Category: Uncategorized

Just wanted to announce the publication of our study of the impacts of the US Coastal Barrier Resources Act on shoreline armoring rates (looking specifically at Florida). This project has been led by PhD student Jordan Branham and involved an incredible amount of data crunching!

Here is the abstract:

Shoreline armoring, which involves the installation of hardened structures to protect coastal property, dramatically alters shoreline composition and resulting ecological functions. Accelerating hazard threats to growing coastal communities compounds this problem, creating demand for more armoring. We examine whether designation by the U.S. Coastal Barrier Resources Act (CBRA) – enacted to disincentivize urban development on hazardous coastal barriers – is associated with lower propensities to armor shorelines. In designated areas, CBRA removes access to federally-subsidized flood insurance, infrastructure subsidies, and disaster assistance. Using logistic regression modeling, we examine armoring at the parcel scale across the State of Florida (USA), controlling for CBRA designation, land use, and local population density. Our findings reveal a significant negative relationship between CBRA designation and the odds of armoring, particularly for residential and vacant properties. As coastal areas grapple with increasing impacts from coastal hazards, removal of public subsidies may be an effective non-regulatory method for maintaining the ecological and protective benefits of natural shorelines.

The paper can be found here: Branham, Jordan,* Kyle Onda,* Nikhil Kaza, Todd K. BenDor, and David Salvesen. The impacts of federal subsidies removal on coastal protection infrastructure investment. Land Use Policy 102: 105245.

Hot off the presses in Natural Hazards Review is our brand new paper looking at the municipal financial impacts of floodplain buyouts! This is the result of a UNC Policy Collaboratory-funded project with two former students, Christian Kamrath and Brooke Ganser, and long-time colleague, hazard researcher David Salvesen. While the journal editors are apparently quite old school and re-wrote the paper to be completely passive (“it was discovered”. Ugh…), here’s the abstract:

Floodplain buyouts—the acquisition and removal of flood-damaged homes—have become increasingly important in federal disaster policy. However, there has been little research on how buyouts fiscally impact local governments. Buyouts can reduce future disaster-relief costs, create valuable open space, and reduce maintenance costs where urban infrastructure can be permanently removed. Conversely, buyouts can reduce property tax revenues and saddle municipalities with new buyout property maintenance costs. What are the range of potential fiscal impacts of buyouts on municipalities? This paper seeks to address this question while establishing a user-friendly process for estimating accurate impact ranges. The authors assessed the fiscal impacts of buyouts in eight North Carolina case-study communities, developing and testing a scenario-driven spreadsheet model to explore how community characteristics, policies, and strategies for buyout program design can affect the fiscal impacts of a buyout over time. It was discovered that fiscal impacts depend on at least three key factors, including (1) the spatial distribution of the acquired properties, (2) whether buyout participants relocate within their community, and (3) the management and maintenance regimes of acquired properties.

We just published two papers on endangered species habitat markets (both can be found on the academia.edu and researchgate.net links on the right of the page):

Kristen A. Vitro*, Todd K. BenDor, and J. Adam Riggsbee. 2017. Trends in U.S. pre-listing conservation planning for endangered species. Environmental Science and Policy 74: 68-74 | LINK

Summary: In 2011, a legal settlement required the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to develop a series of work plans to assess a backlog of candidate species for protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Using the resulting USFWS Fiscal Year 2013–2018 work plan, which included 261 candidate species, we identified and analyzed pre-listing candidate conservation plans (PLCP) to determine their characteristics and evaluate the use of market-based mechanisms. Among the 34 PLCPs identified, we found that species-based conservation plans were more common than habitat-based plans, and market-based conservation approaches were infrequently implemented. Inconsistencies in plan documentation were present throughout the USFWS’s online portal, and not all documentation was publicly accessible. Lastly, we found that many states had implemented their own endangered species programs or initiated conservation plans through a state agency. Our work informs the recently-adopted USFWS pre-listing conservation policy and highlights needed improvements in tracking large numbers of at-risk species as they become the subject of regulations. Increased transparency and consistency in conservation plan databases, coupled with increased accessibility, will improve future at-risk species planning.

Galik, Christopher, Todd K. BenDor, Julie DeMeester and David Wolfe. 2017. Improving Habitat Exchange Planning Through Theory, Application, and Lessons from Other Fields. Environmental Science and Policy 73: 45-51 | LINK

New tools are being deployed to address the continued decline of species at risk of becoming threatened or endangered. One approach receiving increased attention is the habitat exchange, or the use of a market-based, landscape-scale approach to protect or restore habitat in one place to offset impacts elsewhere. Although considerable resources have been devoted to the establishment of habitat exchanges over the past several years, actual implementation of transactions through habitat exchanges have been limited. As we argue here, important lessons have been slow to translate to habitat exchanges from other planning arenas. We briefly outline how the decision sciences, particularly structured decision making, and other planning processes − such as those governing electricity infrastructure development − can provide examples to facilitate the use of habitat exchanges as a viable and scalable conservation tool. We emphasize the challenge of translating theory to application, and note the importance of cross-fertilization of knowledge and experience across traditional disciplinary bounds.