Valuing Ecosystem Services in Southern California’s Fire-Prone Landscapes {2014 - 2015]
Co-Principal Investigators
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This is a USDA – Forest Service funded Cooperative Agreement with the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resoure Economics at Michigan State University. National forests in southern California provide a suite of ecosystem services such as clean water, flood control, recreational use, and aesthetic amenities. Estimating how environmental change and management activities affect the value of these ecosystem services will help inform management decisions.
The goals of this project are two-folds. First, we will develop a framework for valuing ecosystem services provided by four national forests in southern California: Los Padres, Angeles, San Bernardino, and Cleveland NFs. This framework will be tailored to Mediterranean-climate landscapes and to the particular challenges of densely populated, fire-dominated landscapes, which also harbor globally outstanding levels of biodiversity. Second, we will estimate how wild fires, climate change, management activities such as restoration, and land use development affect the value of these ecosystem services.
Implementation May 2014 – Jun 2015.