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Research Links A Business Curriculum for Sustainability (Cleveland Foundation) Contingent Valuation in Eco-risk Assessment (US EPA) Environmental Management: Forest & Paper Sector Profitability: from Management or from Environmental Savings? (Miami Undergrad Scholar) Great Lakes Focused Investment Strategy (Great Lakes Protection Fund) |
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Contingent Valuation
in Eco-risk Assessment: A Study in Conservation of Stream Biodiversity The Center for Sustainable Systems Studies received a boost for its research programs in September 1999 with the awarding of a three-year grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The project, titled Determining Biodiversity Values in a Place-based Ecological Risk Assessment will evaluate the benefits from reducing risks to species due to urbanization (from Columbus) of portions of the Big Darby Creek watershed in Central Ohio. The watershed is unusually rich in fish and mussel species and has been the focus of conservation efforts by local farm groups, The Nature Conservancy, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Interior. The Miami researchers are being funded by EPA’s National Center for Environmental Assessment to the extent of $277,000. The study goal is to determine how much the water quality and unique biodiversity of the watershed are worth to stakeholders, thereby translating risks to these amenities from agriculture and residential development into dollar values. Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) is a new more fully integrative approach to water quality protection now being investigated by the US EPA. The Principal Investigators will be Homer Erekson (economics) and Orie Loucks (zoology). They will work with Raymond Gorman (finance), Tim Krehbiel (decision sciences and management information systems) and Steven Elliott (economics). The threats to biological diversity in the stream include erosion, nutrients and other chemicals from agricultural activity and the runoff from urban encroachment. Conservation efforts are underway already through USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service, TNC, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, and other federal, state and private partners. The project consists of two interdependent elements, land-use change scenarios as development proceeds, and contingent valuation surveys of all stakeholders to determine how land values are perceived to change as biodiversity is protected or lost. Four scenarios are of interest: a base case of agriculture (e.g., as maintained through state-authorized purchase of development rights), conventional subdivision (one-quarter to 1 acre lots), ranchette development (2-5 acre lots), and high-density cluster development while protecting most of the farmland. The scenarios are linked to water quality outcomes and associated effects on the biological diversity in the stream. The results from the contingent valuation surveys are being used to determine changes in stakeholder willingness to pay for changes in land value associated with the level of conservation of biodiversity specified for each development scenario. The results of the study are intended to assist the US EPA in its obligation to consider cost and benefits of proposed environmental protection regulations before these become adopted. "The purpose of the surveys is to determine the willingness of different stakeholders to pay for conservation of biodiversity associated with each development scenario," Elliott said. An approach using ecological risk assessment as a framework provides scientific information that zoning officials and water quality managers need to consider, along with economic and social factors, in achieving watershed management goals, Loucks said. The grant is the first U.S. EPA award to faculty in the Richard T. Farmer School of Business and demonstrates the Center's leadership in environmental research, said Raymond Gorman, Director of the Center at the time of the award. See “Framing a Contingent Valuation” for the first results of the study, a PDF file. |
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