Ecosystem Service Benefits of Wildlife Refuges

Summary

A study was conducted to assess the economic value of ecosystem service provided by National Wildlife Refuges including the Okefenokee (Georgia), Bosque del Apache & Sevilleta (New Mexico), Blackwater (Maryland), and Arrowwood (North Dakota). Results indicate factors impacting the value of ecosystem service and how the refuges rank in terms of providing public ecosystem services.

Situation

The United States' system of National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) contains over 150 million acres of protected lands in over 550 refuges. Due to these extensive protected lands, the American public benefits from wildlife populations that lacking protection might dwindle in numbers. In addition, people benefit from these landscapes because they provide clean water, protection from storms, recreational opportunities and because people enjoy knowing that a variety of wilderness habitats exist for the benefit of present and future generations. Wetlands are an important component of NWRs that serve as a valuable habitat for a wide variety of species. Wetlands have declined a great deal since European colonization of the Americas. Much of the decline in wetland extent has been for agricultural purposes, bringing among other effects the benefits of increased food production and fewer mosquito habitats at the cost of increased flood severity and decreasing water and habitat quality. The present study serves as a low-cost means for approximating the benefits that people receive from NWR wetlands; we consider the 4 following wetland services: water quality, storm protection, habitat for commercial fish species, and carbon storage services. Our study considers wetlands in four contrasting wetland ecosystems found in the Okefenokee (Georgia), Bosque del Apache & Sevilleta (New Mexico), Blackwater (Maryland), and Arrowwood (North Dakota) NWRs. An understanding of how people benefit from wetlands is useful for communication with the American public and for efficiently allocating funds for the management and expansion of wildlife refuges. Unlike conventional economic analysis of priced goods found in conventional markets, the costs and benefits associated with wetland ecosystems are not readily observable. Consequently, economists have developed a variety of methods for estimating the benefits of services not represented in conventional markets.

Response

The method we implement has the double advantages of speed and low-cost, making it suitable for rapid assessments of public benefits provided by wetlands. Not surprisingly, the low-cost and rapidly obtained measurements based on secondary data are expected to be less accurate than a relatively expensive and time consuming primary valuation study. Primary valuation studies rely on data obtained from property transactions, on-site interviews with people engaged in recreational activities, and off-site interviews with people randomly selected from the local population. The methodology employed in this study, technically referred to as meta-analysis benefit transfer (MABT) involves the use of a statistical model to find patterns in existing primary valuation studies, which can be used to make predictions without costly primary data acquisition. Key indicators of how highly the public values a wetland ecosystem include measures of the density of the surrounding population, the extent of wetland acreage, and whether the wetlands contain salt water or forests.

Impact

Results indicate that wetlands near large populations and with few adjacent wetlands are among the most valuable. Populations with higher incomes are also likely to place a higher value on wetland ecosystem services. Our model also largely agrees with other models that water quality provisioning is often more valuable than flood control and storm protection. Our results broadly indicate decreasing returns to scale as wetland acreage increases, a finding consistent with the comparison models. In terms of ranking our four case study areas, our results indicate that the Okefenokee NWR provides the highest annual benefits, Blackwater NWR second highest, Sevilleta and Bosque del Apache NWRs third highest, and Arrowwood NWR fourth highest. these estimated values could be useful along with other information regarding which refuges could be expanded to increase the value of multiple ecosystem services. Our results could be useful along with other information regarding which refuges could be expanded to increase the value of public ecosystem services. Ranking the relative public benefits of future wetland acquisitions against the real-estate costs of those acquisitions might be effective in determining landscape-level plans for protecting corridors or providing sustainable habitats under different future demographic or climate scenarios. Novel primary valuation studies of common but under-studied wetlands are also an important means for enhancing our understanding of these important public benefits and enhancing the accuracy of the next iteration of benefit transfers.

State Issue

Conservation & Management of Natural Resources

Details

• Year: 2014
• Geographic Scope: National
• County: Clarke
• Program Areas:
  • Agriculture & Natural Resources