Measuring and Incorporating Stakeholder Values into River Restoration Decisions: A Socio-economic Analysis

PI: Lynne Lewis, Bates College 

The Need

Environmental restoration has been a growth industry in this country for several decades. Yet watershed scale restoration efforts are still rare and our understanding of how large-scale restoration benefits local communities remains limited. The Penobscot River Restoration Project, a river-scale restoration effort focused on removal and decommissioning of the three lowest dams on the Penobscot, offers an opportunity to study how local communities value rivers and their restoration.

Economic assessments of the socio-economic impacts of dam removal hinge on comparisons of welfare with and without the dams, which requires understanding of how humans value the local environment, and in particular, the Penobscot River , both with and without them. This project addresses these questions and will inform future river restoration decisions on the Penobscot, elsewhere in Maine and nationwide.

The project advances knowledge of potential river restoration impacts and addresses widely recognized needs for better socio-economic evaluation of aquatic restoration projects. Analysis of the interactions among river characteristics and residential property values will provide one measure of societal values associated with these river characteristics. Understanding of these interactions may allow forecasts of future river characteristics (after restoration) to be linked to changes in property values. The responses of property-owners to surveys will provide a second means of understanding past and potential future societal values of river characteristics.

Program Overview & Objectives

This research builds on previous work on the economic values associated with the Kennebec and Penobscot Rivers . In those studies, data were collected for over 14,000 residential home sales that occurred during from 1997 to 2006 and used to examine the relationship between proximity to each river and real estate values.

This project utilizes geographic information systems (GIS), survey research methods, hedonic property value methods, and spatial statistics and modeling approaches. An innovative component of the project is the surveying of property owners to both improve the independent variables used in the hedonic property value analysis and to assemble baseline data of how property owners interact with the river and view future river restoration efforts. By coupling data on the attitudes of residents with market data, we will gain insight into the underlying mechanisms that link river characteristics to property values. A mechanistic understanding of these interactions will improve our ability to forecast the effects of dam removal and river restoration on local communities.

Project Plan

A survey will be used to ask residents of townships along the Penobscot about their assessment of different characteristics of location when they purchased their home, as well as their attitudes towards the River. We will integrate the survey data with existing data on real estate transaction, and link individual expressions of preferences and attitudes with market data. For example, we will ask homeowners if proximity to the river played a role in the decision to purchase their homes; whether they think the river positively or negatively affects the value of their property; and how they think removal of a dam might affect the value of their property.

 

Contact Info
Lynne Lewis
Department of Economics
Bates College
Lewiston , ME 04340

(207) 786-6089