Published January 17, 2008
Worldwide coastal ecosystems and habitats will continue to decline unless economists and ecologists work together to improve current methods to assess coastal ecosystem benefits, according to an article today in the global scientific journal, Science.
Edward B. Barbier, the John S. Bugas Professor of Economics in the University of Wyoming
College of Business Department of Economics and Finance, says recent scientific studies
have documented the alarming decline in worldwide coastal ecosystems and habitats.
Barbier is the lead author among 15 others whose research on the subject ("Coastal
ecosystem-based management with non-linear ecological functions and values"), appears
in the weekly publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Barbier says recent research indicates that global coastal population densities are
nearly three times those of inland areas and are rapidly rising. As coastal and marine
habitats come under more pressure from human exploitation, economists, ecologists
and other scientists need to collaborate to improve the understanding of the myriad
"benefits" lost through such overuse to better inform coastal and marine management
decisions, he says.
"The long-term sustainability of these populations depends upon coastal ecosystems
and the services they provide, such as storm buffering, fisheries production and enhanced
water quality," he adds. "To arrest coastal habitat decline, concerned international
organizations and scientists are calling for a new approach."
He says ecosystem-based management (EBM) is a way to reconcile the decline in vital
coastal ecosystem services with continuing human development pressures. Barbier and
his colleagues endorse the general need for coastal EBM, but their research indicates
that this strategy is "likely to fail" unless others, such as economists and ecologists,
work together.
"Too often, poor ecological data lead to inaccurate valuation of these benefits, resulting
frequently in an ‘all or none' choice of either preserving or converting all coastal
habitats to human use," Barbier says. "This ‘all or none' outcome is at odds with
EBM strategies, which are trying to find acceptable compromises between conservation
and development."
To illustrate the importance of this dilemma, Barbier and his team focus on the key
ecosystem service of coastal wetlands acting as "natural barriers" to the economic
damages caused by frequent coastal storm events. In recent years, this critical "storm
prevention" service of coastal habits -- such as mangroves and marshlands -- has received
considerable attention by the massive changes inflicted by events such as the December
2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the August 2005 Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast
and the November 2007 Cyclone Sidr in coastal Bangladesh.
From field studies of mangroves, salt marshes, seagrass beds, near shore coral reefs,
and sand dunes, the study shows that the ability of these critical habitat to "attenuate"
or break up, incoming storm surges and waves declines considerably as more habitat
is lost.
Barbier's research in Thailand demonstrates how mangroves successfully protect coastal
regions.
"We show that by valuing correctly this ‘natural barrier' service, the best land use
is neither complete conversion of the mangroves to an alternative use, such as commercial
shrimp aquaculture, nor preservation of all the mangrove forest," he says. "Instead,
the best coastal management policy is a mix of these development and conservation
options. In fact, the outcome from our Thailand mangrove valuation example corresponds
to ‘best practice' guidelines for mangrove management in Asia, which recommend that
ideal mangrove-pond ratios should not exceed 20 percent of the habitat area converted
to ponds."
The Thailand mangrove study illustrates that the way in which ecological and economic
analysis is combined to estimate the values of various ecosystem services can have
a large impact on coastal EBM outcomes.
"Researchers need to be aware how incorrect assumptions underlying ecological and
economic analysis might inadvertently force EBM decision-making into a simple ‘all
or none' choice," Barbier says. "If the analysis is done correctly, however, then
the right balance between development and conservation objectives can be achieved
in the world's heavily used coastal areas."
This is the third time within a year that Barbier's research work on coastal ecosystems
has been published in Science. Previous work included a study showing how the loss
of biodiversity is reducing the ocean's ability to produce seafood, and every species
lost causes a faster unraveling of the overall ecosystem. Barbier was part of that
study which received worldwide attention, including a recent cover story in Time magazine.
Rob Godby, UW Department of Economics and Finance chairman, says for any UW researcher,
such as Barbier, to publish three articles in Science in a year's time is highly unusual
and possibly unprecedented. He adds that the fact that a UW economist has accomplished
this suggests that an important shift may be occurring within the global scientific
community.
Finding solutions to complex environmental management problems -- from global warming
to coastal and marine degradation to developing new energy resources -- requires collaboration
among ecologists, economists and other natural scientists, Barbier says.
"In other words, both the policy making community and academic researchers want to
see such collaboration yield results -- and fast," he says. "My own research has focused
on this interface between ecology and economics. UW researchers are very much aware
of this ‘paradigm' shift in the global scientific community and in recent years have
been trying to capitalize on it."
He adds that collaboration among UW disciplines has aided his research. Ruckelshaus
Institute of Environment and Natural Resources Director Harold Bergman has stressed
the need for collaborative scientific efforts, particularly with regard to critical
environmental problems faced in Wyoming and the West, Barbier says. Bill Gern, UW
vice president for research and economic development, has actively supported the Department
of Economics and Finance's efforts to recruit economists with the interest and research
expertise to collaborate with ecologists, he adds.
Additionally, UW Botany Professor Steve Jackson invited Barbier on to the Internal
Advisory Committee of the NFS EPSCoR (National Science Foundation's Experimental Program
to Stimulate Competitive Research) Ecology Program to expand ecology and economics
collaboration at UW.
"The new School of Energy Resources is built on the basis of interdisciplinary research
-- again, we need such collaborative research across the physical, economic and natural
sciences to find new and sustainable solutions to exploiting Wyoming's energy resources,"
he adds.
The past few years Barbier has collaborated with ecologists and other economists on
a major National Academy of Sciences report, two projects funded by the National Center
of Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and several joint research projects.
He also served on scientific advisory boards, including as an associate editor of
the Ecology Society of America's journal, Frontiers in Ecology and Environment. His
three Science articles are direct results of the two NCEAS project collaborations.