Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Annual meeting of the Multistate Research Project, W2133, "Benefits and Costs of Natural Resources Policies Affecting Public and Private Lands (formerly W1133)" Held at the Hotel Andaluz in Albuquerque, New Mexico, February 23 (6:00 pm) to February 25 (5:00 pm) Notes from the Business Meeting February 24 (1:30 to 5:00 pm), 2011. Call to order by Brent Sohngen: 1:30 Feb 24th, 2010 Elections: Kathleen Bell is next officer. Leaving president (Sohngen) organizes papers. Vice President (Rollins) organizes papers under objectives, meeting minutes. Annual Report for this meeting is due to Don Snyder 90 days after meeting. For Rechartering: Don Snyder: Must recharter this year with a new 5 year plan due January 1, 2012. Need: list of members, publications (more the better), impact statements. Everyone needs to provide these for report. Can use impact statements from AD421's. Randy Rosenberger will reactivate website to gather member information for rechartering. Problem in the past has been impact statements (examples from Don Snyder) An output is a publication. Outcomes are research results. Impacts are social, economic, physical, i.e. "this study saves agency A $xxx using these results" (NOT"agency A is using these results"). A problem is that current work won't yield outcomes until the future; so make sure to list current outcomes from past work. The rechartering report consists of 2 parts: accomplishments and next set of objectives Proposed new objectives: 1. Advanced in Stated and Revealed Preferences 2. Alternative Energy and Environmental spill-over effects (Adverse impacts) 3. Land and Water Management Under Changing Environments A paragraph is to be written for each objective. Once the report is organized, members each fill out Appendix E by October. Notes submitted by Kim Rollins, VP.

Objective 1: Natural Resource Management under Uncertainty Worked with land use planners to identify and measure efficacy of land use control methods. Results include recommendations about which ecosystem services are important to farmers and insights on effectiveness of tools for engaging farmer cooperation. Developed analytical decision support tools for policy-makers and planners to use in identifying priority areas for protection. West Virginia and Oregon, with USDA collaborators developed a multi-criteria analysis tool to aid in the selection of landowner parcels for conservation purposes for a watershed in West Virginia. The Center for Environmental and Resource Economic Policy (CEnREP)created an information tool for state and local planners to help manage growth and protect natural resources. The data includes information on habitat, water quality, demographics and economic activity and indicators, all of which are spatially linked. Showed that the effect of federal wilderness designation on local economic development in the Appalachian Region of the U.S. is statistically significant, but not large. Showed that home-owners living in relatively high fire-risk areas tend to underestimate the expected value of wildfire costs to their households. The undervaluation is mitigated by previous experience with wildfire. Showed minimal recreational visitor displacement to a wilderness area after a major wildfire. The probability that private forestland owners will enroll in most types of carbon sequestration and easement programs is very low; between 4 and about 30 percent depending on carbon price and program requirements. At current carbon prices the likelihood is about 4 percent. Recreation demand modeling quanitified the increased demand for beach and boat ramp access associated with increased temeratures predicted by climate change models. Objective 2: Advances in Valuation Methods Several innovative benefit transfer data platforms linked directly to policy and management needs for agency use, to provide benefit transfer practitioners with efficient means to access valuation data and derive accurate estimates of non-market values for a variety of resources and policy/management issues. The Benefit Transfer Toolkit is designed for valuing fishing, hunting, wildlife viewing, wetlands and threatened and endangered species, and is posted at the websites of Colorado State University and Defenders of Wildlife. The updated valuation databases for hunting, fishing, wildlife viewing, wetlands and open space help agencies locate studies needed for their benefit cost analysis and benefit transfers. This tool has been used by a variety of Federal and State agencies, as well as universities such as University of Minnesota. This toolkit has saved agencies such as USEPA, significant amounts of money by having data readily available. A decision framework for state and federal agencies to determine whether performing benefit transfer is preferred to performing an original study. Factors include the variance in benefit estimates in the benefit transfer analysis, the monetary magnitude of the decision to be made, and the cost of the original study. Colorado provided agencies such as USFWS with an updated meta-analysis of threatened and endangered species values that can be used in benefit transfer for critical habitat decisions, thereby saving them time and money from having to do an original study (Richardson and Loomis 2009). A series of outputs to test and improve the validity and efficiency of benefits transfer include: the use of Bayesian methods to address problems of small sample size and for aggregating and evaluating optimal scope of metadata; alternative methods to improve benefit transfers by combining data from multiple primary studies; proposed guidelines to improve broader benefit transfer practice. Improvements in valuation methods to improve efficiency and reliability of valuation estimates. Examples include: the use of spatial regression techniques with higher resolution land cover layers to improve valuation estimates; a payment card approach in contingent valuation to reduce protest response bias; new methods to accommodate stated preference data collected with certainty levels to more efficiently use information contained in the data, relative to standard approaches; a new approach for combining stated and revealed preference data; development of multiple-method approaches for designing and testing valuation methods and applied these to fisheries, recycling, and wetland ecosystems; the effects of information and choice sets in survey-based non-market valuation. Objective 3: Valuation of Ecosystem Services Valuation of the costs and benefits of changes in recreational access and use for a wide variety of recreational activities that occur on various types of public and private lands throughout the U.S. These included: the economic values of hiking peaks of over 14,000 feet above sea level; the value of public access to recreation lands for deer hunting, gamebird hunting, beach uses, boater uses of public ramps, and public access to fishing sites; the value of recreational access for swimming and boating for various user groups using aquatic resources; the value of recreational access for swimming and boating for various user groups using aquatic resources in the Red River Basin (Hearne and Torpen 2010); the value that tourists and locals have for nature trails, bike trails, and tours of a bison herd within the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Reservation; distributional impacts of fees for recreational fishing in in the Gulf of Mexico; the value of backcountry wilderness access for hiking and canoeing under a variety of activities and site conditions; the economic value and economic impacts of rail-trails; the value of changing lake and reservoir levels in the Tennessee Valley; the economic impacts of human-powered outdoor recreation (e.g., bicycling, hiking, paddling) on the U.S. economy; the economic value of maintaining recreational access for Off Highway Vehicles (OHV) in Colorado and Wyoming; the economic losses associated with more restrictive access to BLM lands under proposed BLM Resource Management Plans. W2133 members collaborated with the US Forest Service and the Oregon Parks and Development of standardized concepts and a framework for defining and valuing ecosystem goods and services. The framework provides a basis for testing theory and techniques for valuing multi-attribute ecosystem goods. This information has been provided to federal agencies that are interested in valuation of ecosystem services. A number of projects conducted studies of specific ecosystem services, including the value of ecosystem services provided by wetlands, floodplains, and moving water of the Red River Basin in North Dakota (Hearne and Torpen 2010); changes in flows of watershed and wetland ecosystem services in Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, and Georgia as well as in Costa Rica (Kaplowitz and Lupi. 2010; Hoehn, Lupi, and Kaplowitz. 2010; Kaplowitz and Bergstrom 2010; Ortega-Pacheco, Lupi, and Kaplowitz. 2009; Glicken et al 2007). Ecosystem valuation studies including benefits to water quality, fish, wildlife and climate due to changes in land management. Estimation of the economic values for reducing infant exposure to nitrates in ground water; for restoring streams contaminated by acid mine drainage; spatial and temporal patterns in property value reductions from arsenic contamination of drinking water; how perceived risk of aresenic contamination affects averting behavior. Assessements of various policy mechanisms for maintaining surface and drinking water quality, including assessments of stakeholder preferences for alternative water quality control programs in the Red River Basin of North Dakota; land and water use planning in Wyoming; and payment mechanisms, ecosystem banking and other institutions for environmental service provision. Estimation of the value of efforts to preserve riparian ecosystems and fish populations. Predictions of how households recreation decisions respond to water quality conditions. An on-site and off-site workshop and set of papers with friends and members of W2133 for a special issue of Water Resources Research (in progress).

The list of citations below consists of W2133 published papers from the 2010-11 year. These are organized by Objective and subtask within each objective. Objective 1: Natural Resource Management under Uncertainty Task 1-1: Economic Analysis of Agricultural Land, Open Space and Wildland-Urban Interface Issues Bell, K .P. 2010. Public Preferences for Protecting Working Landscapes, in S. Goetz and F. Brouwer (eds.), New perspectives on agri-environmental policies: a multidisciplinary and transatlantic approach, Routledge Publishing, 199-218. Braden, J.B., L.O. Taylor, and D.H. Won. 2010. A Test of Proximity as a Proxy for Environmental Exposure in Hedonic Models. Book of Abstracts, World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists, Montreal, July 2010, p. 386. Chen, X., F. Lupi, A. Vinas, G. He, J. Liu. 2010. Using Cost-Effective Targeting to Enhance the Efficiency of Conservation Investments in Payments for Ecosystem Services. Conservation Biology. 24(6):1469-78. Cross, J., C. M. Keske, M. G. Lacey, D. L. Hoag and C. T. Bastian. 2011. Adoption of Conservation Easements among Agricultural Landowners in Colorado and Wyoming: The Role of Economic Dependence and Sense of Place. Landscape and Urban Planning. 101,1(2011): 75-83. Freeman, R.C. and K.P. Bell. 2011. Conservation versus cluster subdivisions and implications for habitat connectivity. Landscape and Urban Planning (forthcoming). Hatton-MacDonald, Darla, Neville Crossman, Parvin Mahmoudi, Laura Taylor, David M. Summers, and Peter C. Boxall. 2010. The Value of Public and Private Green Spaces Under Water Restrictions. Landscape and Urban Planning, 95(4), pp 192-200. Miller, A. D., C. T. Bastian, D. M. McLeod, C. M. Keske, and D. L. Hoag. 2011. Factors Impacting Agricultural Landowners Willingness to Enter into Conservation Easements: A Case Study. Society and Natural Resources: An International Journal. 24(1): 65-74. Netusil N.R., S. Chattopadhyay and K. Kovacs. 2010. Estimating the Demand for Tree Canopy: A Second-Stage Hedonic Price Analysis. Land Economics 86(2):281-293. Phaneuf, D., L.O. Taylor, and J.B. Braden. Combining Revealed and Stated Preference Data to Estimate Preferences for Residential Amenities: A GMM Approach. Book of Abstracts, World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists, Montreal, June 2010, p. 310. Swinton, S., C. Jolejole, N. Rector, F. Lupi. 2011. In Press. Changing farmer choices about how to manage agricultural ecosystems and what ecosystem services to provide.? In press as Chapter 15 in The Ecology of Agricultural Ecosystems: The Quest for Sustainability in Row-Crop Agriculture (eds S. Hamilton et al), Oxford University Press. Task 1-2: Economic Analysis of Natural Hazards Issues (Fire, Invasive Species, Natural Events) Baker, Justin and W.D. Shaw. 2010. Models of Location Choice and Willingness to Pay to Avoid Hurricane Risks for a Sample of Hurricane Katrina Evacuees.? International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 28(1/March):87-114. Davis A., K. Moeltner. (2010). Valuing the Prevention of an Infestation: The Threat of the New Zealand Mud Snail in Northern Nevada. Agricultural and Resource Economics Review 39(1):56-74. Holmes, T., Murphy, E., Bell, K.P., and D. Royle. 2010. Property Value Impacts of Hemlock Woolly Adelgid in Residential Forests. Forest Science 56(6): 529-540. Holmes, T., A. Liebhold, K. Kovacs, B. Von Holle. 2010. A Spatial-Dynamic Value Transfer Model of Economic Losses from a Biological Invasion.? Ecological Economics 70(1):86-95. Horan, R., and F. Lupi. 2010. Economics of Managing and Controlling Invasive Species. Resource and Energy Economics 32(4):477-482. Kobayashi, M., K. Rollins and M.D.R. Evans. (2010). Sensitivity of WTP Estimates to Definition of Yes: Reinterpreting Expressed Response Intensity, Agricultural and Resource Economics Review 39(1): 1-17. Kovacs, K., T. Vaclavik, R. Haight, A. Pang, N. Cunniffe, C. Gilligan, R. Meentemeyer.. 2011. Predicting the Economic Costs and Property Value Losses Attributed to Sudden Oak Death Damage in California (2010-2020).? Journal of Environmental Management, forthcoming. Kovacs, K., R. Haight, D. McCullough, R. Mercader, N. Siegert, and A. Liebhold. 2010. Cost of Potential Emerald Ash Borer Damage in U.S. Communities, 2009-2019.? Ecological Economics 69(3):569-578. Moore, C.C., Holmes, T.P., and K.P. Bell. 2011. An Attribute-Based Approach to Contingent Valuation of Forest Protection Programs, Journal of Forest Economics (forthcoming). Rashford, B.S., J.A. Walker, and C.T. Bastian. Economics of Grassland Conversion to Cropland in the Prairie Pothole Region.?Conservation Biology 25(2):276-284. Task 1-3: Analysis of Climate Change Issues Braden, J.B. and A.W. Ando. 2011. Economic Costs, Benefits, and Achievability of Low-Impact Development Based Stormwater Regulations. In Economic Incentives for Stormwater Control, Ed. H.W. Thurston, Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton, FL. (in press). Mieno, T. and J.B. Braden. Residential Demand for Water in the Chicago Metropolitan Area. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (in press) Ren, X., D. Fullerton, and J.B. Braden. 2011. Optimal Taxation of Externalities Interacting through Markets: A Theoretical General Equilibrium Analysis. Resource and Energy Economics, xx(2011) doi:10.1016/j.reseneeco.2010.10.002 (in press) Ren, X., D. Fullerton, and J.B. Braden. Policy Implications of Interacting Externalities: A Theoretical General Equilibrium Analysis. Book of Abstracts, World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists, Montreal, June 2010, p. 26. Objective 2: Advances in Valuation Methods Task 2-1: Improving Validity and Efficiency in Benefit Transfers Braden, J.B., X. Feng, L. Freitas, and D. Won. 2010. Meta-Functional Transfer of Hedonic Property Values: Application to Great Lakes Areas of Concern. Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, 39(1, 2010): 101-113, http://purl.umn.edu/59339. Braden, J.B., X. Feng, and D. Won. 2011. Waste Sites and Property Values: A Meta-analysis. Environmental and Resource Economics (in press). Braden, J.B., L.O. Taylor, and D.H. Won. 2010. A Test of Proximity as a Proxy for Environmental Exposure in Hedonic Models. Book of Abstracts, World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists, Montreal, July 2010, p. 386. Johnston, R.J. and R.S. Rosenberger. 2010. Methods, Trends and Controversies in Contemporary Benefit Transfer. Journal of Economic Surveys 24(3): 479-510 Rosenberger, R.S. and R.J. Johnston. (2011 forthcoming). Benefit transfer. In The Encyclopedia of Resource, Energy, and Environmental Economics. Task 2-2: Improving Valuation Methods and Technology Frank, K.A., S. Maroulis, D. Belman, and M.D. Kaplowitz. 2010. The Social Embeddedness of Natural Resource Extraction and Use in Small Fishing Communities, in Sustainable Fisheries: Multilevel Approaches to a Global Problem, eds. W. Taylor and M. Schechter. American Fisheries Society. Hearne, R. and E. Binebe. 2010. The Use of Choice Experiments in Developing Countries: The Central American Experience.?Panorama Socioeconomico. 40:104-115. Hoehn, J., F. Lupi, and M. Kaplowitz, 2010. Complexity in Stated Choice Experiments: The Effect of Information Formats on Estimated Variances and Choice Parameters, Journal of Agriculture and Resource Economics. 35(3):568-590. Jeon, Y. and J. A. Herriges, Convergent Validity of Contingent Behavior Responses in Models of Recreation Demand, Environmental and Resource Economics, Vol. 45, No. 2, 2010, pp. 223-250. Johnston, R.J., J. Sanchirico and D.S. Holland. 2011. Measuring Social Value and Human Well-Being, in Bowen, R.E., M.H. Depledge, C.P. Carlarne and L.E. Fleming, eds. Seas, Society and Human Well Being. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, forthcoming. Johnston, R.J., E.T. Schultz, K. Segerson, E.Y. Besedin and M. Ramachandran. 2011. Enhancing the Content Validity of Stated Preference Valuation: The Structure and Function of Ecological Indicators. Land Economics, in press. Johnston, R.J., E.T. Schultz, K. Segerson, E.Y. Besedin and M. Ramachandran. 2010. Integrating Ecology and Economics: Using Bioindicators in the Valuation of Ecosystem Services. (Abstract) Agricultural and Resource Economics Review 39(2). Kobayashi, M., K. Rollins and M.D.R. Evans (2010). Sensitivity of WTP Estimates to Definition of Yes: Reinterpreting Expressed Response Intensity. Agricultural and Resource Economics Review 39(1): 1-17. Liu,C., J. A. Herriges, C. Kling, and J. Tobias, What are the Consequences of Consequentiality?? Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Vol. 59, No. 1, 2010, pp. 67-81. Messer, K.D., G.L. Poe and W.D. Schulze, The Value of Private Versus Public Risk and Pure Altruism: An Experiential Economic Test. Forthcoming, Applied Economics. Murphy, J, Stevens, T, Yadav, l. 2010. A comparison of Induced and Homegrown Value Experiments. Environmental and Resource Economics, 47(1):111-123 Phaneuf, D., L.O. Taylor, and J.B. Braden. Combining Revealed and Stated Preference Data to Estimate Preferences for Residential Amenities: A GMM Approach. Book of Abstracts, World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists, Montreal, June 2010, p. 310. Objective 3: Valuation of Ecosystem Services Task 3-1: Valuing Changes in Recreational Access Gill, J.K., J.M. Bowker, J.C. Bergstrom, S.J. Zarnoch. 'Accounting for Trip Frequency in Importance-Performance Analysis.' Journal of Park and Recreation Administration. 28 ,1 (2010):16-35. Hearne, R. and D. Torpen. 2010. Stakeholder Preferences for Water Management Alternatives in the Red River Basin.?Water International. 36(2):150-164. Kline, J.D., R.S. Rosenberger and E.M. White. (forthcoming). A national assessment of physical activity in US national forests. Journal of Forestry. Knoche, S. D. and F. Lupi. In Press, The Economic Value of Publicly Accessible Deer Hunting Land.? Journal of Wildlife Management, 2011. Task 3-2: Valuing Changes in Ecosystem Services Flows Eichman, H., G. Hunt, J. Kerkvliet and A. Plantinga. 2010. Local Employment Growth, Migration, and Public Land Policy: Evidence from the Northwest Forest Plan. Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 35(2):316-333. Hearne, R. and D. Torpen. 2010. Stakeholder Preferences for Water Management Alternatives in the Red River Basin.?Water International. 36(2):150-164. Hoehn, J., F. Lupi, and M. Kaplowitz. 2010. Complexity in Stated Choice Experiments: The Effect of Information Formats on Estimated Variances and Choice Parameters, Journal of Agriculture and Resource Economics. 35(3):568-590. Holland, D.S., J. Sanchirico, R.J. Johnston and D. Joglekar. 2010. Economic Analysis for Ecosystem Based Management: Applications to Marine and Coastal Environments. Washington, DC: RFF Press. Kaplowitz, M.D. and J.C. Bergstrom. 2010. Benefits and Costs of Natural Resources Policies Affecting Public and Private Lands: USDAW2133 Regional Research Project Legacy & Current Contributions.? Agricultural and Resource Economics Review. 39(1):1-8. Kaplowitz, M.D., and F. Lupi. 2010. Ecosystem Banking as a Quasi-Market Approach to Conservation: Building on U.S. Wetland Banking Experience, Chapter 11, in Human Dimensions of Soil and Water Conservation: A Global Perspective, ed. Ted Napier. Nova Science Publishers. ISBN: 978-1-61728-957-6. Kovacs, K., T. Vaclavik, R. Haight, A. Pang, N. Cunniffe, C. Gilligan, R. Meentemeyer. 2011. Predicting the Economic Costs and Property Value Losses Attributed to Sudden Oak Death Damage in California (2010-2020).? Journal of Environmental Management, forthcoming. Netusil N.R., S. Chattopadhyay and K. Kovacs. 2010. Estimating the Demand for Tree Canopy: A Second-Stage Hedonic Price Analysis. Land Economics 86 (2) 281-293. Volinskiy, D., J.C. Bergstrom, C.M. Cornwell and T.P. Holmes. 2010. A Pseudo-Sequential Choice Model for Valuing Multi-Attribute Environmental Policies or Programs in Contingent Valuation Applications.?Agricultural and Resource Economics Review 39(1): 9-21. Task 3-3: Valuing Changes in Water Quality Boyle, K.J., Kuminoff, N.V., Zhang, C. and K.P.Bell. 2010. Does a Property-Specific Environmental Health Risk Create a 'Neighborhood' Housing-Price Stigma? Arsenic in Private Well Water. Water Resources Research 1-10. Hearne, R. and D. Torpen. 2010. Stakeholder Preferences for Water Management Alternatives in the Red River Basin.?Water International. 36(2):150-164. Kaplowitz, M.D., and F. Lupi. 2010. Ecosystem Banking as a Quasi-Market Approach to Conservation: Building on U.S. Wetland Banking Experience, Chapter 11, in Human Dimensions of Soil and Water Conservation: A Global Perspective, ed. Ted Napier. Nova Science Publishers. ISBN: 978-1-61728-957-6. Johnston, R.J., E.T. Schultz, K. Segerson and E.Y. Besedin. 2011. Bioindicator-Based Stated Preference Valuation for Aquatic Habitat and Ecosystem Service Restoration, in Bennett, J. ed. International Handbook on Non-Marketed Environmental Valuation. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, forthcoming.