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Ecosystems: Place-based Valuation and Decision Support Studies
EPA Goal 3: Cleaning up Communities and Advancing Sustainable Development
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Introduction
EPA’s Ecological Services Research Program (ESRP) is transforming the way decision makers understand and respond to environmental issues. The program is clarifying the ways in which our policy and management choices affect the type, quality, and magnitude of the goods and services we receive from ecosystems. ESRP researchers are working with Carnegie Mellon and the Gund Institute to develop a link with the National Science Foundation on a comparable program. ESRP efforts are committed to:
- Supporting work lead by the Corvallis Lab on riparian wetland nitrogen metabolisms with an emphasis on the Willamette Ecosystem Services Project
- Providing environmental economic expertise in order to value selected ecosystem services in the Willamette watershed and a southwestern watershed to be determined
- Leading an effort across EPA’s Office of Research and Development to develop a means of integrating environmental, economic, and social information into land use decision making processes
Initial efforts will focus on ecosystem services in five places across our nation. At these selected sites, scientists in EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory (NRMRL) will quantify ecological production functions (e.g., denitrification) in a way that facilitates valuation (that is, monetization). The researchers will incorporate this information into land use planning. Resulting products from this work include basic knowledge about:
- Who is making land-use decisions
- What criteria and what processes the decision makers are using
- What decision support tools are needed
The existing decision support tools are being compiled into a searchable database to allow decision makers to select tools appropriate for their situations. NRMRL researchers at each of these sites will enter data into a prescribed standard format so that the data can be compared across sites. In this way, the user interface for the database meets the needs of decision makers and can be used to revise the conceptual model of a potential decision support platform. Knowledge gained from this process will be used to formulate hypotheses that can be tested under the constraints of the ongoing placed-based efforts in the ESRP.
Environmental Issue or Problem
Decision makers need better information to make more effective and timely decisions. Access to sound scientific information helps decision makers make environmental decisions quickly and with confidence. Decision-support systems play an important role in the effective use of decision-making information for middle and top-level management.
Long-Term Goal and Annual Performance Goals Addressed
Draft Ecosystem Services Research Program Multi-Year Plan (PDF)
Contact
Gordon Evans
Assistant Laboratory Director, Ecosystems (Acting)
Additional Information