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!!!