Balancing the Multiple Objectives of Conservation Programs
By Andrea Cattaneo, Daniel Hellerstein, Cynthia Nickerson, and Christina Myers
Economic Research Report No. (ERR-19) 66 pp,
May 2006
Many of the Nation’s conservation programs use an index approach to prioritize environmental and cost objectives. In an index, objectives are weighted by relative importance. This report provides empirical evidence on the cost and environmental benefit tradeoffs of different weighting schemes in USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program and considers how different weighting schemes encourage different sets of landowners to offer land for enrollment. The report finds that while small changes in index weights do not markedly affect levels of environmental benefits that can be achieved at a national level, larger changes can have a moderate impact.
Keywords: Conservation programs, multiple objectives, Conservation Reserve Program, CRP, environmental benefits index, EBI, objective weights, environmental benefit tradeoffs, conservation program design, ERS, USDA
In this report ... Chapters are
in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.
- Abstract, Acknowledgments, and Contents, 213 kb.
- Summary, 59 kb.
- Introduction, 76 kb.
- Indices in a Multi-Objective Program: Experience and Design in U.S. Conservation Programs, 169 kb.
- The CRP Balancing Act: The Sensitivity of CRP Outcomes
to Changes in EBI Weights, 557 kb.
- Conclusions, 64 kb.
- References, 52 kb.
- Appendix A: Balancing Multiple Objectives in U.S. Conservation Programs: Indices and Beyond, 386 kb.
- Appendix B: Modeling Participation Effects From Changing EBI Weights, 65 kb.
Updated date: May 31, 2006
|
