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Optimal Allocation of Restoration Practices Using Indexes for Stream Health
Citation:
Barnhart, B., M. Bostian, M. Papenfus, G. Whittaker, P. Mayer, R. Fare, AND S. Grosskopf. Optimal Allocation of Restoration Practices Using Indexes for Stream Health. INFORMS, Nashville, TN, November 13 - 16, 2016.
Impact/Purpose:
This is an invited presentation at the 2016 INFORMS meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, November 13-16, 2016, where we will participate in a workshop hosting researchers and practitioners interested in optimization and index theory as applied to best management practices for green infrastructure. We will present a methodology for incorporating economic index theory to optimize management and restoration designed to improve overall stream health. Our condition index is comprehensive and goes beyond assessing only intermediate, single ecological indicators such as discharge, nutrient loadings, or sedimentation. This work relates to RAP tasks SSWR501.A: Green infrastructure model research and SSWR3.04B: Linking measures of watershed integrity and stream condition to economic benefits analysis. SSWR3.04B
Description:
Methodologies that allocate the placement of agricultural and urban green infrastructure management practices with the intent to achieve both economic and environmental objectives typically use objectives related to individual intermediary environmental outputs, yet guidance is needed to minimize impacts of land use change due to overall stream health. Therefore, we created a methodology to integrate stream health indexes within a bi-level optimization framework. We compare multiple indexing strategies including using manually chosen weights and nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis and test our results using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool in the Racoon watershed in central Iowa.