Spatially Explicit Ecosystem Service Benefit Transfer for Policy Evaluation: An Integrated Biophysical and Meta-Analytic Approach

The USDA spends over $5 billion annually on conservation programs to enhance ecosystem services that promote agricultural sustainability, often targeting benefits such as water quality and aquatic ecosystem services. While the biophysical impacts of these programs can be estimated using established models, the economic benefits are generally unknown. Addressing this shortcoming requires practical, reliable and cost-effective benefit transfer methods explicitly designed for large-scale ecosystem service valuations (ESVs). Meta-regression models (MRMs) are increasingly used in benefit transfers, and these models can be specified to link directly to biophysical models that predict policy outcomes. Despite this promise, further methodological advances are required if MRMs are to be used widely for large-scale (ESVs). This project will develop and evaluate an integrated biophysical and meta-analytic benefit transfer model designed to estimate spatially explicit ecosystem service benefits from large-scale agricultural conservation policies, while addressing limitations of prior benefit transfer approaches. The new approach will be demonstrated using case studies of conservation programs that enhance aquatic ecosystems.