G. Bhat, Department of Earth and Environment, Florida International University
Juan Pablo Sarmiento, Extreme Events Institute, Disaster Risk and Resilience in the Americas, Florida International University
Meenakshi Chabba, Extreme Events Institute, Disaster Risk and Resilience in the Americas, Florida International University
Ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR) measures are gaining attention as solutions to reduce community vulnerability against risks while providing multiple co-benefits. We evaluate an Eco-DRR, an afforestation effort, Boca de Sapo (BdS), in a marginalized community in peri-urban Lima. We design a benefit-cost analysis (BCA), including DRR benefits and place-based and non-market co-benefits. We evaluate BdS impacts across sustainability dimensions, benchmarking the project’s contribution to sustainability. Household surveys revealed an average willingness to pay (WTP) of $3.44±0.49/month. The equity-weighted risk-based BCA indicated non-viability considering DRR benefits with a Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR) of 0.06±.08. The BCR increased to 1.18±0.42 with integration of property rights co-benefits, and to 1.70±0.59 with WTP representing non-market co-benefits. Our findings indicate inclusion of the multiple place-based, socio-cultural, and ecological co-benefits with primary DRR benefits is critical as they generate substantial wellbeing impacts. Adapting a sustainability lens revealed holistic outcomes, highlighting areas for improvement and pathways for adaptive governance.