Economics and Ecosystem Services
Economics and Ecosystem Services
Federal policymakers and land managers are accountable to the public for how they invest public funds and for the outcomes of the policy and management decisions they make. Through a variety of economic analyses and custom modeling, SEA economists evaluate how investments and management decisions affect individuals, local communities, and society as a whole. Specifically, SEA economists (1) conduct economic effects analyses to quantify how spending cycles through local economies, generating business sales and supporting jobs and income; (2) conduct research to assess nonmarket values associated with public policy and land management practices; and (3) assess the economic values associated with ecosystem services, defined as socially valued goods and services resulting from ecosystem structures and functions, and other natural resource management issues.
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Economics of Outdoor Recreation
Planning and managing outdoor recreation on public land and water entails a series of choices, many of which are economic in nature. Economics is useful for informing a wide range of decision-making processes in the context of outdoor recreation management, including why people choose to engage in recreation and where, how people substitute between different types of recreation activities and...
Economics of Wildland Fire
In recent decades, wildfires have increased in size and intensity, and the fire season has lengthened. This and other factors have increased wildfire suppression costs and risks to human health and safety. Economists in the Social and Economic Analysis Branch (SEA) at FORT investigate numerous aspects of wildland fire, its impacts, and how to mitigate the risk wildfire poses to people, resources...
Wildlife Economics
Wildlife economics can help us better understand, and sometimes even quantify, the various relationships between humans and wildlife species. On one hand, humans benefit significantly from wildlife, for example through activities like hunting, fishing, and wildlife viewing, or through the conservation of threatened and endangered species. On the other hand, wildlife can also impose substantial...
Economic assessment of addressing annual invasive grasses across the sagebrush biome
This interdisciplinary project combines expert judgment on treatment costs with spatially explicit ecological modeling to estimate the financial resources needed to address the threat of invasive annual grass across the entire sagebrush biome. Results of the assessment will provide economic insights that can inform cost-effective resource allocation to efficiently achieve sagebrush conservation...
Economics and Ecosystem Services
Federal policymakers and land managers are accountable to the public for how they use public resources and for the outcomes of policy and management decisions. Through a variety of economic analyses and custom modeling, SEA economists evaluate how investments and management decisions affect individuals, local communities, and society as a whole.
Jobs and Business Activity
Department of the Interior programs and activities generate and support jobs and business activity in local economies.
Tools for Public Land Managers
Fort Collins Science Center Economists support numerous web applications that convey information and data to specific audiences. An important aspect of many of these tools is to connect practitioners and other stakeholders to resources.
Value of Science
The science conducted across the USGS affects the well-being of hundreds of millions of Americans. However, it is challenging to quantify the value of this science, and better understanding and communication of this value is often needed.
Economics of Ecological Restoration
Beyond the impacts to jobs and business activities, economics can play an important role in understanding the return on project investments by studying the benefits of project outcomes to society.
Economics of Invasive Species
In managing invasive species, land managers and policy makers need information to help allocate scarce resources as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Water Economics
Water is associated with numerous ecosystem services, including clean water for drinking, support for outdoor recreation, provision for other ecosystem processes, and direct cultural values.
The Wildfire Research (WiRē) Team
Wildfires cost billions of dollars to suppress annually, yet they still devastate lives, communities, and ecosystems. While wildfire is a natural phenomenon, learning to live with wildfire is a social issue – so we need a social solution.