Grantee Research Project Results
2000 Progress Report: Risk Based Urban Watershed Management-Integration of Water Quality and Flood Control Objectives
EPA Grant Number: R825759Title: Risk Based Urban Watershed Management-Integration of Water Quality and Flood Control Objectives
Investigators: Novotny, Vladimir , Cloark, David , Griffin, Robert J
Current Investigators: Novotny, Vladimir , Griffin, Robert J , Clark, David
Institution: Marquette University
EPA Project Officer: Packard, Benjamin H
Project Period: October 1, 1997 through September 30, 2000 (Extended to September 30, 2001)
Project Period Covered by this Report: October 1, 1999 through September 30, 2000
Project Amount: $880,355
RFA: Water and Watersheds Research (1997) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Watersheds , Water
Objective:
This annual report covers activities of the third year of the project that was awarded to Marquette University on October 1, 1997. The overall research objectives and goals of the project outlined in the proposal are to: (1) develop statistical flow, loading and water quality models applicable to risk assessment; (2) develop objective and quantitative risk assessment procedures for estimating ecological risks of stormwater and subsurface discharges from urban and suburban watersheds; (3) develop methodology for assessment of flood control and water quality benefits and resolve conflicts between flood control and ecological preservation-restoration objectives; (4) develop benefits/cost models for urban watershed management to optimize both flood control and receiving water integrity; (5) research innovative financing of urban watershed management, identify key players, and assess the willingness to pay for different watershed resident groups; and (6) examine homeowners' risk/benefit perceptions, values, effective responses to the risk, subjective norms, socio-cultural backgrounds, and use of communication in the willingness to pay for these different types of benefits.The goal of the research is to examine urban water bodies along two different dimensions: the degree to which the urban development influences flooding risks, and the degree to which it influences the ecology of the water bodies as represented by the ecological risks. These two dimensions are related and are often conflicting.
Progress Summary:
Completed Work?Monitoring Program. The second wave of biological monitoring was conducted during the summer of 2000 in cooperation with Wisconsin Lutheran College. The monitoring program of Oak Creek and the Menomonee River expanded fish sampling when compared to previous years. An index of biotic integrity (IBI) based on fish species composition was calculated based on procedures developed by Lyons (1992). A high percentage of tolerant species and low species diversity indicated very poor stream quality. The IBI scores indicate that all locations, with the exception of the reference site, do not support a typical fish community for this region.
Macroinvertebrates were collected at five sites on Oak Creek and nine sites on Menomonee River, including two sites in the headwaters without significant impairment by urbanization (reference sites). Sampling followed protocols for multihabitat using a D-frame dip net. Sampled habitat types included cobble, snags, vegetated banks, submerged macrophytes, sand and other fine sediment. Samples were collected in the summer of 2000. IBI scores indicated fair conditions of Oak Creek when compared to reference site scores (i.e., a loss of intolerant forms).
Completed Work?Flood Risk. The methodology developed during the first year of the project was expanded and modified to include changes of the floodplain with urbanization. Originally, only an existing 100-year floodplain and information on risk of channel overtopping was used to interpolate or extrapolate the floodrisk inside and outside the floodplain. The modified methodology uses data from an existing hydraulic model (HEC-RAS) to delineate floodplain based on the flow of a specified recurrence interval. Simple regression that ties the flow to depth and floodplain width was developed in Excel spreadsheet. The results are then imported into ArcView where custom developed scripts draw floodplain. This allows for more precise interpolation both inside and outside the 100-year floodplain as locations of 10-year, 20-year, 50-year, 100-year, 200-year, and 500-year floodplain are determined. This methodology, combined with previous statistical analysis of flow and changes in distribution with increasing urbanization, also allows evaluating the increase in risk of flooding as watersheds are urbanized.
ArcView extension has been developed to facilitate estimation of flood risk for households included in the questionnaire. The extension combines several scripts into a file that can be distributed. The extension, once loaded into ArcView, adds a new menu to the existing choices. The scripts are divided into four groups: (1) creating required themes, if not already present; (2) calculating distances to a floodplain and a river; (3) estimating the flood risk measure (negative logarithm of flood risk); and (4) checking and refining the calculation for points inside the floodplain.
Completed Work?Ecological Risks: Physical Integrity. The information on habitat suitability and ecological risk due to chemical contamination is being analyzed with respect to overall biotic integrity (fish and macroinvertebrate IBIs). The biological data collected during the course of the study were combined with existing data from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) on the investigated watersheds, both fish and macroinvertebrate data. However, habitat data on DNR macroinvertebrate sites are limited to substrate composition while data on fish collection sites include habitat index. Habitat index has been used to assess the effect of habitat on IBI. All sites investigated within this study show a decrease in IBI greater than the decrease in habitat index, or the level of habitat impairment, would indicate. This shows significant chemical impairment of water bodies, confirmed by risk calculations.
Completed Work?Ecological Risks: Chemical Integrity. From the heavy metals analyzed, lead causes the highest risks?about 10-3 chronic toxicity risk. The additional analysis are required to separate chronic toxicity due to water column concentration from chronic toxicity due to sediment contamination, and to evaluate the effect of urbanization. The methodology for calculating ecological risk due to water column concentration has been modified for sediments. The specifics pertaining to sediment include: (1) limited number of samples makes it impossible to determine probability distribution of a contaminant; (2) only organisms coming directly in contact with benthos are affected (benthic organisms); and (3) only chronic effects are considered. The calculations will be completed by January 2001. A simple Excel-based software package has been developed to facilitate calculation of ecological risks from chemical contamination.
Completed Work?Willingness To Pay Survey. A 25-minute telephone survey was conducted on nearly 1,000 randomly selected adult residents of two metropolitan areas. Milwaukee watersheds, Menomonee River and Oak Creek, were surveyed in the late fall and winter of 1999-2000. The survey organization also conducted eight focus groups sessions in spring 1999, prior to the survey, to help in the development of the survey instrument (see the 1998-1999 Annual Report).
In the first wave conducted in the 1999-2000 period, respondents were asked the same set of questions and are provided with a detailed description of the watershed project before being asked a series of questions designed to determine their willingness to pay. The WTP questions were posed in terms of a hypothetical political referendum. Respondents were asked to indicate the maximum amount of money that the plan could require them to pay annually for the next 20 years yet still allow them to vote in favor of the plan. The objectives of the survey are to: (1) distinguish between the WTP for flood-control and the WTP for ecological restoration of urbanizing watersheds and determine whether the two types of benefits are separable; (2) test a model that describes the salient drivers (psychological, sociodemographic, locational, and communication-related) that appear to influence WTP responses in the survey; (3) determine whether WTP responses are stable over time; and (4) relate WTP to the underlying flood and ecological risk improvements in the project and then derive estimates of community-wide benefits from flood control and/or ecological risk reduction in the watershed. Benefits are then compared with project costs to determine optimal watershed policy.
In all, 999 respondents were interviewed in the first wave, 303 (all from the Menomonee River watershed) were interviewed about their willingness to pay for a flood control project on that river (which was dubbed the "flood path" of questions), 459 (from both the Menomonee River and Oak Creek watersheds) were interviewed about their WTP for an ecological restoration project in their respective watersheds (the "environmental path" of questions), and 237 (all from the Menomonee River watershed) were interviewed about their WTP for a combined project that would hold the line on flooding as well as improve ecological quality of the watershed (the "combined path" of questions). Due to interviewing time limitations, only those respondents in the flood and environmental paths of questions were asked a full battery of questions based on the psychological and communication models.
Initial results indicate that there are no statistically significant differences between paths in the maximum amounts individuals would be willing to pay for the projects (overall mean = $84), even though the combined project would deliver more benefits than either of flood control and ecological improvement.
The primary sociodemographic variables (respondent income, education, race/ethnicity, gender, age, dwelling location within the floodplain, and the number of inhabitants of the dwelling) bear weaker relationships with WTP for the flood control project than do a set of variables based on the Theory of Planned Behavior, specifically, subjective norms (r = .29, p<.001) and an overall index of cognitive structure (r = .40, p<.001; r = .46, p<.001, when the belief-evaluation compound items are also multiplied by a separate self-report measure of the importance of the outcome to the decision). Among the belief-evaluation compounds themselves, correlations with willingness to pay for the flood control project are as follows (the second coefficient representing the addition of the importance multiplier):
- Add significantly to my taxes (r = .03, ns; r = .11, p<.05);
- Be personally expensive for me (r = .15, p<.01; (r = .21, p<.001);
- Make me feel like I am doing something for the environment (r = .28, p<.001; r = .34, p<.001);
- Mae me feel like I am doing something for the community (r = .34, p<.001; r = .45, p<.001);
- Probably help support a long term solution (r = .36, p<.001; r = .39, p<.001);
- Probably help future generations (r = .32, p<.001; r = .36, p<.001);
- Probably help to hold the line against flooding (r = .28, p<.001; r = .33, p<.001) ;
- Probably help people who live in the floodplain (r = .19, p<.001; r = .28, p<.001) .
A research project completed at the end of 2000 looks at determination of spatial flood risk reduction potentially to be received by the population on WTP within the larger community-wide benefits of a flood management project. Spatial flood risk is defined as the probability of a flooding event reaching a specific household in a flood plain or in the vicinity of a floodplain. Several hypotheses of the effect of the flood risk on WTP are being tested. Preliminary results indicate that there is no significant difference in WTP received by those with higher spatial risk relative to a similar individual with lower risk. That may imply that the community wide benefits of a flood risk management project are more important than individual benefits for residents of the flood plain. This may indicate the presence of an embedding problem in which the level of WTP is independent of the level of risk reduction described in the questionnaire.
Willingness To Pay Survey: Environmental Ethics Study. Another project reaching conclusion investigated whether ethical evaluations influence WTP for projects that would improve the ecological health of urban waterways. To this end, the literature on environmental attitudes and values was reviewed and scales of environmental attitudes previously used in other studies were pretested for inclusion in the ecological track of the Menomonee River and Oak Creek survey instrument. A scale is the summation of numerical Likert-scale responses to a series of questions about environmental attitudes. As a result of pretests, a truncated six question version of the awareness of consequences scale (AC) was included in the survey along with several ethically oriented Likert-style questions about environmental values. The statistical analysis of the effects of environmental attitudes and ethical valuations on WTP is completed. The statistical analysis explicitly incorporates ethical attitudes toward the environment using the Theory of Planned Behavior and its notions of cognitive structure and subjective norms. The basic hypothesis tested employing multivariate regression analysis is that environmental attitudes affect specific beliefs and values (cognitive structure) about WTP for urban watershed restoration and that these beliefs and values in turn affect WTP. Cognitive structure is a scale variable equal to the summation of Likert responses to attitudinal questions about WTP. The Awareness of Consequences Scale (AC) is a statistically significant explanatory variable in a regression equation for cognitive structure, and cognitive structure is in turn a statistically significant explanatory variable in a regression equation for WTP. The magnitude of the regression coefficients indicates that a change in AC at the margin has a substantial effect on WTP by way of cognitive structure. Moreover, including specific measures of environmental values in addition to the AC scale, such as the degree to which respondents hold biocentric attitudes, adds to the explanatory power of the cognitive structure regression equation. This means that the extent to which respondents believe that the natural world is valuable for its own sake has a positive statistical effect on WTP. The central conclusion to be drawn from these results is that strictly economic variables, such as income, play a comparatively minor role in WTP regression equations relative to psychological variables such as cognitive structure and subjective norms. Cognitive structure is in turn strongly related statistically to environmental attitudes and values. The decision on public goods may well be much more intuitive and value oriented than the practitioners of contingent valuation studies previously thought.
Future Activities:
The period October 2000 through September 2001 is the last year of the project with the following tasks still remaining.
Monitoring. All field work on the two pilot watersheds has been concluded. Final evaluation of the data will continue for several months into 2001. The following projects are continuing and will be concluded in 2001: (1) loading model of pollutants from the watershed; (2) development and testing of risk assessment procedures for benthic contamination and physical impairment; and (3) linking the aquatic risks to the socio-economic finding from the surveys.
Contingent Valuation?Willingness to Pay Survey. The second wave survey will be conducted in Winter 2000-2001. The survey format is similar to the first wave completed in the Summer of 2000. As in the first survey, about 1,000 citizens living in the two pilot watersheds will be surveyed. This is the largest remaining task of the project. The survey will conclude in Spring of 2001 and will be followed by extensive evaluation and final analyses in Summer of 2001.
Final Report. The final report will be prepared in the Summer-Fall period of 2001 and submitted in or before December 2001.
Meeting with Stakeholders and Advisory Committee. On January 28, 2000, the team presented its intermediate results and accomplishment to the local stakeholders. This was our second stakeholder's meeting. About 50 representatives of communities and agencies participated.
The stakeholder meeting was followed by a meeting of the institute's advisory committee that also reviewed the progress and main results of this research.
International Cooperation. The institute/research team has established a cooperation with scientists in Japan from Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. Ritsumeikan University is the largest private university in Japan. After the visit of the primary investigator to the Ritsumeikan University in October 1999, and a visit of professor Yamada to Marquette University, a visiting research scientist from Ritsumeikan is now spending the 2000-2001 academic year (plus summer) at Maquette University. Dr. Atsushi Ichiki will participate on the closing phases of this research. A similar cooperation is being initiated with the University of Pavia in Italy and will also be initiated with the University of Padova.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 20 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
urban economics, hydrological modeling, water quality modeling, urban drainage, property damages, probabilistic models, public opinion, watershed, risk assessment, ecological effects, chemicals, toxics, PAHs, heavy metals, nitrogen, phosphorus, restoration, habitat, integrated assessment, decisionmaking, cost benefit, contingent valuation, willingness to pay, geographical information systems, Great Lakes., RFA, Scientific Discipline, Economic, Social, & Behavioral Science Research Program, Ecosystem Protection, Water, Geographic Area, Hydrology, Water & Watershed, State, Aquatic Ecosystem, Wet Weather Flows, Environmental Monitoring, Ecological Risk Assessment, Environmental Engineering, Economics & Decision Making, Watersheds, ecosystem valuation, anthropogenic processes, urbanization, flood control, wateshed management, erosion, suburban watersheds, urban watershed rehabilitation method, watershed management, flood control objectives, ecosystem evaluation, runoff, community-based research, community based, citizen perceptions, socioeconomics, Wisconsin , quantitative risk assessment, aquatic ecosystems, human values, Milwaukee, water quality, wet weather modeling, ecology assessment models, water management options, climate variability, groundwater, flood hazard initiatives, aquatic biota, community values, ecological research, land use, MilwaukeeRelevant Websites:
http://www.marquette.edu/environment/Research.htmProgress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.