With several students and colleagues, I am working on projects that concern the value of open space conservation and identifying characteristics of land parcels that are of highest value to the public’s interest in open space preservation. This work has an interdisciplinary component, since we are also integrating economics work on values and public preferences with insights from conservation biology concerning how to maintain ecosystem functions and biodiversity.

I am also interested in projects relating to how to create policies and incentives for land conservation. A primary focus of my next several years will be on the development of the concept of environmental impact fees on development. This involves adapting impact fees that many communities currently used to recover the costs that new development creates due to demand for more municipal infrastructure (schools, roads, public safety services). My work is to identify ways to estimate economically and legally defensible impact fees that encourage conservation of critical lands and development of less sensitive lands.

We also have recent projects and research proposals concerning methods by which town planners can identify the types of residential development that is most consistent with the preferences of current residents. Future projects will look more explicitly at economic and ecological tradeoffs implicit in a choice among development plans for any particular parcel (say a 200 acre development).