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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Thomas E. Duston, PhD, Economics, Keene State College, 229 Maine St., Keene, NH 03435, 603-358-2625, tduston@keene.edu

Beyond Greenways: Landscape Scale Planning for Sustainable Environmental Health

Increasing concern about the health of the physical environment has generated a re-examination of the methods by which society allocates land to alternative uses. Typically, as a scarce resource in a market-based economy, we see land subdivided into the smallest allowable units for high intensity uses, and hence high market value, as in residential housing or retail or commercial developments. With an increasing population and a fixed supply of land, non-intensive, alternative uses of land like open space are becoming a harder “sell.” Open space tends therefore to be fragmented into relatively small parcels scattered around the countryside.

The purpose of this paper is to present an alternative model for making land-use decisions, one which recognizes that various environmental services provided by open space rarely follow legal or political boundaries. Much greater per acre valuations are observed when the land is viewed at the larger scale necessary to properly measure the benefits of wetlands, riparian corridors, forested hillsides, aquifers, and large animal habitat. This “switch point model” is based on applying two concepts in economics - public goods and economies of scale, together with recent developments in environmental services evaluation - to justify thinking at “landscape scale” for properly valuing these services. With this larger view and its related much larger per acre valuation of land for conservation, open space advocates can more effectively justify the expenditures necessary to compete for scarce land with shopping malls, commercial developments, and second homes.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to

• Recognize the difference between the traditional method of valuing land and the newer method described here.
• Describe the newer methods of evaluating environmental services.
• Apply these concepts to specific open space situations.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered