Estimation of Efficiency of Processing Soil Samples for Pesticide Residues Analysis

The efficiency of four sample processing methods was tested with eight different types of soils representing the major proportion of cultivated soils. The principle of sampling constant was applied for characterizing the efficiency of the procedures and testing the well-mixed status of the prepared soil. The test material was 14C-labeled atrazine that enabled keeping the random error of analyses ≤ about 1%. Adding water to the soil proved to be the most efficient and generally applicable procedure resulting in about 6% relative sample processing uncertainty for 20 g test portions. The expected error is inversely proportional to the mass of test portion. Smashing and manual mixing of soil resulted in about four times higher uncertainty than mixing with water. Grinding of soil is applicable for dry soils only, but the test procedure applied was not suitable for estimating a typical uncertainty of processing dry soil samples. Adding dry ice did not improve the efficiency of sample processing.     

Information Disclosure Requirements and the Effect of Soil Contamination on Property Values

This paper extends previous research assessing the effects of environmental pollution on property values, and the specific issue of information disclosure requirements on future real estate transactions. Given that various information disclosure requirements were imposed in most US states during the 1990s, it is important to begin to understand their anticipated effects. Using a case of soil contamination in Corpus Christi, TX, USA, this paper applies the contingent valuation method using telephone survey data to investigate the effect of a split-sample information disclosure treatment concerning soil contamination on the willingness to pay of potential home buyers. The authors apply a mixture modelling approach to better explain the effect of the information disclosure requirement.     

Willingness to pay for safe drinking water: Evidence from Parral, Mexico

A referendum-format contingent valuation (CV) survey is used to elicit household willingness to pay responses for safe and reliable drinking water in Parral, Mexico. Households currently adopt a variety of averting and private investment choices (e.g., bottled water consumption, home-based water treatment, and installation of water storage facilities) to adapt to the existing water supply system. These revealed behaviors indicate the latent demand for safer and more reliable water services, which is corroborated by the CV survey evidence. Validity findings include significant scope sensitivity in WTP for water services. Further, results indicate that households are willing to pay from 1.8% to 7.55% of reported household income above their current water bill for safe and reliable drinking water services, depending upon the assumptions about response uncertainty.     

Balancing Army and Endangered Species Concerns: Green vs. Green

A number of endangered, threatened, or at-risk species have been identified on US Army training bases. Before further training is restricted or curtailed under provisions of the US Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Army can explore available proactive options for providing habitat protection and mitigation. This paper investigates the possibility of an Army habitat acquisition program to acquire (by lease or purchase) buffer zones of at-risk species' habitat around its bases and away from training. To identify the most cost-effective manner for acquiring habitat, auction market experiments are utilized for analyzing program design. Laboratory auction experiments provide a powerful and low-cost vehicle for investigating ex ante program design issues. We find the discriminative, as opposed to a uniform price, auction with a minimum quantity requirement to be the least-cost mechanism.     

Determinants of National Fire Plan Fuels Treatment Expenditures: A Revealed Preference Analysis for Northern New Mexico

The accumulation of fire fuels in forests throughout the world contributes significantly to the severity of wildfires. To combat the threat of wildfire, especially in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), US federal land management agencies have implemented a number of forest restoration and wildfire risk reduction programs. In the spirit of revealed preference analyses, the objective of this study is to investigate the pattern and determinants of National Fire Plan (NFP) expenditures for fuel reduction treatments in northern New Mexico (USA). Estimation results from a set of Generalized Estimating Equations models are mixed with respect to risk reduction hypotheses, and also raise issues regarding how risk reduction should be defined for a region characterized by both pockets of urban sprawl into the WUI and large areas of chronic rural poverty. Program preferences for project funding under the federal Collaborative Forest Restoration Program in New Mexico are shown to be distinctly different (e.g., exhibiting greater concern for social equity) than for other NFP-funded projects.     

Using Canonical Correlation Analysis to Identify Environmental Attitude Groups: Considerations for National Forest Planning in the Southwestern U.S.

As public land management agencies pursue region-specific resource management plans, with meaningful consideration of public attitudes and values, there is a need to characterize the complex mix of environmental attitudes in a diverse population. The contribution of this investigation is to make use of a unique household, mail/internet survey data set collected in 2007 in the Southwestern United States (Region 3 of the U.S. Forest Service). With over 5,800 survey responses to a set of 25 Public Land Value statements, canonical correlation analysis is able to identify 7 statistically distinct environmental attitudinal groups. We also examine the effect of expected changes in regional demographics on overall environmental attitudes, which may help guide in the development of socially acceptable long-term forest management policies. Results show significant support for conservationist management policies and passive environmental values, as well as a greater role for stakeholder groups in generating consensus for current and future forest management policies.