Rebecca Moore

 

Assistant Professor, Natural Resource Economics

Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources

University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602

RMoore@warnell.uga.edu

 

 

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The best part about being an economist is that you have a skill set that is useful and important in a lot of different settings.  We are surrounded by economics. 

Economics is the same whether you're talking about managing land use, protecting endangered species, or reducing water pollution.  So as an economist, you get to work on a wide range of resources, rather than just water or plants or wildlife.  For example, in my research I've looked at:

  • Water quality and nutrient runoff

  • Whooping crane reintroduction

  • Hemlock trees and Hemlock Wooly Adelgid, and exotic pest

  • Aquatic invasive plants like Eurasian milfoil

  • Organic agriculture

  • Ecosystem services on private forest land

Generally, my research sorts into two overlapping categories:  1) Improving the methods used to estimate benefits and costs of environmental goods and services; and 2) Integrating economic models with methods from the natural sciences to improve our understanding of how humans and the environment interact.  Descriptions these categories are below.

1)  Estimating the value of environmental goods and services

 

Non-market goods are not bought and sold in a market place.  Many decisions involve tradeoffs between market and non-market goods.  For example, timber vs. bird habitat, irrigation water vs. recreational boating, or jobs at a new factory vs. reduced air quality from the smokestack.  To make good decisions we must be able to estimate the value of non-market goods.  There are several common methods for doing this, each with advantages and disadvantages.  With current projects I am:

  • Identifying public preferences for Hemlock protection and treatment of the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid

  • Estimating the benefits of residential trees at different spatial scales.

  • Valuing simultaneous changes in multiple ecosystem services, in the context of non-timber related ecosystem services provided by Georgia's forest resources.

  • Using respondent uncertainty to better relate contingent valuation and actual valuation data while estimating the benefits of a Whooping Crane Reintroduction project.

  • Exploring how a spatially complex environmental improvement is perceived by the public and how valuation techniques can be designed to account for this spatial complexity, with a current focus on improved water clarity due to decreased non-point source pollution in Green Bay, WI. 

  • Considering the role of attitudinal information and self-reported behavior data to identify heterogeneous preferences for competing ecosystem services. 

2)  Integrating economics and ecology

 

Natural resource problems involve both a natural and social system and in most (perhaps all) cases, these systems cannot be separated.  Unfortunately, the historical divide between fields presents a challenge to fully integrating the knowledge and tools of various problems into the decision-making process.  I tackle this challenge in both my teaching and research objectives.  Several of the courses I teach are designed to introduce students in natural science disciplines to a basic understanding of how social systems relate to the natural resource problems they will someday research or manage.  On the research side, I work with collaborators from many disciplines to improve the way economic and ecological models and tools are integrated.  Some of the applications I am currently working on include:

  • Using economics and natural science to design and implement efficient water permit trading programs and nutrient trading programs at the watershed level.

  • Using large scale stochastic dynamic programming models to describe and evaluate natural resource management decisions related to controlling aquatic invasive species.

  • Developing methods and procedures for integrating economic studies that value ecosystem services with physical and ecological studies that predict changes in the production of these ecosystem services in order to better inform decision makers of the true impacts of different natural resource policies.  For example, how will different forest policies and management decisions impact the production of timber, water quality, wildlife habitat, and recreational opportunities in Georgia and how should we value trade-offs in the production of these services?

For a list of recent publications, click here.