Environmental Economics

Climate change and ski season

I was surprised to hear that the local ski resorts had a good 2011-12 season, in spite of the warm winter:

Whether this winter turns out to be warm or cold, scientists say that climate change means the long-term outlook for skiers everywhere is bleak. The threat of global warming hangs over almost every resort, from Sugarloaf in Maine to Squaw Valley in California. As temperatures rise, analysts predict that scores of the nation’s ski centers, especially those at lower elevations and latitudes, will eventually vanish.

Under certain warming forecasts, more than half of the 103 ski resorts in the Northeast will not be able to maintain a 100-day season by 2039, according to a study to be published next year by Daniel Scott, director of the Interdisciplinary Center on Climate Change at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.

By then, no ski area in Connecticut or Massachusetts is likely to be economically viable, Mr. Scott said. Only 7 of 18 resorts in New Hampshire and 8 of 14 in Maine will be. New York’s 36 ski areas, most of them in the western part of the state, will have shrunk to 9. ...

The most basic strategy for coping with a lack of snow is to make it, and as of the 2009-10 season, 88 percent of resorts belonging to the National Ski Areas Association were doing so. Improvements in snow-making technology have helped resorts compensate for warming trends, and several have invested millions in new energy-efficient tower guns.

via www.nytimes.com

I hesitated to post this since we were scooped by Kahn, who points out:

1. the lack of skiing opportunities is not a huge concern on the demand side of the market as there are a number of alternative activities in the choice set
2. snow making is an important adaptation strategy

The effects of recession on outdoor recreation

Subsistence hunting and fishing is an inferior good:

There’s definitely an interesting socioeconomic analysis to be done on the ways in which certain activities that were once deadly earnest attempts to gather food came, in an era of relative caloric abundance, to be luxury pastimes instead. But I’m hard-pressed to explain how Snuffy and Lukey, who never had any kind of job when times were flush, have had their lives affected by extra-Holler financial crises. Perhaps there’s less demand for chickens, Hootin’ Holler’s sole export, which means there are fewer chickens for the two old rascals to steal? More likely, “th’ economic downturn” refers not to anything that would affect us flatlanders, but rather to some apocalyptic event that severed the last tenuous economic tendril connecting Hootin’ Holler to the outside world, leaving its isolated residents with no option but to turn back to the forests and streams for sustenance. This crisis presumably happened decades ago, and so what we’re seeing here is a prequel strip showing the genesis of the Snuffy Smithiverse as we’ve come to know it.

via joshreads.com

Flatlanders don't unnerstand.

That would pretty much be ALL of them?

Mother Nature Network has a slide show of 10 threatened U.S. costlines.  Here's the list:

• Alaska
• Oregon's green coast
• Central California
• Channel Island California
• Lake Huron
• The Gulf Coast
• The Southeast Coast
• The Chesapeake Bay
• Cape May and the Jersey Shore
• Cape Cod

Looks like Souther California and Long Island are okeedokee.

If they are more than willing and able, why don't they?

The toxic blue-green algae that will spread across the western basin of Lake Erie this summer likely won’t be as dense as last year’s record bloom, experts say. However, the researchers who track Erie’s water woes say the algae could appear a month early this year, tainting water by June instead of July.

...

Blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, are common in most lakes but grow thick in sun-warmed water by feeding on phosphorus from manure, fertilizers and sewage that storms wash into streams and ultimately lakes. The algae can produce as many as four toxins that can sicken people and kill pets.

...

State officials are beginning to focus on farms to combat the algae. For example, farmers who tend crops near Grand Lake St. Marys face mandatory limits on how much manure they can spread on fields. The state also sprayed the central portion of the lake with alum, a compound that starves algae.

...

As for Lake Erie and the much larger, 4 million-acre Maumee River drainage area, the state is pushing a voluntary program that encourages farmers to limit the use of chemical fertilizers and to reduce runoff.

...

Some clean-water advocates say they doubt the state’s Lake Erie strategy will work without mandatory limits.

“Usually, it takes more than volunteerism to make that happen,” said Sandy Bihn, the director of the Lake Erie Waterkeeper group.

Larry Antosch, the environmental policy director for the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation, said no mandate is needed.

“I think the farmers in the watershed would be more than willing and able,” he said.

via www.dispatch.com

Raise your hand if you are willing to impose cost on yourself for my sake.

One reason to visit Boone

The word of Boone’s great roads and trails have caught the national media eye again. The folks over at Velo News have featured Boone and Rocky Knob as one of the top US riding areas. Stop by a local shop to pick up the rag.

via rockyknob.wordpress.com

I agree with everthing except the Ingles promotion, I prefer Harris Teeter (more freebies). Click for a larger image:

 

A sad attempt to get you to read my paper

USAToday:

Offshore hurricanes could demolish half the turbines in proposed wind farms just off the USA's coastlines, according to a study out Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"We find that hurricanes pose a significant risk to wind turbines off the U.S. Gulf and East coasts, even if they are designed to the most stringent current standard," the authors from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh write.

Engineer Stephen Rose and colleagues estimated that over a 20-year span many turbine towers would buckle in wind farms enduring hurricane-force winds off the coasts of four states — Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina and Texas — where offshore wind-farm projects are now under consideration.

Wind turbines are vulnerable to hurricanes because the maximum wind speeds in those storms can exceed the current design limits of wind turbines, according to the study.

Failures can include loss of blades and buckling of the supporting tower.

Nevermind.

OBX user fees

Finally!

New limits on beach driving will take effect along the Cape Hatteras National Seashore starting Feb. 15, and off-road drivers will be required to buy permits that could add $50 to the cost of an Outer Banks weekend.

The rules, announced Friday by the National Park Service, were drafted to protect endangered turtles and rare shorebirds that build their nests on the beach. The agency promised to improve controls on beach driving when it settled a 2007 lawsuit filed by three environmental organizations.

Fishing is the most popular purpose for taking off-road vehicles onto the sand, a park service spokeswoman said. Other beach drivers are out there to watch birds or just get away from the crowds.

Fees have not been announced but are expected to be set between $90 and $150 for a one-year beach driving permit, and between $30 and $50 for a seven-day permit. Separate permits will be issued for each vehicle, and permit holders will be required to watch an instructional video. ...

Off-road vehicles will be allowed year-round on 28 miles of the Hatteras seashore, and from mid-September to mid-March on 13 miles, the Southern Environmental Law Center said; the remaining 26 miles will be off limits to vehicles.

User fees can be used to effectively regulate use and raise revenue. Only those users who are not willing or able to pay a relatively small fee are excluded. Raising the fee during environmentally sensitive periods should be a more efficient policy that full beach closure.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/01/21/1794126/cape-hatteras-rules-toughen.html#storylink=cpy

Recreation Use Values Database for North America

From Randy Rosenberger on the RESECON listserv:

I am announcing the public availability of the Recreation Use Values Database for North America.  The database and supporting information is available at: http://recvaluation.forestry.oregonstate.edu/.  This is a work-in-progress that I hope to be able to add value to over time, in particular with your help.  There is a lot of work yet to be done on updating the database, improving access and search functions, and guidance on conducting benefit transfers.  Thus, I offer this database as a foundation upon which we can build information on empirical estimates of recreation use values.  Below is the welcome text from the website. 

“Welcome to the Recreation Use Values Database for North America.  What you will find here are links to the database, bibliography, and background information.  If you have questions, comments and/or suggestions about the database, would like assistance in using this database for benefit transfer, or would like to submit documentation on North American studies not currently in the database, please contact Dr. Randall Rosenberger (R.Rosenberger@oregonstate.edu).  We also are interested in how you apply benefit transfer for recreation valuation, so please submit documentation about your applications.

The database currently contains 352 documents of economic valuation studies that estimated the use value of recreation activities in the U.S. and Canada from 1958 to 2006, totaling 2,703 estimates in per person per activity day, adjusted to 2010 USD.  Twenty-one primary activity types are provided, with several more available if segregated by activity mode, resource type, primary species sought, or little studied activities (i.e., ‘other recreation’ has an additional 22 activities identified).  These recreation use value estimates are measures of net willingness-to-pay or consumer surplus for recreational access to specific sites, or for certain activities at broader geographic scales (e.g., state or province, national) in per person per activity day units—this database does not contain information on marginal values for changes in site quality or condition.  The database is currently offered as an Excel workbook containing the database and coding protocols.  It is currently sorted by primary activity by region—of course, you may download and sort it however you wish.  The bibliography cross-references the database via the document code.

An overview of the database is provided in pdf format, including distributions of estimates and studies, and mean values by activity type by region."

Community based research

Here is a product of CBR Consulting (i.e., my benefit cost analysis class):

We gathered email addresses at Rocky Knob Mountain Bike Park a few weeks ago and sent an internet survey. Of the 106 people who agreed to be interviewed we've received responses from 60 and complete responses from 52 -- enough to do some basic analysis and provide information to local decision makers.

The double log OLS recreation demand model is above (n=50). Price elasticity is -0.66 and consumer surplus per trip is $81 (from the semi-log model). We also asked stated preference questions about future trips and future trips when the trails are completed.

The economics of Fall colors

From the Asheville Citizen-Times:

[ASU Biology Professor Howie] Neufeld also is known as the unofficial “fall color guy” [*] for the color predictions he provides to visitnc.com, North Carolina’s online tourist hub.

His interest in fall foliage led him to search out the economic impact of WNC’s big season.

“I couldn’t find anything,” he said. “I don’t think there’s been a systematic study.”

So using studies and estimates from similar established destinations such as New England, Neufeld reached his own conclusion — the fall season adds up to a $1 billion economic impact in the mountains of North Carolina.

Likely visitors are baby boomers and families living within a couple hundred miles of the region, according to Neufeld’s ballpark calculations.

A family of four staying in the mountains for two nights could spend $400 to $1,000 on gas, food and lodging, Neufeld estimated.

There are no counts of just how many visitors come each year, according to Neufeld, but judging by the number of tourists states such as New Hampshire and Maine attract — 16 million last year — the mountains of North Carolina could see similar numbers.

“I think it’s time for someone to conduct a study to show just what the impact is,” Neufeld said.

In the absence of a real study, Mike Evans, ASU hospitality and tourism professor, and I exchanged emails with Howie. Mike says:

Our  "research" numbers suggest 1... maybe 2  million  people may visit Western North Carolina to see fall foliage.

So I said:

I'd go with Mike's 1-2 million visitors, divide by 2.5 for household size and then multiply by your $400 to $1000 in spending per visit. That would give a range of $160 million (1m/2.5 * 400) to $800 million (2m/2.5 * 1000). The midpoint is then $480 million.

Just for fun, I plugged these ranges into Excel and took 1000 random draws from two uniform distributions. The mean impact and standard deviation are $419 million and $129 million. The 95% confidence interval is [$210, $699] million. And here is the graph of the distribution:

[*] Here is the link for the Fall Color Guy blog: http://fallcolorguy.blogspot.com/