Valuing ecosystem services from wetlands restoration in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley
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2010-03-15
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This study assesses the value of restoring forested wetlands via the U.S. government's Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley by quantifying and monetizing ecosystem services. The three focal services are greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation, nitrogen mitigation, and waterfowl recreation. Site- and region-level measurements of these ecosystem services are combined with process models to quantify their production on agricultural land, which serves as the baseline, and on restored wetlands. We adjust and transform these measures into per-hectare, valuation-ready units and monetize them with prices from emerging ecosystem markets and the environmental economics literature. By valuing three of the many ecosystem services produced, we generate lower bound estimates for the total ecosystem value of the wetlands restoration. Social welfare value is found to be between $1435 and $1486/ha/year, with GHG mitigation valued in the range of $171 to $222, nitrogen mitigation at $1248, and waterfowl recreation at $16. Limited to existing markets, the estimate for annual market value is merely $70/ha, but when fully accounting for potential markets, this estimate rises to $1035/ha. The estimated social value surpasses the public expenditure or social cost of wetlands restoration in only 1 year, indicating that the return on public investment is very attractive for the WRP. Moreover, the potential market value is substantially greater than landowner opportunity costs, showing that payments to private landowners to restore wetlands could also be profitable for individual landowners. © 2009 Elsevier B.V.
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Jenkins, WA, BC Murray, RA Kramer and SP Faulkner (2010). Valuing ecosystem services from wetlands restoration in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. Ecological Economics, 69(5). pp. 1051–1061. 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.11.022 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/6740.
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Brian Murray
Dr. Brian C. Murray is Director of the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability, Research Professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment (primary) and Sanford School of Public Policy (secondary), and Faculty Associate of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society. In 2015 he was Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Environment and Economy at University of Ottawa’s Institute of the Environment. He is widely recognized for his work on the economics of energy and climate change policy, including the design of market based mechanisms to reduce greenhouse gases and deploy low-carbon energy. Members of the United States Congress, state legislators and regulators have sought the counsel of Dr. Murray and colleagues in developing energy and climate legislative proposals and regulatory options. Their development of the cost containment reserve mechanism is now in use in several greenhouse cap-and-trade programs in North America. Dr. Murray has been invited as a co-author of several national and international assessments of natural resources, especially related to energy and climate change. Of particular note, he serves on a National Academy of Sciences panel on greenhouse gases and the tax code, where he led the panel’s efforts on biofuel subsidies. He was a convening lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry. He has convened several forums of economic modeling experts to examine and communicate the results of their climate, energy and land use policy efforts to the public and private sectors. His research has examined the economic effects of traditional command-based regulatory strategies for pollution control and more market-oriented approaches such as cap-and-trade programs and emission taxes. He has been a consultant to a wide range of clientele in the public and private sector, including numerous federal government agencies, members of Congress and their staff, state regulatory agencies, CEOs and senior staff from Fortune 500 companies, trade groups, nongovernmental organizations, and other academic institutions. He has authored or co-authored over 100 publications in books, edited volumes, and professional journals across a range od disciplines. From 2017-21 he was a regular contributor to Forbes. Prior to coming to the Nicholas Institute in 2006, Dr. Murray was Director of the Center for Regulatory Economics and Policy Research at RTI International, a university-affiliated not-for-profit research institution.
Randall Kramer
Before coming to Duke in 1988, he was on the faculty at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He has held visiting positions at IUCN--The World Conservation Union, the Economic Growth Center at Yale University, and the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry. He has served as a consultant to the World Bank, World Health Organization and other international organizations. He was named Duke University's Scholar Teacher of the Year in 2004.
Kramer's research is focused on the economics of ecosystem services and on global environmental health. He is currently conducting a study on the effects of human land use decisions on biodiversity, infectious disease transmission and human health in rural Madagascar. Recent research projects have used decision analysis and implementation science to evaluate the health, social and environmental impacts of alternative malaria control strategies in East Africa. He has also conducted research on health systems strengthening, economic valuation of lives saved from air pollution reduction. and the role of ecosystems services in protecting human health.
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