Public values for restoring natural ecosystems: investigation into non-market values of anadromous fish and wildfire management

Abstract

This dissertation is composed of three papers, each using surveys as an aid to understanding public values. The public values on which I focus are related to restoring natural ecosystems. The first ecosystem is the Lower Snake River in Washington and the second is Colorado forests. The first paper, "Recreational Benefits of Removing the Lower Snake River Dams: A Test of Scope for Contingent Visitation Behavior," examines whether respondent recreation behavior would change if four dams were removed from the Lower Snake River. Removing the dams would restore the cold-water free flowing river ecosystem. This is a controversial topic of discussion. Dam supporters want the benefits of added electricity and the extended length of the inland shipping channel. Opposers feel the natural ecosystem may restore the nearly extinct native anadromous fish populations. Snake River survey data allowed me to test two contingent visitation behaviors: whether to visit the Snake River if dams are removed and frequency of visitation for two groups of respondents; the general public and Snake River anglers. I found that if the dams were removed, 53.9% of the anglers that currently visit the Snake River would continue to visit. Of the general public subsample, 38.5% said they would definitely visit the river if the dams are removed; the remainder said they probably would. Scope tests were used to analyze general public and angler models. Results show the general public is not sensitive to fish catch rates. The anglers, however, are sensitive to salmon catch rates. From my results, it seems that if the Lower Snake River is restored to its natural ecosystem, recreation in the area will continue to be important. Therefore, recreation benefits seem to be compatible with the ecology of returning the river to its natural state. The second and third papers focus on Colorado forest ecosystems. Over the past century, wildfires have been suppressed in Colorado. Fire suppression has led to wildfire fuel buildup which in turn results in infrequent, but high intensity, wildfires. While high intensity wildfires can be part of a natural ecosystem regime, they also have the potential to burn homes that are located within the wildland urban interface, which is cause for concern. Colorado residents living within the wildland urban interface were surveyed to find out how they feel about various fire management prescriptions that may aid in restoring Colorado forest ecosystem health. The survey focused on two types of questions: contingent valuation willingness-to-pay questions and ladder of life well-being evaluation questions. The first of the two fire papers is titled "Analysis of Public Perspectives of Wild and Prescribed Fires in Colorado." In this paper, I analyzed the survey information about three fire management techniques: prescribed fires, fire suppression, and fire prevention. Results show that people living near public lands in Colorado have high well-being values. They are aware that fire is a natural process and are willing-to-pay an annual tax increase between $507.00 and $654.90 for the fire management prescriptions. In total, over 66% of respondents were willing-to-pay for prescribed fires and fire suppression, while over 59% of respondents were willing-to-pay for fire prevention. It was also found that perceived fire danger and perceived fire frequency were influencing factors in how much a respondent was willing-to-pay for a particular fire management prescription. The final paper in the dissertation is titled "Using GIS to Investigate the Relationship between Stakeholder Opinion about Wildfire and Landscape Context." This paper uses the information from the second paper and builds upon it by adding spatial modeling to the context. The spatial modeling was completed in ArcGIS and was used to calculate estimated actual fire danger of homes in Colorado. GIS maps were used to create new fire danger variables, and included wildfire locations, slope, and vegetation. Additional variables created from these maps include wildfire distance from homes and vegetative fire danger of homes in their immediate vicinity (100 feet) and extended vicinity (one mile). It was discovered that willingness-to-pay values were, on average, positive. Willingness-to-pay values were found to vary among fire management techniques and fire danger variables. Overall, spatial modeling was found to be a helpful tool for this economic analysis. These three papers showed that respondents are knowledgeable about their environments and are, in general, in support of restoring some natural ecosystems. They not only support these issues, but they are also willing-to-pay for them, thereby indirectly indicating importance of restoring natural ecosystems to the United States public.