Estimating the value of watershed services following forest restoration

Mueller, Julie M.; Swaffar, Wes; Nielsen, Erik A.; Springer, Abraham E.; Lopez, Sharon Masek

doi:10.1002/wrcr.20163

Cited by 31 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…As shown in the upper left box of figure 1, outside funding sources and other payment mechanisms could be tapped to increase the scale of fuel treatment investment, for instance through homeowner fees or public-private partnerships (Mueller et al 2013;Warziniack and Thompson 2013). Perhaps more importantly, fuel treatments, wildfires and suppression activities can all impact market (e.g., timber, homes) and nonmarket (e.g., air quality, wildlife habitat) values (right side of fig.…”

Section: Changes In Suppression Costsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling fuel treatment impacts on fire suppression cost savings: A review

Thompson¹,

Anderson²

2015

Cal Ag

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High up-front costs and uncertain return on investment make it difficult for land managers to economically justify large-scale fuel treatments, which remove trees and other vegetation to improve conditions for fire control, reduce the likelihood of ignition, or reduce potential damage from wildland fire if it occurs. In the short-term, revenue from harvested forest products can offset treatment costs and broaden opportunities for treatment implementation. Increasingly, financial analysis of fuel treatments is also incorporating long-term savings through reduced fire suppression costs, which can be difficult to quantify. This paper reviews the findings and lessons from recent modeling work evaluating the potential relationship between fuel treatments and avoided fire suppression costs. Across studies, treatments are generally predicted to reduce future fire suppression costs, although the magnitude of savings is unlikely to fully offset fuel treatment costs. This funding gap highlights the importance of forest product revenues in facilitating landscape-scale treatment. Factors influencing the effects of fuel treatment investments on fire suppression costs include the causal pathway linking treatment inputs to suppression cost outcomes; the spatiotemporal uncertainty of wildfire-treatment interactions; and the scale of fuel treatment programs.

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Section: Changes In Suppression Costsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling fuel treatment impacts on fire suppression cost savings: A review

Thompson¹,

Anderson²

2015

Cal Ag

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“…The largest contiguous swath of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) temperate forest exists in the southwestern United States and is currently facing many of the threats previously mentioned resulting from the development of abnormally high tree densities across the region (Allen et al, 2002;Covington et al, 1997). High tree densities negatively impact important ecological processes, including hydrologic cycling, necessitating large-scale measurement, and monitoring of forest conditions (Baker, 1986;Mueller et al, 2013;Sankey et al, 2015;Soulard et al, 2017). Current regional restoration efforts in ponderosa pine forests such as the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI; USDA, 2015), which restores both forest structure (via thinning) and process (via low-intensity fire), have been shown to increase forest resilience to uncharacteristic highintensity wildfires, insect outbreaks, and potential changes in regional climate (Covington et al, 2001;Fulé et al, 2012;Ganey & Vojta, 2011;Kolb et al, 1998;Moore et al, 2004;Reynolds et al, 2013;Stoddard et al, 2015;Van Mantgem et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining Forest Structure With Terrestrial Lidar: Suggestions and Novel Techniques Based on Comparisons Between Scanners and Forest Treatments

Donager

Sankey

et al. 2018

Earth and Space Science

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Terrestrial laser scanners (TLSs) provide a tool to assess and monitor forest structure across forest landscapes. We present TLS methods, suggestions, and mapped guidelines for planning TLS acquisitions at varying scales and forest densities. We examined rates of point‐density decline with distance from two TLS that acquire data at relatively high and low point density and found that the rates were nearly identical between scanners (p value <0.01), suggesting that our findings are applicable to a range of TLS types. Using unique, TLS‐adapted processing methods, we determined the relative accuracy of TLS‐derived plot‐scale estimates of tree height, diameter‐at‐breast‐height, height‐to‐canopy, tree counts, as well as treatment‐scale tree density and patch metrics, using both high point density and low point density TLS among thinned and nonthinned forest treatments. The high‐density TLS consistently provides more accurate estimates of plot‐level metrics (R2 = 0.46 to 0.87) than the low‐density TLS (R2 = −0.14 to 0.53). At treatment scales, tree density estimates are similar among scanners (R2 = 0.95 vs. 0.71), as are canopy cover and patch metrics. We develop and present the normalized density‐distance index (NDDI), which can account for up to 59% of the variance in estimate error and can be used to guide TLS‐data acquisition plans. This index indicates whether a given location has generally higher point density (higher NDDI) relative to the distance from the scanner and can be used as a proxy for uncertainty. Using NDDI as a guide for fair comparison between scanners, both plot‐ and treatment‐scale estimates improved.

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“…Those values are a simple reference, defining the minimum PES required to cover production costs, including the opportunity cost of using the forest for grazing purposes for 20 years, but excluding any transaction costs. Ideally, any payment for environmental water should account for the utility that watershed services have to individuals, which in turn is determined by their preferences based on their observed or stated willingness to pay for a given good or service (Mueller et al 2013).…”

Section: Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon sequestration or water yield? The effect of payments for ecosystem services on forest management decisions in Mediterranean forests

Ovando

Beguerı́a

Campos

2019

Water Resources and Economics

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A decrease in net benefits from market-based forest products over the last three decades seems to be connected to the increasing abandonment of forestland in Mediterranean areas of Europe. In this paper, we estimate spatially distributed probabilities of continuing with forest management practices in mainly native pine and oak forests in Andalusia (southern Spain). The continuation of active forest management encompasses landowners' investment in operations that promote the recruitment of new individuals of the same species once a stand reaches its rotation age. On the contrary, abandoning forestry investment involves natural self-regeneration including tree densification, shrub encroachment and forest species replacement. We estimate the long-term effects of alternative scenarios of forest management on carbon sequestration and water provisioning services (blue water, i.e. surface discharge and ground water recharge). We examine the effect of payments for carbon sequestration, or alternatively for increasing blue water, on forest management decisions. Results are provided as spatially disaggregated values over different time frames up to 2100 and consider the sensitivity of forest investment decisions to a wide range of price levels and discounting rates. Keywords: forestry investment abandonment; trade-offs and synergies; economic decision; Andalusia. JEL: Q23, Q51. Acknowledgments We thank three anonymous reviewers for valuable comments to improve. Paola Ovando acknowledges the support of the European Commission under the Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship Programme (PIEF-2013-621940), while developing the model and data base used in this paper. The authors thank the Regional Government of Andalusia and the Agency for Water and Environment in Andalusia for their financial and field work support for the "'Total social income and capital of Andalusian Forest" project (RECAMAN, Contract NET165602). Roberto Serrano-Notivoli, Alejandro Álvarez and Eloy Almazán helped the authors to operate the primary water data. This paper reflects the authors' views only, rather than the views of the supporting institutions.

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Estimating the value of watershed services following forest restoration

Abstract: Key Points WTP for upland watershed restoration is $183.50/yr per household Annual benefits of upland forest restoration are $400,000 Benefits have a policy application for forested watershed restoration

Cited by 31 publications

References 32 publications

Modeling fuel treatment impacts on fire suppression cost savings: A review

Modeling fuel treatment impacts on fire suppression cost savings: A review

Examining Forest Structure With Terrestrial Lidar: Suggestions and Novel Techniques Based on Comparisons Between Scanners and Forest Treatments

Carbon sequestration or water yield? The effect of payments for ecosystem services on forest management decisions in Mediterranean forests

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