PROSPECTUS:
Maximizing protection of ecological, agricultural and community values at the rural-urban fringe
Research at
Updated
Rapid land use change and loss of agricultural, wildlife habitat, and open space is causing increased conflict at the rural-urban fringe. Although we have a general understanding of the extent and trends of these changes, we have limited understanding of the protected areas that exist on private land, the resource values that are protected, and the context provided by adjacent land use and public lands. To address these shortcomings, we are examining the land use patterns that are emerging at the rural-urban fringe to determine how these patterns affect the protection of ecological, agricultural, and community resources in rural areas. Also, we are examining how emerging land use tools (especially cluster development) could be used to maximize protection of rural resource values.
There
are four main components of our project, described below. First, we are
developing a typology of protected areas that examines the values protected,
benefits provided, and easement mechanism. Second, based on the typology, we
will identify a number of case study areas, each of which contains a variety of
development, land use, and protected area configurations. Third, we are
conducting an economic analysis that will identify economic costs and benefits
associated with different types of land use. Fourth, for these
Assessment of Conservation Easements
While
conservation easements are widely touted as an effective way to advance
conservation values on private land, almost no studies have looked at the
characteristics of existing easements, summarized what types of land and
resources are being conserved, or provided a description of the institutional
arrangements involved in creating or holding easements. Merenlender,
Huntsinger, Guther and
Fairfax (2004) were unable to find any
state-level or county data that presents basic organized information about
existing easements, such as location, ownership, ecological type, proximity to
and/or connectivity with other protected lands or the ecological and community
values provided by easements. Furthermore, there is very limited available
information on what motivates landowners to participate in easement programs (Rilla 2002; Sokolow & Rilla 2002). Without answers to a more comprehensive set of
questions about the characteristics of the easements being created and some
analysis of the benefits they are producing, future investments of public and
private money in easements may not be well informed and easements may be poorly
designed (Wright, 1998).
We
intend to use a suite of studies to do a comprehensive analysis of the easements
in Larimer County Colorado (a rapidly growing Front
Range county where a variety of private and public land conservation
initiatives are underway) that will enable us to: a) create a typology of
easements, b) assess the benefits they provide, c) learn more about landowner
motivations d) better understand the institutional arrangements being used for
land conservation, and e) develop a viability index for assessing the
effectiveness of different types of conservation easements and related
mechanisms. We will provide a prototype data base and recommendations that can
be used at the county level to track easements, their characteristics and
effectiveness. Such a data base does not currently exist and information about
easements is scattered among entities such as the state and federal land
management programs, the
Economic
Using
the identified case study areas, the economic assessment will focus on two
aspects. First, different land use
options (e.g.,
clustered housing versus
dispersed housing) tend to involve different infrastructure and public service
costs (utility mains, road maintenance, fire control, etc.) and the study will
develop comparative cost assessments based on technical specifications and unit
resource prices. Second, different land use options tend to generate different levels
of private and public environmental amenity values to each landowner and to neighbors. Using a hybrid of hedonic and stated preference
methods, the analysis will estimate the differential impacts of each land use
option on home values.
Landscape analysis
We are conducting two spatial analyses of protected areas. First, we will examine at a broad-scale (e.g., county) the overall patterns of protected areas. Second, for each of our study areas (finer-scale) we will examine the land use patterns and compute spatial metrics that will be used to assess patterns of development, the extent, location, and adjacency/contiguity of protected areas.
Anticipated products
These four efforts will provide the basis from which we will develop three products. First, we will develop a handbook that contains guidelines that will inform local government land use decision processes, rural land owners themselves, and agency and non-profit organizations about which approaches, practices, and policies maximize the protection of rural land resources and the ecological agricultural and community values they produce. We are anticipating that we will develop metrics that can be used to provide a “scorecard” that provides status and trends. These will include numerous case studies to illustrate our findings. Second, we will develop a workshop to be offered at a regional or national conference, based on these materials to discuss the challenges with interested participants. Third, we will develop GIS-based tools to assist communities in using the methodologies and techniques developed during the course of our research.