Lucas Bair
Science and Products
Is timing really everything? Evaluating Resource Response to Spring Disturbance Flows
Glen Canyon Dam has altered ecological processes of the Colorado River in Grand Canyon. Before the dam was built, the Colorado River experienced seasonable variable flow rates, including springtime flooding events. These spring floods scoured the river bottom and enhanced natural processes that sustained the Colorado River ecosystem. Since the dam’s construction in 1963, springtime floods have...
Economics of Outdoor Recreation
Economic research at Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center is used to determine economic benefits of outdoor recreation in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area below Glen Canyon Dam and in Grand Canyon National Park, as affected by operation of Glen Canyon Dam. This research identifies recreationists’ preferences for attributes associated with their trips, spending that occurs regionally...
Assessing the population impacts and cost‐effectiveness of a conservation translocation
Managers often move, or translocate, organisms into habitats that are assumed to be suitable, however the consequences of these translocations are usually not rigorously assessed. Robust assessment of these management experiments should consider impacts to both donor and recipient populations and compare the cost‐effectiveness of translocations to...
Yackulic, Charles B.; Van Haverbeke, David R.; Dzul, Maria C.; Bair, Lucas S.; Young, Kirk L. Greenhouse gas emissions from an arid-zone reservoir and their environmental policy significance: Results from existing global models and an exploratory dataset
Reservoirs in arid regions often provide critical water storage but little is known about their greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint. While there is growing appreciation of the role reservoirs play as GHG sources, there is a lack of understanding of GHG emission dynamics from reservoirs in arid regions and implications for environmental policy. Here we...
Waldo, Sarah; Deemer, Bridget; Bair, Lucas S.; Beaulieu, Jake J. The biggest bang for the buck: Cost‐effective vegetation treatment outcomes across drylands of the western United States
Restoration and rehabilitation are globally implemented to improve ecosystem condition but often without tracking treatment expenditures relative to ecological outcomes. We evaluated the cost‐effectiveness of widely conducted woody plant and herbaceous invasive plant removals and seeding treatments in drylands of the western United States from...
Munson, Seth M.; Yackulic, Ethan O.; Bair, Lucas S.; Copeland, Stella M.; Gunnell, Kevin L. Safety in numbers: Cost-effective endangered species management for viable populations
We develop a bioeconomic model to identify the cost-effective control of an invasive species (rain-bow trout) to achieve a population viability goal for an endangered species (humpback chub) in the Grand Canyon of the U.S. southwest. The population viability optimization problem is no-toriously difficult to solve due to a probabilistic restriction...
Donovan, Pierce; Bair, Lucas S.; Yackulic, Charles B.; Springborn, Michael R. Effects of high-flow experiments on other resources: Recreation and hydropower
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (GCNRA) and Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP) offer unique recreational opportunities. An objective in the Long-Term Experimental and Management Plan Environmental Impact Statement (LTEMP EIS) is to maintain and improve the quality of recreational experiences (U.S. Department of the Interior, 2016). Some of the...
Bair, Lucas S.
Brown trout in the Lees Ferry reach of the Colorado River—Evaluation of causal hypotheses and potential interventions
Over the period 2014–2016, the number of nonnative brown trout (Salmo trutta) captured during routine monitoring in the Lees Ferry reach of the Colorado River, downstream of Glen Canyon Dam, began increasing. Management agencies and stakeholders have questioned whether the increase in brown trout in the Lees Ferry reach represents a threat to the...
Runge, Michael C.; Yackulic, Charles B.; Bair, Lucas S.; Kennedy, Theodore A.; Valdez, Richard A.; Ellsworth, Craig; Kershner, Jeffrey L.; Rogers, R. Scott; Trammell, Melissa A.; Young, Kirk L. Convergent validity between willingness to pay elicitation methods: An application to Grand Canyon whitewater boaters
We directly compare trip willingness to pay (WTP) values between dichotomous choice contingent valuation (DCCV) and discrete choice experiment (DCE) stated preference surveys of private party Grand Canyon whitewater boaters. The consistency of DCCV and DCE estimates is debated in the literature, and this study contributes to the body of work...
Neher, Christopher; Bair, Lucas S.; Duffield, John; Patterson, David A.; Neher, Katherine Identifying cost-effective invasive species control to enhance endangered species populations in the Grand Canyon, USA
Recovering endangered species populations when confronted with the threat of invasive species is an ongoing natural resource management challenge. While eradication of the invasive species is often the optimal economic solution, it may not be a feasible nor desirable management action in other cases. For example, when...
Bair, Lucas S.; Yackulic, Charles B.; Springborn, Michael R.; Reimer, Matthew N.; Bond, Craig A.; Coggins, Lewis G. Testing the limits of temporal stability: Willingness to pay values among Grand Canyon whitewater boaters across decades
We directly compare trip willingness to pay (WTP) values between 1985 and 2015 stated preference surveys of private party Grand Canyon boaters using identically designed valuation methods. The temporal gap of 30 years between these two studies is well beyond that of any tests of WTP temporal stability in the literature. Comparisons were made of...
Neher, Chris J.; Duffield, John; Bair, Lucas S.; Patterson, David A.; Neher, Katherine
Scientific monitoring plan in support of the selected alternative of the Glen Canyon Dam Long-Term Experimental and Management Plan
IntroductionThe purpose of this document is to describe a strategy by which monitoring and research data in the natural and social sciences will be collected, analyzed, and provided to the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), its bureaus, and to the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program (GCDAMP) in support of implementation of the Glen...
Vanderkooi, Scott P.; Kennedy, Theodore A.; Topping, David J.; Grams, Paul E.; Ward, David L.; Fairley, Helen C.; Bair, Lucas S.; Sankey, Joel B.; Yackulic, Charles B.; Schmidt, John C. Economic value of angling on the Colorado River at Lees Ferry: Using secondary data to estimate the influence of seasonality
Glen Canyon Dam (GCD) on the Colorado River in northern Arizona provides water storage, flood control, and power system benefits to approximately 40 million people who rely on water and energy resources in the Colorado River basin. Downstream resources (e.g., angling, whitewater floating) in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (GCNRA) and Grand...
Bair, Lucas S.; Rogowski, David L.; Neher, Christopher
RESEARCH BRIEF: Cost- benefit analysis of vegetation removal + seeding
Weighing costs relative to outcomes: woody and invasive plant removal followed by seeding in shrublands and woodlands.
New study by RAMPS researchers examines how the costs of vegetation treatments related to outcomes.
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