Publications
Streams of Revenue: The Restoration Economy and the Ecosystems It Creates
An analysis of stream mitigation banking and the challenges of implementing market-based approaches to environmental conservation.
Recognize Fish as Food in Policy Discourse and Development Funding
The international development community is off-track from meeting targets for alleviating global malnutrition. Meanwhile, there is growing consensus across scientific disciplines that fish plays a crucial role in food and nutrition security. However, this ‘fish as food’ perspective has yet to translate into policy and development funding priorities.
A Practice-Oriented Approach to Foster Private Landowner Participation in Ecosystem Service Conservation and Restoration at a Landscape Scale
Large landscape conservation planning often requires managers to coordinate with private landowners, especially in regions like the southern and western U.S. where private landownership dominates. It is often difficult to design conservation programs that incorporate varying landowner perceptions, values, and ownership objectives. Simple and transferable methods are needed to inform the design of landscape-scale conservation and restoration programs, and we propose that this can be done by targeting ecosystem services (ES) of interest to private landowners.
Mapping Ecosystem Services for the Southeast United States: Conservation and Restoration Priorities for Water Purification
This methods brief focuses on water purification by natural land cover, which removes nonpoint-source pollutants from runoff water before they reach waterways. This analysis maps natural land cover within the likely flowpaths of water from agricultural areas to waterways.
Testing Ecosystem Accounting in the United States: A Case Study for the Southeast
Ecosystem accounts, as formalized by the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Experimental Ecosystem Accounts (SEEA EEA), have been compiled in a number of countries, yet there have been few attempts to develop them for the U.S. We explore the potential for U.S. ecosystem accounting by compiling ecosystem extent, condition, and ecosystem services supply and use accounts for a 10-state region in the Southeast. The pilot accounts address air quality, water quality, biodiversity, carbon storage, recreation, and pollination for selected years from 2001 to 2015.
Evidence Library for Oyster Reef Restoration in the Gulf of Mexico
Oyster reef restoration influences the ecological and social systems to create outcomes important to people. These effects are illustrated in an ecosystem service logic model (ESLM), and the evidence library summarizes the scientific evidence for each relationship shown in the ESLM. The evidence library summarizes the scientific evidence for the biological, ecological, and socio-economic effects of oyster reef restoration in the Gulf of Mexico.
USFS Predictive Model Library: Fire and Timber Management
This project explores how these non-USFS models could be combined with existing USFS models to provide a fuller analysis of ecosystem services outcomes from different management scenarios. We used an ecosystem service conceptual model as a framework to examine the utility of currently available predictive models for quantifying the effects of fire and timber management on ecosystem services and socioeconomic outcomes.
Mapping Ecosystem Services for the Southeast United States: Conservation Priorities for Open Space Recreation Access
This methods brief focuses on access to recreational open space, which is a key component of mental health and well-being. This analysis maps the supply of publicly accessible open spaces relative to where people live. Regional priority areas for the creation of new open space through conservation are identified based on a metric representing the number of people who would benefit from new recreational open space if it were created in that area.
GEMS Phase I Report: Oyster Reef Restoration
The GEMS (Gulf of Mexico Ecosystem Service Logic Models and Socio-Economic Indicators) team will develop ESLMs and metrics for a wide range of coastal restoration approaches over the course of the project. This report presents the results of the first phase of the GEMS project, which focused on oyster reef restoration.
Incentivizing the Reduction of Pollution at U.S. Dairies
This article examines the intricacies of environmental credit generation from concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) farm systems. This article describes the stacking problem and explores possible solutions, such as temporal constraints on credit issuance and discounting credits to account for additionality problems.