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A Market-Based Approach For Valuing Ecosystem Services On Coastal Properties, Michelle A. Savolainen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

As part of ongoing efforts to assess ecosystem services provided by wetlands, this research focuses on estimating the private monetary value of wetland services to residential property owners in Louisiana and Alabama using a hedonic price model. Understanding that tradeoffs must be made with limited resources, valuing ecosystem services is important for policy and decision making purposes, such as determining how much public and private financial resources should be put towards wetland maintenance and restoration. Data on property transactions, wetland coverage, and built infrastructure were collected for the analysis. Based on theory and results from a Box-Cox model, the log-linear …