Andrew J. Plantinga

Land-use change and carbon sinks: Econometric estimation of the carbon sequestration supply function

Abstract If the United States chooses to implement a greenhouse gas reduction program, it would be necessary to decide whether to include carbon sequestration policies—such as those that promote forestation and discourage deforestation—as part of the domestic portfolio of compliance activities. We investigate the cost of forest-based carbon sequestration by analyzing econometrically micro-data on revealed landowner preferences, modeling six major private land uses in a comprehensive analysis of the contiguous United States. The econometric estimates are used to simulate landowner responses to sequestration policies. We treat key commodity prices as endogenous and predict carbon storage changes with a carbon sink model. Our estimated sequestration costs exceed those from previous engineering cost analyses and sectoral optimization models. Our estimated sequestration supply function is similar to the carbon abatement supply function from energy-based analyses, suggesting that forest-based carbon sequestration merits consideration in a cost-effective portfolio of domestic US climate change strategies.

Efficiency of incentives to jointly increase carbon sequestration and species conservation on a landscape

We develop an integrated model to predict private land-use decisions in response to policy incentives designed to increase the provision of carbon sequestration and species conservation across heterogeneous landscapes. Using data from the Willamette Basin, Oregon, we compare the provision of carbon sequestration and species conservation under five simple policies that offer payments for conservation. We evaluate policy performance compared with the maximum feasible combinations of carbon sequestration and species conservation on the landscape for various conservation budgets. None of the conservation payment policies produce increases in carbon sequestration and species conservation that approach the maximum potential gains on the landscape. Our results show that policies aimed at increasing the provision of carbon sequestration do not necessarily increase species conservation and that highly targeted policies do not necessarily do as well as more general policies.

An Econometric Analysis of the Costs of Sequestering Carbon in Forests

The Kyoto Protocol and the U.S. Climate Change Plan recognize afforestation as a potential means of reducing atmospheric CO 2 concentrations. To examine the cost-effectiveness of afforestation, we use econometric land use models to estimate the marginal costs of carbon sequestration in Maine, South Carolina, and Wisconsin. Our findings include the following: (a) earlier studies of afforestation programs tend to underestimate carbon sequestration costs, (b) afforestation still appears to be a relatively low-cost approach to reducing CO 2 concentrations, (c) Wisconsin offers the lowest-cost opportunties for carbon sequestration, and (d) projected population changes have the largest effect on costs in South Carolina. Copyright 1999, Oxford University Press.

The effects of potential land development on agricultural land prices

We conduct a national-scale study of the determinants of agricultural land values to better understand how current farmland prices are influenced by the potential for future land development. The theoretical basis for the empirical analysis is a spatial city model with stochastic returns to future land development. From the theoretical model, we derive an expression for the current price of agricultural land in terms of annual returns to agricultural production, the price of recently developed land parcels, and expressions involving model parameters that are represented in the empirical model by nonlinear functions of observed variables and parameters to be estimated. We estimate the model of agricultural land values with a cross-section on approximately three thousand counties in the contiguous U.S. The results provide strong support for the model, and provide the first evidence that option values associated with irreversible and uncertain land development are capitalized into current farmland values. The empirical model is specified in a way that allows us to identify the contributions to land values of rents from near-term agricultural use and rents from potential development in the future. For each county in the contiguous U.S., we estimate the share of the current land value attributable to future development rents. These results give a clearer indication of the magnitude of land development pressures and yield insights into policies to preserve farmland and associated environmental benefits.

The influence of public open space on urban spatial structure

Abstract There is widespread public support for open space provision and for efforts to limit sprawl. We demonstrate that open space policies should not be viewed as independent of—or necessarily compatible with—growth management goals. We examine the impacts of open space designation on the urban landscape in a spatial city model with two important and empirically relevant features: (1) residents prefer to live close to open space and (2) open space amenities attract migrants to the city. Our main findings are that open space designation can produce leapfrog development; the effect of open space on the total area of developed land in the city is ambiguous; more dispersed forms of open space may be preferred when congestion externalities are present; depending on location, the provision of new open space may benefit some income groups more than others and may increase the income diversity of a city.

Projected land-use change impacts on ecosystem services in the United States

Significance Land-use change affects the provision of ecosystem services and wildlife habitat. We project land-use change from 2001 to 2051 for the contiguous United States under two scenarios reflecting continuation of 1990s trends and high crop demand more reflective of the recent past. These scenarios result in large differences in land-use trajectories that generate increases in carbon storage, timber production, food production from increased yields (even with declines in cropland area), and >10% decreases in habitat for one-quarter of modeled species. We analyzed three policy alternatives that provide incentives to maintain and expand forest cover, conserve natural habitats, and limit urban sprawl. Policy interventions need to be aggressive to significantly alter underlying land-use trends and shift the trajectory of ecosystem service provision. Providing food, timber, energy, housing, and other goods and services, while maintaining ecosystem functions and biodiversity that underpin their sustainable supply, is one of the great challenges of our time. Understanding the drivers of land-use change and how policies can alter land-use change will be critical to meeting this challenge. Here we project land-use change in the contiguous United States to 2051 under two plausible baseline trajectories of economic conditions to illustrate how differences in underlying market forces can have large impacts on land-use with cascading effects on ecosystem services and wildlife habitat. We project a large increase in croplands (28.2 million ha) under a scenario with high crop demand mirroring conditions starting in 2007, compared with a loss of cropland (11.2 million ha) mirroring conditions in the 1990s. Projected land-use changes result in increases in carbon storage, timber production, food production from increased yields, and >10% decreases in habitat for 25% of modeled species. We also analyze policy alternatives designed to encourage forest cover and natural landscapes and reduce urban expansion. Although these policy scenarios modify baseline land-use patterns, they do not reverse powerful underlying trends. Policy interventions need to be aggressive to significantly alter underlying land-use change trends and shift the trajectory of ecosystem service provision.

Agricultural Land Values and the Value of Rights to Future Land Development

We investigate the influence of future land development on current agricultural land values. From a theoretical model of land markets, we derive a reduced-form expression for agricultural land values in terms of observable variables. This result dictates the specification of our econometric model and we find strong support for the model in an application to New York State. The estimated model, together with a spatial interpolation algorithm, is used to generate a surface of estimated development rights values for Orange County. This approach overcomes several problems that arise with the use of standard appraisal methods to value conservation easements. (JEL Q24)

The Effect of Agricultural Policies on Land Use and Environmental Quality

In this paper I consider the environmental quality gains that may be achieved by reducing agricultural income supports. A new methodology is developed to estimate land use shares. In an application to Wisconsin, milk price support reductions result in shifts of marginal agricultural land to forest, reducing soil erosion and providing off-site water quality improvements. The environmental benefits are estimated to be at least as large as the decreased welfare burden on consumers and taxpayers, indicating a central role for environmental quality considerations in motivating policy reforms and a more efficient means of achieving the environmental quality goals of land retirement programs. Copyright 1996, Oxford University Press.

Modeling Land Use Decisions with Aggregate Data

In this article, we develop land use models to study the impact of changes in decision variables on soil erosion or other environmental outcomes. From an underlying behavioral model, we use maximum entropy to recover a parametric model of county-level land use shares as a function of decision variables such as output prices, input costs, and land quality. The statistical model may be extended to estimate subcounty land use shares and to incorporate data from federal land use surveys. We use the procedure to analyze the impact of changes in livestock inventories on soil erosion rates in three Iowa counties.

The Association Between Urban Sprawl And Obesity: Is It A Two-Way Street?

We empirically examine the relationship between obesity and urban development patterns where individuals reside. Previous analyses treat urban form as exogenous to weight, and find higher body mass indices (BMI) among residents of areas with sprawl patterns of development. Using samples of recent movers, we find that the causality runs in both directions. Individuals who move to denser locations lose weight. As well, BMI is a determinant of the choice of a dense or sprawling location. In sum, while moving to a dense area results in weight loss, such locations are unlikely to be selected by individuals with high BMI.