Sayed Iftekhar

How economics can further the success of ecological restoration.

Restoration scientists and practitioners have recently begun to include economic and social aspects in the design and investment decisions for restoration projects. With few exceptions, ecological restoration studies that include economics focus solely on evaluating costs of restoration projects. However, economic principles, tools, and instruments can be applied to a range of other factors that affect project success. We considered the relevance of applying economics to address 4 key challenges of ecological restoration: assessing social and economic benefits, estimating overall costs, project prioritization and selection, and long-term financing of restoration programs. We found it is uncommon to consider all types of benefits (such as nonmarket values) and costs (such as transaction costs) in restoration programs. Total benefit of a restoration project can be estimated using market prices and various nonmarket valuation techniques. Total cost of a project can be estimated using methods based on property or land-sale prices, such as hedonic pricing method and organizational surveys. Securing continuous (or long-term) funding is also vital to accomplishing restoration goals and can be achieved by establishing synergy with existing programs, public-private partnerships, and financing through taxation.

Combinatorial auctions for procuring agri-environmental services: a review of some design issues

Abstract Auctions where landholders submit conservation projects for consideration in return for payment have recently gained popularity. Flexible versions of these, combinatorial auctions, which allow for the simultaneous submission of bids on different combinations of projects, have recently been tested for conservation purposes. Combinatorial auctions allow bidders to exploit synergies in the execution of multiple conservation activities while the auction mechanism stimulates competition among potential participants, enabling the auctioneer (or government) to secure a cost-effective set of conservation projects. Combinatorial auctions have the potential to improve outcomes beyond what is possible with the simple auctions explored in trials over the last decade in many parts of Australia. This article reviews the state of the art in the design of combinatorial auctions with a particular focus on conservation auctions. Key design issues identified are the problem of determining the winning bid, pricing formats, and iterative bidding formats where bidders are able to revise their bids before a final selection is made.

Does academic collaboration equally benefit impact of research across topics? The case of agricultural, resource, environmental and ecological economics

In this paper, we analyse the effects of different types of formal collaboration and research topics on research impact of academic articles in the area of agricultural, resource, environmental, and ecological economics. The research impact is measured by the number of times an article has been cited each year since publication. The topics within the area of research are modelled using latent semantic analysis. We distinguish between the effect of institutional, national, and international collaboration. We use statistical models for count data and control for the impacts of journals, publication year, and years since publication. We find that, holding other factors constant, collaboration in the form of co-authorship increases research impact. The effect of inter-institutional collaboration within same country is similar to the effect of collaboration within same institution. However, international collaboration results in additional increase in impact. We find that the topic of a paper substantially influences number of citations and identified which topics are associated with greater impact. The effects of different types of collaboration on citations also vary across topics.

The most cost-effective ways to maintain public open space with less water: Perth case study

Abstract Local governments in Perth, Western Australia, use groundwater to irrigate high value public open space. Due to a sustained decline in rainfall current groundwater extraction rates are unsustainable and are set to be reduced. We investigate the cost-effectiveness of different water efficiency improvement technology solutions. There is significant variation in the cost-effectiveness of different techniques, with the cost of water saved varying from a low of AUD 0.27 per kilolitre to as high as AUD 13.49 per kilolitre. In most cases the water efficiency solutions considered delivered water savings for less than the cost of the backstop technique – scheme water – which costs AUD 2.09 per kilolitre. For the case study area we find that 5, 10, and 15% saving in the volume of water used to irrigate public open space can be achieved for average per kilolitre water costs of: AUD 0.38, AUD 0.43, and AUD 0.62, respectively.

Can partial project selection improve conservation auction performances

ABSTRACT Conservation auctions often follow an ‘all or nothing’ bid selection approach, which restricts the selection of the most suitable parts of a submitted project. The problem with ‘lumpy’ (or all-or-nothing) project selection has been identified in the literature as a major problem in conservation policy; however, the extent of the problem has been rarely quantified. Using an actual conservation tender dataset from Tasmania, the effect of the approach was estimated. This study finds that with a relatively small budget, the cost-effectiveness loss could be as high as one-quarter. To avoid such problem, a partial bid selection could be applied. The basic principle of a partial bid selection is to invite a single project from each landholder with the option for the environmental planning agency to partially select sections of the offer lands that maximise the achievement of the agencys policy objectives. A sensitivity analysis with different bid and ecological value correction factors shows that when the corrections are low, the partial selection approach could be more cost-effective than an ‘all or nothing’ approach. The results indicate that agencies should consider alternative project selection approaches with better targeting capabilities.