Ecosystem Auctions for Decision Support for Invasive

Plants Management in Southern California

Achyut Kafle1and Stephen K. Swallow2

1 Ph.D. Candidate, University of Rhode Island

2 DelFavero Faculty Fellow, University of Connecticut

Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering

Background

• Nature Reserve of Orange County (NROC)

Background…

• Orange County Invasive Management (OCIM)

– Natural Science Component

• Assess effectiveness of ecosystem restoration techniques

on restoring native habitats and species (target birds)

• Katie Suding (UC Berkeley), Kristine Preston (NROC),

Megan Lulow (IRC), and Sara Jo Dickens (UC Berkeley)

Background…

– Social Science Component

• Assess public values and priorities of ecosystem

restoration

– Integrating public values into a decision support

tool for environmental managers combining

these two components

Goal of the presentation

• Demonstrate an approach of assessing

public values and priorities

• Demonstrate an approach of incorporating

or integrating public values on prioritizing

future restoration decisions

Methods:

Real-money choice experiment

• Real-money choice experiment approach in

environmental economics literature

• Asking people to make restoration choices

• Estimating the values using econometric

model

Methods… Attributes Description

Restoration Effort -High (Right Upper Graph)

-Low (Right Lower Graph)

Habitat and Bird

Species Focus

-Coastal Sage Scrub ( California Gnatcatcher)

-Coastal Cactus Scrub (Cactus Wren)

-Native Grassland (Other native wildlife)

Size (Acres) 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, and 9

Public Access -High: Running, hiking, mountain biking ,

designated area for dogs and horse-back riding

-Medium: Running, hiking & mountain biking

-Low: Research and guided tours only

Trained Volunteers -Yes, in addition to restoration professionals

-No

Likelihood of

Success

-High: easy access maintenance &/or

surrounding native landscape

-Medium: Moderate access & /or mixed

surrounding landscape

Methods:

Example Restoration Choice

Methods:

Voting or implementation decision rules

Results:

Conditional Logit Model of Restoration Choices

• Conditional logit model to estimate the

marginal values of restoration attributes

• Willingness to Pay (WTP) for restoration

projects

• Percent of respondents that are likely to

vote for restoration projects

Results:

Preliminary Hypothesis Tests Hypothesis Tests Results

Is there a statistically significant difference in

marginal values of restoration attributes

between two voting or decision rules?

NO

This means respondents showed

similar marginal tradeoffs between

restoration attributes under two rules.

BUT

Respondents showed significantly

different marginal tradeoffs

between a project and NO project

dependent on socio-demographic

factors and environmental attitudes.

Is there a statistically significant difference in

marginal values of restoration attributes

between real and hypothetical restoration

choices?

NO

This means participants answered

the real and hypothetical restoration

choices similarly.

Results…

Variables Group-1

Coefficients

Group-2

Coefficients

No Plan Dummy -4.8448 *** N/A

High Restoration Effort 0.4956 *** 0.6634 ***

Native Grass 0.2245 * 0.0135

Cactus Scrub -0.0855 0.0929

Log (Size) 0.7377 *** 0.8973 ***

Medium Public Access 0.2624 *** 0.1534 *

Low Public Access -0.3174 *** 0.0164

Trained Volunteers 0.6239 *** 0.4778 ***

High Likelihood of Success 0.8696 *** 0.8041 ***

Log (Price) -1.5863 *** -0.5229 ***

* Significant at 10% ** Significant at 5%

*** Significant at 1%

Results:

Marginal tradeoffs

Group 2

Marginal tradeoff

-0.5226

-0.4129

-0.5918

-0.1416

0.1864

Variables

(Tradeoff relative to acres)

Group 1

Marginal tradeoff

Low - High Restoration Effort -0.4892 No - Yes Trained Volunteers -0.5707

Medium-High LOS -0.6923 Low-Medium Public Access

-0.5443 Low-High Public Access

0.4271

Results:

Willingness to Pay (WTP) for Restoration Attributes Project 1 Project 2 Project 3 Project 4 Project 5

Restoration Effort High High High Low Low

Habitat and Bird Species Sage

Scrub

Native

Grass

Cactus

Scrub

Cactus

Scrub

Sage Scrub

Size (Acres) 2.5 2.5 2.5 3 3

Public Access Medium Medium Low High High

Trained Volunteers Yes Yes Yes No No

Likelihood of Success High Medium High High High

Willingness to Pay

(Vs. no plan: Group1) $ 97.64 $ 70.92

$ 70.02

$ 42.34

$ 55.98

Willingness to Pay

(Vs. Project4 : Group2)

$ 12.59 $ 3.40 $ 14.19 N/A $ 2.43

Results:

Ranking Projects using voting percentages

Attributes Project 1 Project 2 Project 3 Project 4 Project 5

Restoration Effort High High High Low Low

Habitat and Bird Species Sage

Scrub

Native

Grass

Cactus

Scrub

Cactus

Scrub

Sage Scrub

Size (Acres) 2.5 2.5 2.5 3 3

Public Access Medium Medium Low High High

Trained Volunteers Yes Yes Yes No No

Likelihood of Success High Medium High High High

Voting percentage (%)

Group 1 34.79 20.97

20.55

9.27

14.42

Voting percentage (%)

Group 2 30.69 15.49 32.67 8.16 12.98

Conclusions and discussions

• Real-money choice experiment to estimate

public values of ecosystem restoration

– Willingness to pay (WTP) for comparing

restoration projects

– Rank available projects using voting

percentages

Conclusions and discussions…

• Integrating public values into environmental

decision-making

– Coupled with ecosystem functioning and

management criteria, may help achieve

maximum ecosystem benefits per dollar

invested

Future directions

• Heterogeneity in preferences for ecosystem

restoration

– Latent Class Modeling to identify potential

classes of similar preferences

– Advanced econometric techniques for better

estimates of values

Any questions???

Thank you!!!