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Nitrogen, ecosystem services and environmental justice: How can a spatial valuation approach inform responsible nutrient management?
Citation:
Crowell, M. AND J. Compton. Nitrogen, ecosystem services and environmental justice: How can a spatial valuation approach inform responsible nutrient management? Presented at ACES, December 10 - 14, 2012.
Impact/Purpose:
Nitrate contamination in groundwater has impacted thousands of households across the Pacific Northwest. In impacted areas of the Lower Yakima River Basin (LYRB), Washington, USA, household well water concentrations can be above the human health standard (10 mg nitrate-N per liter), but households are unaware of contamination issues, increasing the risk of health problems associated with nitrate consumption. To identify solutions to the nitrate pollution problem, EPA and OSU scientists are exploring an ecosystem services approach. This research combines a GIS-based, value transfer approach to map ecosystem services along with estimates of nitrogen loading and demographic data to identify how nutrient management may affect ecosystem services in the basin. By including demographic data as a component of the spatial analysis, we examine the connections between population income, ethnicity, N loading, and risk of ecosystem service reductions due to nutrient management practices. Wetlands and forested areas have disproportionately high values of ecosystem services when compared to their land area in the LYRB. The analysis provides a promising direction for combining spatially-explicit ecosystem service valuation with nutrient loading data to help regional managers make decisions about nutrient management in the region.
Description:
Spatially-explicit ecosystem service valuation (ESV) allows for the identification of the location and magnitude of services provided by natural ecosystems along with an economic measure of their value based upon benefit transfer. While this provides an important function in terms of land use management, the connection between the relative values of ecosystem services, sensitivity to nutrient loading and nutrient load estimates can be within both the GIS-based, benefit transfer ESV literature and among research on nutrients and ecosystem services. This research combines a GIS-based, value transfer approach to map ecosystem services in the Lower Yakima River Basin (LYRB), Washington, USA, along with estimates of nitrogen loading and demographic data to identify how nutrient management may affect ecosystem services in the basin, and who may be most effected by potential increases or decreases in nitrogen loading. Our analysis combines relative values of ecosystem services with estimates of nitrogen loading and identifies subwatersheds most susceptible to reductions in valuable ecosystem services due to excess nitrogen loading. Additionally, by including demographic data as a component of the spatial analysis, we examine the connections between population income, ethnicity, N loading, and risk of ecosystem service reductions due to nutrient management practices. Based on the benefit transfer analysis, wetlands and forested areas have disproportionately high values of ecosystem services when compared to their land area in the LYRB, while pasture and cultivated crops contribute much less to the total value of ecosystem service flows in proportion to the total area for these areas in the LYRB. Further economic valuation data on specific land cover types whether from primary studies or meta-analysis is needed to refine relative measures of ecosystem service values and more confidently describe these values in specific dollar amounts. Provision of drinking water and surfac