June 2010 Gabriel Sampson

Introduction Opportunity cost in conservation selection Conservation program costs reduced considerably when land costs considered (Ando et al., 1998) Feasibility of land-valuation models in conservation planning

Goals Hedonic model for Sonoma County Arrive at planning unit costs that reflect the land market Optimize conservation targets subject to realistic economic costs Compare to results using the old cost

Methods – hedonic model Observed market transactions for Sonoma County parcels Discarded observations: industrial, commercial, condominium, restaurant, hotels, etc. 348 observations used

Hedonic model Selected independent variables (Newburn et al., 2006) Acres Persons per acre Distance to roads Farmland (binary) Grazing (binary) Easement (binary) Fee, mixed, transfer (binary) High risk (binary)

Regression model

Predicted planning unit costs

Scaled planning unit cost

Old planning unit costs

Using Marxan Optimize conservation targets with Marxan Modeled planning unit cost Modeled average cost/acre transformed to a scale of The old cost scale of

Modeled planning unit cost

Absolute costs vs. old costs

Re-scaled costs vs. old costs

Site selection correlation

Model limitations Planning unit prices extrapolated from limited APN data Need to address land use change jointly with purchase cost (Newburn et al, 2005) Management costs not captured How would conservation influence future development patterns? 10 iterations in Marxan runs

Concluding remarks Strong correlation between site selections Variance in mid selection frequencies Irreplaceability may supersede site cost

References Ando, A.J., Camm, J., Polasky, S., Solow, A. (1998). Species Distributions, Land Values, and Efficient Conservation. Science 279: Newburn, D., Berck, P., Merenlender, A. (2006) Habitat and Open Space at Risk of Land-Use Conversion: Targeting Strategies for Land Conservation. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 88(1): Newburn, D., Reed, S., Berck, P., Merenlender, A. (2005). Economics and Land Use Change in Prioritizing Land Conservation. Conservation Biology

Re-scaled selection

Old cost selection