The core mission of the W4133 research group (and all prior iterations) has been to contribute to advances in the theory and empirical application of economic valuation of nonmarket goods and services.  These values are essential inputs to decision-making for public policy that attempt to balance sustainable economic development, rural livelihoods, environmental quality, natural resource use, and conservation goals to support a variety of societal needs. The USDA, through its support of W4133 (and proposed W5133) objectives, is at the forefront in recognizing the need for the improvement of valuation methods, increasing the range of ecosystem service valuation applications, and the development and testing of policy instruments that use valuation information in efforts to efficiently allocate nonmarket ecosystem goods and services.

Since 1981 with Presidential Executive Order 12291 (Exec. Order No. 12291, 1981), benefit-cost analysis has been a key component of federal regulatory impact analysis. This has required the development of economic methods to quantify the monetary value of potential changes in ecosystem goods and services that result from economic activity and policies. Such a need was further validated in an October 2015 Memorandum for Executive Departments and Agencies that explicitly directed agencies to “develop and institutionalize policies to promote consideration of ecosystem services, where appropriate and practicable, in planning, investments, and regulatory contexts” (Memorandum 2015, p. 1). As federal land management practices and public preferences for changes in environmental quality continue to evolve, there remains a pressing need for rigorous, scientifically valid, and reliable economic estimates of value of ecosystem services to inform decision-making. Federal land management agencies are faced with challenges to sustainably manage ecosystems among many competing uses with significant economic value. Meeting these challenges requires economic information on the complete range of tradeoffs among ecosystem services associated with potential federal actions, including benefits and costs that may not be valued directly by markets. The proposed objectives of this regional multistate research project are intended to provide decision-makers in the public and private sectors with this type of information for nonmarket ecosystem services. As noted in the above referenced Memorandum (2015), such information can fill gaps in land use and planning decisions, help enhance benefits provided to society by ecosystems, and promote cost-effectiveness in investment and policy outcomes.

The W5133 project proposes to continue to provide this research support to federal decision-makers and regional stakeholders.  The next five years represent a critical period to make progress on challenges related to ecosystem services provided by public and private lands. Direct and derived demand for uses of such land (e.g., agriculture, grazing, recreation, natural resource extraction) is increasing while climate change is potentially altering ecosystem service flows through increasing droughts, invasive species spread, altered wildfire regimes, and changes to the frequency and intensity of other natural hazards. Federal and regional land management decisions and environmental policy choices that seek to mitigate the impacts of climate change, improve food security, and protect ecosystems will require solid research findings that delineate the economic values of ecosystem services that are not priced in the market. Such economic research is also needed to face possible challenges to regulatory regimes designed to conserve ecosystem service values, such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act (CWA), and the Endangered Species Act.  At their core, many policy issues are subject to market failures when important economic values associated with policy changes are public goods in nature. Public policy regarding land, water, air quality, and other natural assets continues to evolve using more efficient economic incentive mechanisms and the success of these mechanisms lies in the ability to measure the value of natural assets and ecosystem services under changing economic and natural environments.  The proposed objectives and sub-tasks for the W5133 project research over the next five years directly address these challenges.

Public and private agencies and institutions continue to express significant interest in the research information generated through this multistate research group. Stakeholders, such as the USDA Forest Service, USDA Economic Research Service, the US EPA, NOAA, and the DOI Bureau of Land Management participate in conferences and workshops on economic and social analyses organized by W4133 members, and often request information and/or collaborate directly on research involving nonmarket valuation of ecosystem goods and services. Stakeholder interest is evident from their frequent and extensive participation in W4133 annual meetings, including collaborators from the USDA Forest Service, USDA Economic Research Service, NOAA, US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Bureau of Reclamation, US EPA, US Government Accountability Office, and private consultants, among others. W4133 research also helped shape federal and state planning and policies. Recent examples include the USDA Forest Service Strategic Plan and Resource Planning Act, USDA-EPA Workshop on Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizers, NOAA Natural Resource Damage Assessments, National Park Service off-road vehicle regulations, and Oregon’s Statewide Land Use Planning Goals. The group’s research and expertise also help direct future grant solicitations for programs within USDA, NOAA, and the EPA to address gaps in nonmarket valuation for ecosystem services.

Experiment Stations gain several advantages from participating in W4133, and the advantages will continue as W4133 becomes W5133.  W5133 will bring together relevant experts from across the country while avoiding duplications of effort in the development, design, and application of statistical models and survey methods.  W5133 will continue to combine complementary specialized expertise at different experiment stations and federal agencies to leverage advancements in methods and applications, such as integrating quantitative methods with empirical applications of direct relevance for our stakeholders.

The organizational infrastructure created by W5133 generates synergies in nonmarket valuation research, which would likely dissipate should this research project not be re-chartered. For our membership, this group ensures that significant research time is dedicated to these topics, leads to the formation of relationships that build collaborations to work towards the group’s objectives at a large scale, allows opportunities to present proposed methods and ideas to a wide group of experts, facilitates communication of our contributions, and helps mentor and recruit subsequent generations of researchers who want to contribute to these objectives.  It also provides a venue for us to interact with and adapt our research to best meet the needs of our stakeholder agencies.  Without a regional project, there will likely be duplication of research effort and fragmented gains in information due to limited resources at individual Experiment Stations. Failure to conduct proposed research would leave many federal and state agencies without information needed to evaluate the economic effects of natural resource policies and management plans for public and private lands.

Proceedings from W4133 annual meetings, agency publications, and co-authored journal articles document the sustained collaboration of and contributions by participating Experiment Stations.  Advancements in theory and applications of environmental economics achieved by this project have built a sound foundation, which will enable important refinements and new empirical applications to be made by this group and other Experiment Stations and agencies over the next five years.  Given that some members of participating Experiment Stations have formal extension appointments and work closely with collaborators within and outside of W4133, broad dissemination of research results to varied stakeholders occurs through public and agency workshops and cooperative extension publications.

This regional research project creates and maintains human and network capital infrastructures that can rapidly respond to requests of local, state, and federal resource managers and policy makers, enabling the evaluation of emerging policy issues, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Often, similar management and policy issues arise in different states.  The ability of each Experiment Station's scientists to leverage the expertise of their fellow members in W4133 enables their rapid response to emerging issues through applications of the methods, survey instruments, and information originally developed by other W4133 members to address similar issues in their states.  The extension of W5133 will continue to facilitate the groundbreaking research and multi-state collaborations supported by W4133 and previous charters. While extensive, each of the outputs described below is connected to W4133 through the working relationships and idea exchange that this multistate group facilitates, and a significant majority of the projects benefited from feedback received at the W4133 annual meetings.