United States EPA Science Advisory EPA-SAB-EC-WKSP-01-001
Environmental Board (1400A) September 2001
Protection Agency Washington DC www.epa.gov/sab
&EPA UNDERSTANDING PUBLIC
VALUES AND ATTITUDES
RELATED TO ECOLOGICAL
RISK MANAGEMENT: AN
SAB WORKSHOP REPORT
OF AN EPA/SAB WORKSHOP
PREPARED BY THE EPA SCIENCE
ADVISORY BOARD
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September 19, 2001
MEMORANDUM:
SUBJECT: Understanding Public Values and Attitudes Related to Ecological Risk
Management: An SAB Workshop Report of an EPA/SAB Workshop (EPA-SAB-
EC-WKSP-01-001)
FROM: Donald G. Barnes, Staff Director /Signed/
EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB)
TO: The Honorable Christine Todd Whitman, Administrator
Environmental Protection Agency
I have attached Understanding Public Values and Attitudes Related to Ecological Risk
Management: An SAB Workshop Report of an EPA/SAB Workshop. The Report documents a
public workshop that occurred on May 23-24, 2001 in Washington, DC, and that was supported
by SAB and several EPA offices, specifically: the Office of Air and Radiation; the National
Center for Environmental Economics in the Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation; the
Office of Research and Development; and the Office of Water.
This Workshop Report is the first of "a new product line" of outputs from the EPA
Science Advisory Board (SAB). Historically, the SAB has generated Reports, Advisories,
Commentaries, and Notifications of Consultations. All but the last constitute formal advice to
the Agency which is transmitted after public review by one of the formally chartered Federal
Advisory Committees that are a part of the SAB complex; i.e., the Executive Committee of the
SAB, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, and the Advisory Council on Clean Air
Compliance Analysis.
By way of contrast, an SAB Workshop Report simply captures the discussion that took
place in a workshop setting of experts who were convened to discuss important technical issues
associated with a particular problem confronting the Agency and the country. The Workshop
Report does not represent an SAB consensus position nor does it convey any formal SAB advice,
per se. It is simply a record of a high-level encounter of technically qualified people whose
comments should inform the Agency as it deals with the issues under discussion. No formal
response to the SAB is expected.
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The concept of the SAB Workshop emerged from the 1997 Strategic Planning Retreat of
the SAB Executive Committee at which the members declared their intention to"[t]ake on a
catalytic role in conducting workshops on important scientific issues. In addition to generating
advisories, commentaries, consultations, and reviews, the SAB will work with the Agency,
professional societies, or others to insure that open workshops are conducted to address
important scientific issues. Such workshops may involve outside experts in a rapidly developing
field... or bring together various groups inside and outside of EPA around a common issue..."
As detailed in the attached report, the Ecological Risk Management Workshop engaged a
broad spectrum of federal, state, and local experts and decision makers on an issue that has
proven to be complex for all managers addressing ecological risk issues. In addition to increased
understanding and awareness of the issue among the roughly 100 participants, the Workshop has
already led to followup interactions between local leaders and researchers, plus resources
materials that have contributed to a separate, formal SAB report.
The Science Advisory Board is interested in your reactions to the SAB Workshop
concept and to suggestions for topics for future Workshops.
Attachment
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NOTICE
This report has been written as part of the activities of the EPA Science Advisory Board,
a public advisory group providing extramural scientific information and advice to the
Administrator and other officials of the Environmental Protection Agency. The Board is
structured to provide balanced, expert assessment of scientific matters related to problems facing
the Agency. This report has not been reviewed for approval by the Agency and, hence, the
contents of this report do not necessarily represent the views and policies of the Environmental
Protection Agency, nor of other agencies in the Executive Branch of the Federal government, nor
does mention of trade names or commercial products constitute a recommendation for use.
Distribution and Availability: This EPA Science Advisory Board report is provided to the EPA
Administrator, senior Agency management, appropriate program staff, interested members of the
public, and is posted on the SAB website (www.epa.gov/sab). Information on its availability is
also provided in the SAB's monthly newsletter (Happenings at the Science Advisory Board).
Additional copies and further information are available from the SAB Staff [US EPA Science
Advisory Board (1400A), 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20460-0001; 202-
564-4533].
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
A. INTRODUCTION 1
B. WORKSHOP CHAIR'S "SENSE OF THE MEETING" SUMMARY
Prepared by the Workshop Chair, Baruch Fischhoff 4
B.I. Definitions 4
B.2. Environmental Science 4
B.3. The Science of Assessing Public Values 5
B.4. Policy Makers 5
B.5. Stakeholders 6
B.6. Research Management 6
B.7. Research Needs (partial list) 7
C. THE CHALLENGE OF ECOLOGICAL VALUATION
Prepared by Milton Russell 9
D. EXECUTIVE SUMMARIES OF FOUR RESEARCH PLANS
COMMISSIONED BY EPA FOR THE VALUES WORKSHOP 13
D. 1. Tampa Bay NEP Research Plan: A Decision Science Perspective on
Understanding Public Values and Attitudes Related to Ecological Risk Management,
Prepared by Robin Gregory 13
D.2. Tampa Bay Estuary Program Values Assessment: Charting Publicly Preferred Passages,
Prepared by Terry C. Daniel and Michael J. Meitner 15
D.3. Understanding Public Values and Attitudes Related to Ecological Risk Management,
Prepared by James J. Opaluch 16
D.4. The Effect of Values and Cultural Models on Policy: An Anthropological
Approach to Environmental Policy in Tampa Bay, prepared by Douglas W. Christel,
Dr. Willett Kempton, and Jennifer Harris 18
APPENDICES [Available on the SAB website (www. epa. gov/sab^ as part of this Workshop Report]
Appendix A Agenda, SAB/EPA Workshop on "Understanding Public Values and Attitudes Related
to Ecological Risk Management," May 23-24, 2001
Appendix B List of Panel Members
Appendix C "Tampa Bay Estuary Program" Presentation by Holly Greening
Appendix D Questions for Risk Managers
Appendix E Sample Statement of Work Used by EPA to Commission Research Plan
Appendix F Tampa Bay NEP Research Plan: A Decision Science Perspective on Understanding
Public Values and Attitudes Related to Ecological Risk Management, Prepared by
Robin Gregory (Full Text)
Appendix G Tampa Bay Estuary Program Values Assessment: Charting Publicly Preferred
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Passages, Prepared by Terry C. Daniel and Michael J. Meitner (Full Text)
Appendix H Understanding Public Values and Attitudes Related to Ecological Risk Management,
Prepared by James J. Opaluch (Full Text)
Appendix I The Effect of Values and Cultural Models on Policy: An Anthropological Approach to
Environmental Policy in Tampa Bay, prepared by Douglas W. Christel, Dr. Willett
Kempton, and Jennifer Harris (Full Text)
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A. INTRODUCTION
EPA and the Science Advisory Board co-sponsored an EPA/SAB workshop on May 23-24,
2001 entitled Understanding Public Values and Attitudes Related to Ecological Risk
Management. The workshop had the goal of bringing ecological risk assessment, economic benefits
assessment, and other social science research together to address a real environmental problem, air
deposition of nitrogen in Tampa Bay Estuary. The workshop was not an advisory committee meeting,
organized with the purpose of providing advice to the Agency. Instead, it was a public workshop
designed to highlight and discuss in a public forum approaches that could supplement, complement, or
expand current economic methods for characterizing benefits from protecting ecological resources. The
workshop was the result of collaborative planning across the Agency. Sponsors included the Office of
Air and Radiation; the National Center for Environmental Economics in the Office of Policy, Economics
and Innovation; the Office of Research and Development, the Office of Water; and the Office of the
Science Advisory Board.
The project was sparked by the work of the SAB's Valuation Subcommittee for the Integrated
Risk Project. The workshop implemented a suggestion in the Board's report. Toward Integrated
Environmental Decision Making (EPA-SAB-EC-00-011), to create a forum for open discussion on
the topic of natural resource valuation. The workshop focused on a specific place, with specific
ecological risk management problems. It provided an opportunity for in-depth discussion of alternative
research strategies for understanding why people value protecting water resources in Tampa Bay
against nitrogen deposition, and how much they value them. The conversation that occurred among
researchers; state, federal, and local risk managers; and a diverse audience provided a springboard for
discussion of how the Agency might generally expand its approaches for eliciting, characterizing and
understanding public values.
The workshop focused on practical discussions to transcend "What We Have" currently in
EPA's analytical toolbox for understanding "Forming, Eliciting & Considering Public Values." The
SAB Report, Toward Integrated Environmental Decision Making, noted current problems in the
following areas: (1) difficulty translating changes in ecological conditions into monetary units; (2)
difficulty measuring values placed on keeping ecosystems viable ("existence values")-public often does
not have knowledge about ecological impacts; (3) ecological services not reflected well in markets; and
(4) difficulty measuring values such as equity and sustainability. The workshop aimed to shift the
discussion to seek "What We Need," namely: (1) better methods to estimate value the public places on
protecting ecological conditions; (2) better methods to incorporate values and preferences into
decision-making; and (3) more open dialogue among scientists and between scientists and decision
makers. The specific contribution of the workshop was to explore how social sciences have been and
could be applied to ecological risk management Dr. Milton Russell provided a historical perspective in
his presentation at the workshop. His remarks are included as Section B of this report.
The Tampa Bay Estuary Program was an active partner in the effort, since air deposition of
nitrogen is the next frontier for that program, which has a well-articulated assessment of the ecological
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damages associated with nitrogen pollution. The Bay is Florida's largest open water estuary and has
successfully addressed nitrogen pollution from more traditional sources, such as sewage treatment
plans. Benthic organisms, corals, waterfowl, and seagrasses have returned to the Bay. The Tampa
Bay Estuary Program has a history of voluntary partnerships to meet environmental goals, demonstrated
by its Tampa Bay Estuary's Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan; Partnership
for Progress, The Tampa Bay Nitrogen Management Consortium Management Plan, and the
partners' agreement on an environmental goal and an indicator of concern—restoring seagrasses to
1950's levels.
The Bay Program offered its experience as a focus for the workshop, since new ecological risk
management issues were appearing for the Bay Program and new research tools from the social
sciences might be helpful. In the next 15 years, the Bay Program expects population in the Bay area to
grow by 600,000. New sources of nitrogen pollution, the Bay's biggest problem, are air pollution from
utilities, other industries and automobiles and runoff from lawns, streets and parking lots. These sources
of pollution are expected to increase. The Tampa Bay Nitrogen Management Consortium estimated
that large reductions in atmospheric deposition of nitrogen will be necessary if the Tampa Bay Estuary
Program is to meet its nitrogen reduction goals. The science surrounding atmospheric deposition and its
ecological effects is relatively new; there is uncertainty about risk assessment estimates; and less
experience among Tampa Bay partners in dealing with controlling air emission than with land-based,
stationary sources. Ms. Holly Greening, Senior Scientist from Tampa Bay Estuary Program, provided
an introduction to risk assessment and risk management questions for the workshop participants. Her
presentation is included as Appendix C of this report.
The Tampa Bay Estuary Program framed specific risk management questions, relevant to
decisions to be made by federal, state and local governments concerning air deposition of nitrogen.
EPA provided those questions to social science researchers, selected through a competitive process.
The challenge to each of the researchers was to develop a proposed research plan that would detail
methods for collecting, analyzing and interpreting social science data that would assist managers in
addressing risk management questions at Tampa, where the nature, depth and breadth of public
support for addressing air deposition issues are an issue. The researchers were asked to describe how
they would provide information that would help managers make decisions, communicate decisions, and
justify decisions related to protecting ecological resources.
The centerpiece of the Workshop were the presentations from researchers from four different
social science traditions. The Science Advisory Board managed a competitive process that awarded
contracts to four senior social scientists to prepare the research plans and participate in the workshop.
(See Appendix E for a sample Statement of Work for one of the social scientists, describing in detail
the tasks required for the research plan, including the specific risk management questions from Tampa
Bay to be addressed.) EPA made awards to: Dr. Terry Daniel, Department of Psychology, University
of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona; Dr. Robin Gregory, Decision Research, North Vancouver, British
Columbia, Canada; Dr. Willett Kempton, College of Marine Studies, University of Delaware, Newark,
Delaware; and Dr. James Opaluch, Department of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics,
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University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island. The full text of the Proposed Research Plans
appears as Appendices F through I of this workshop report. The Executive Summaries for the
Research Plans appear in Section 4 of the Report.
A panel of risk managers participated in the workshop, representing a diverse group of senior
managers from EPA (Office of Air and Radiation, Office of Water, Office of Research and
Development, Region 4, Office of Policy Economics and Innovation), the State of Florida, and Pinellas
County, one of the partners in the Tampa Bay Estuary Managers. (The list of panel members appears
in Appendix B.) The managers discussed how the four proposed research plans, if funded, could
potentially help them make decisions, communicate decisions, and justify decisions related to protecting
ecological resources in Tampa or in other places where ecological resource protection is an issue.
They also were asked to discuss: (1) What opportunities do the approaches offer that current strategies
for understanding values and attitudes do not?; (2) What follow-up actions would be desirable - either
in the area of risk management or research?; and (3) What other kinds of problems do you think would
benefit from the kinds of approaches described? The full text of the questions for panelists appear in
Appendix D.
The Chair of the Workshop, Dr. Baruch Fischhoff, prepared a "Sense of the Meeting
Summary" (Section A of the report), which captured major points from the panel discussion.
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B. WORKSHOP CHAIR'S "SENSE OF THE MEETING" SUMMARY
Prepared by the Workshop Chair, Baruch Fischhoff1
B.I. Definitions.
The term "value" has multiple interpretations, which were identified, but not resolved, at the
workshop. At the one extreme, the term refers to fundamental predispositions, moral precepts, and
ethical standards. At the other extreme, it refers to the articulation of such basic values in specific
contexts, reflecting preferences among alternative conditions. Moreover, people's "values" might be
taken as they are, when valuation questions arise, or "constructed" through a process affording
individuals an opportunity to learn about the issues and their feelings toward them. "Attitudes" typically
are attached to focal objects, although without explicit consideration of alternatives (and the tradeoffs
implied by choices among them).
As noted below, choosing the kind of values pertinent to a specific context is a critical aspect of
designing an assessment process. Using common terminology is essential to effective collaboration,
across disciplines as well as between professionals and practitioners. Rather than adopting any one
discipline's conventions, this summary uses "value" for any evaluation derived by questioning individuals.
B.2. Environmental Science
a) Well-informed evaluations require accurate summaries of the science about the
environmental systems involved, including the surrounding uncertainties and controversies.
b) The research agenda for that science should be sensitive to policy concerns, so that it
focuses on the environmental science needed to inform public choices. Otherwise, research
resources may not be efficiently allocated.
c) The environmental sciences need to include the social sciences. The social sciences are
essential for predicting human demands on the environment and responses to interventions, for
estimating economic impacts, for clarifying human dependence on environmental services and
integrity, for eliciting expert judgment in policy-relevant forms, and for assessing public
preferences among alternative policies.
d) Ensuring public understanding of environmental issues requires properly designed and
empirically evaluated communication programs.
e) That communication should be proactive, so that authoritative information is in citizens hands
as issues develop (and before misinformation shapes their beliefs).
University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
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B.3. The Science of Assessing Public Values
a) Research into public values and attitudes should meet the methodological standards of the
appropriate social science disciplines (even if its subject matter is too applied to merit
publication in theoretically oriented academic journals).
b) The research should be problem, rather than discipline driven. That will often require
employing multiple methods, combining the strengths of different approaches.
c) When an evaluation question is posed to citizens, it is critical that it be interpreted as
intended. Ensuring such comprehension requires proper preparatory work and empirical
demonstration of success. Otherwise, citizens' responses may not be interpreted as they
intended.
d) Researchers (here, as elsewhere) should be candid about the limits to their research.
Claims of validity should reflect the basic research literature and direct demonstrations (i.e.,
showing the reliability of measures, their sensitivity to relevant changes in circumstances, and
their insensitivity to irrelevant changes).
e) The resources invested in research should fit its contribution to the policy-making process.
It is possible to spend too much and too little, as well as to misallocate resources between
understanding environmental issues and evaluating them.
B.4. Policy Makers
a) Those who commission assessments of values and attitudes need to specify the kind of
research that they want, helped by researchers who can clarify the methods that are available.
Specification issues include:
1) Who are the relevant stakeholders, whose values or attitudes should be elicited?
2) How well informed should participants be, regarding the environmental science? Is
their current level of understanding appropriate (in order to anticipate initial citizen
responses to a topic) or should they be informed about the critical issues (in order to
represent citizens who have invested in such understanding)?
3) How well informed should participants be, regarding alternative value perspectives?
Should they respond with whatever values and attitudes come to mind or should they
be presented with different views (as might occur through observing a public debate or
reflecting privately over time)?
4) Should participants be encouraged to think of themselves as members of the
community or to respond as individual consumers (or left to resolve their roles by
themselves)?
5) Is the goal of the assessment procedure to produce estimates, needed as inputs to
formal analyses, or to create a process that clarifies values and creates respectful
relationships among participants?
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b) Persuading citizens (either to change their values or to act on those values) needs to be
distinguished from assessing their independently determined values. Both goals can be
legitimate, but require different methods and relationships with citizens.
B.5. Stakeholders
a) Have a role to play in defining the problem being analyzed (lest their concerns be
overlooked - leading to an erosion of trust and misallocation of research resources).
b) Are entitled to effective communication regarding the relevant environmental science and
regulatory issues.
c) May need to be provided with multiple perspectives on the issues, of the sort that would
arise with an intensive public debate.
d) May need multiple channels for receiving information and for providing input, suited to their
habits, resources, and sophistication.
e) Must be seen in the context of their relationship to their community. Participants in a
value-assessment process might help to legitimate its results for other citizens; they might also
become captive of the process, losing contact with others.
B.6. Research Management
a) Policy makers need to provide core support for evaluation research, drawing on multiple
relevant disciplines, so that appropriate methods are available, when managers need them.
These developmental costs could be spread over many applications.
b) Research planning should create methods that, once developed, can be used efficiently in
other contexts. The goal is achieving the maximum legitimate generalizability, at minimum cost.
Four (non-exclusive) possibilities for pursuing this strategy:
1) Intensive demonstration projects that can be copied in other contexts, at reduced
expense. (Further development of the Tampa Bay Estuary example might merit
examination.)
2) Modular method development, creating pieces that can be assembled for new
applications (e.g., ways to communicate environmental science, interactive programs
for simulating the impacts of interventions, data analysis packages, guidelines and
training for moderators).
3) Research into the generalizability of values and attitudes across contexts
(recognizing that, when the assessment process itself is paramount, it needs to be
repeated in each context, with the relevant individuals).
4) Independent case studies of evaluation processes, in order to show how these
experiences could be viewed and improved.
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c) Social scientists capable of adapting scientifically accepted methods to environmental
settings are relatively scarce. That is especially true when the value-assessment process
requires an understanding of environmental science and the difficult evaluation issues that often
arise (e.g., changes occurring over long time periods, surrounded by great uncertainty). Three
(non-exclusive) possibilities for expanding the ranks of qualified scientists:
1) Graduate and post-doctoral training opportunities.
2) Summer workshops for faculty from teaching institutions, interested in working on
evaluation issues in their local communities.
3) Resources for easily adding social scientists to environmental science research
groups where they are currently missing.
B.7. Research Needs (partial list)
a) Communicating the environmental science needed to make informed evaluations:
1) Uncertainty and controversy (e.g., why scientists seem so disputatious, how to
reconcile competing claims in the new media).
2) The social processes of research (e.g., why and how scientists choose - and ignore
- particular topics; how scientists identify and express disagreements; what peer review
means).
3) Large-scale changes, especially the possibility of non-marginal (discontinuous) and
irreversible changes in environmental systems.
4) Prioritizing information needs (so that participants are neither denied relevant facts
nor drowned in irrelevant detail).
b) Helping people to think about the difficult values issues and choices posed by many
environmental processes:
1) How to think about taking gambles with nature.
2) How to avoid paralysis through analysis.
3) How to anticipate their own future sense of loss or accommodation, with negative
environmental changes.
4) How to understand the role of nature in their lives and well-being.
c) Developing better "constructive" value assessment processes (in which participants are
helped to consider and evaluate alternative perspectives):
1) How to provide alternative perspectives in a balanced way.
2) How to integrate monetary and non-monetary concerns.
3) How to frame ecological valuation questions, including existence value.
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d) Combining values derived from expressed preference studies (in which people are asked
about them) and revealed preference studies (in which values are inferred from behavior):
1) How to infer values from (natural or designed) behavioral experiments (e.g.,
providing real-time information about energy consumption to drivers or home owners).
2) How does misunderstanding of environmental and economic issues affect market
behavior?
3) How can econometric procedures be used to extrapolate expressed preferences
from sampled populations to general ones?
e) Understanding the dynamic properties of values:
1) How do they change over time within age cohort, as the result of experience?
2) How do they differ across cohorts (e.g., teens versus adults of different ages)?
3) How should environmental policies accommodate these changes, especially when
considering actions affecting future generations?
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C. THE CHALLENGE OF ECOLOGICAL VALUATION
Prepared by Milton Russell,2
Co-Chair of the Science Advisory Board's Valuation Subcommittee
of the Integrated Risk Project
I am pleased to be here to provide some background and introductory remarks for this
important workshop on meeting the challenge of ecological valuation.
Unfortunately, Al Maki, who was to join me in providing this background, found late last week
that he would not be able to make the journey from Alaska. He has asked that I express his regrets and
to offer his best wishes to the workshop.
I will start by recounting a true (if secondhand) anecdote that encapsulates why we are here
today and why our efforts are so important.
The time was almost two decades ago.
The place was a decision meeting with the President.
The subject was a proposal from EPA to undertake a fairly aggressive program to combat
acid rain.
And the defining moment occurred when David Stockman of OMB framed the issue with the
question: "How many fish are your grandmother worth?" after having asserted that the program would
cost about $6,000 per fish saved.
The President faced a real decision. Acid rain had real, negative ecological consequences. The
acid rain control program would also use up real national resources that would then not be available to
do other things, including achieve health improvements.
To make the decision responsibly in the public interest, it was essential for him to have the
answers to a whole series of questions, these among them:
1. What would be the reductions in emissions of the proposed program?
2. What would be the effect of these reductions on the ecological end points of concern?
3. What would be the costs (in terms of other things people want) of making these
reductions?
2 Senior Fellow, Joint Institute for Energy and Environment, Knoxville, Tennessee; and
Professor Emeritus of Economics, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
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4. And finally, the crux of our workshop today, how much would the American people value
the expected improvements in ecological outcomes that would be bought with their money?
Only if that value were greater than the cost would this be a good deal for the American
people. Only if they thought it was a good deal would the decision be supported.
To close out the anecdote, the EPA answers to these questions, especially the value one, did
not make a persuasive case.
Jumping ahead a half-dozen years, the ensuing one-half billion-dollar National Acid
Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP) research effort did provide more convincing answers to
the first three questions. The political system ultimately decided that the ecological value of taking some
control measures would be worth some costs-leaving to later to decide whether still more controls were
necessary. And that's where the situation lies today-and the value question regarding the benefits from
still tighter controls remains the most troublesome one to answer.
Before the acid rain issue and since, ecological valuation issues have been among the most
vexing problems facing environmental policy makers. They are central to such headline issues today as
global climate change, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, visibility in the Grand Canyon, air
quality in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and our case study, nitrogen deposition in Tampa
Bay.
Not surprisingly, policy makers have often turned to the economics profession for the guidance
they need to make such judgments. Not surprisingly because the question of how to allocate limited
resources to maximize something-in this case public welfare-is at the heart of what economists do.
Valuation of alternative ecological outcomes is one of the components needed in many environmental
decisions.
The economics profession has responded to that challenge by developing a coherent and
rigorous framework for attacking the problem. It has created an ingenious but incomplete bag of tools
for trying to get the data required to exercise that framework. And it has, for the most part, shown a
becoming modesty about its overall success. This leads to the message that strictly economic
approaches can now provide useful inputs into the policies regarding ecological protection, but these
approaches cannot provide the "answer" by themselves.
That brings us to the origin of this workshop and to where Al Maki and I come in.
In 1996 EPA leadership urged the SAB to address the need for improved methods for
measuring ecological benefits. This request was motivated by the widespread view that
economic analysis, as then practiced, tended to undervalue ecological resources and was
especially inadequate in dealing with long term issues and matters of intergenerational equity.
SAB wrapped this request into its ongoing Integrated Risk Project and formed an
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interdisciplinary Valuation Subcommittee to pursue the matter. Al Maki and I were co-chairs of this
Subcommittee.
In my judgment, the key conclusions that resulted from the intense deliberations of the
committee are these, and I quote:
"1. For decision-making purposes in a governmental context, ecological valuation is an
anthropocentric exercise ([that is] people's wishes count; there is no external set of values
waiting to be discovered for application to decision making).
2. The value of anything reflects its contribution toward the achievement of some goal. The
process of valuation cannot be separated from the need to reach agreement on goals.
3. Environmental valuation requires a diverse and interdisciplinary process involving interaction
and deliberation among scientists, decision makers, and other stakeholders to identify goals and
to define endpoints to characterize those goals.
4. Existing economic approaches, broadly considered, are consistent and coherent frameworks
for valuation because they organize a system of trade-offs. However, they are not mechanisms
for producing "the answer" because they may omit trans-economic values that may be
important, may include some elements that are difficult or impossible to estimate, and may
employ preference elicitation processes that are incomplete. [Therefore, ]
5. An expanded, rich, and complex process using multiple approaches is required to fully
encompass ecological valuation.'6
And finally, the Subcommittee ended its report with these words, which are a message to us
today:
"Environmental valuation remains a craft embedded in political processes. Much additional
research is needed in all areas that are important to estimating the benefits and costs of environmental
management action.'4
Just as important as what the Subcommittee concluded is what it did not find: An
alternative to the basic economics paradigm that would yield useful policy guidance without the
grungy, difficult, and often contentious process of trying to answer valuation questions such as
the one I opened with, "How many fish are your grandmother worth?" And it looked. With the
help of SAB staff, the Subcommittee collected and examined a goodly portion of the literature
3"Toward Integrated Environmental Decision-Making (Peer Review Draft, May 3, 1999),
Chapter 5, "Assessing the Value of Natural Resources," 5-3.
4Ibid., 5-51.
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on the issue of ecological valuation. It also heard from a number of persons who provided their
views on the issue.
I commend the report of this conscientious, wide-ranging and distinguished Subcommittee to
your attention. Not because of the answers it reached, but because of the salience of the issues and
concerns that it raised.
This Workshop is the next stage of the SAB's effort to respond to the challenge to improve
processes to value ecological outcomes for decision-making purposes. It brings together researchers
from different disciplines, risk managers, and stakeholders in the context of a problem that will require
action. That action will affect the real people of the Tampa Bay area, who would bear its costs and
reap its benefits. And these are the same people who must ultimately agree with any action taken, so
their views matter.
This process over the next two days will provide important insights into how valuation can be
improved and made more useful in dealing with the many other environmental decisions that will have to
be made in the future.
I look forward to these proceedings and to the contributions of the researchers invited to share
their views with us.
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D. EXECUTIVE SUMMARIES OF FOUR RESEARCH PLANS
COMMISSIONED BY EPA FOR THE VALUES WORKSHOP5
D.I. Tampa Bay NEP Research Plan: A Decision Science Perspective on Understanding
Public Values and Attitudes Related to Ecological Risk Management, Prepared by Robin
Gregory6
The purpose of this research plan is to outline an approach to understanding public values and
attitudes relating to policy initiatives in ecological risk management. Although key elements of the
approach are intended to be broadly applicable, the specific case study of nitrogen deposition by air to
the Tampa Bay, Florida estuary is used to illustrate and provide supplementary details of the proposed
approach. Understanding how the public views the problem of airborne nitrogen deposition, and what
considerations it may use when evaluating alternative policy responses, is one of the primary questions
now under study by the Tampa Bay National Estuary Program (TBNEP). In particular, the TBNEP
seeks answers to questions concerning (a) the reasons why people care about protection of water
quality in the Tampa Bay estuary, and (b) ways in which the broad range of stakeholder concerns can
be evaluated and measured to facilitate their incorporation into risk-management policies.
This research plan focuses on the contribution of insights from the decision sciences to
addressing these important questions. It represents one of four social science perspectives (the others
being psychology, anthropology, and innovative economics) to understanding public values, which
taken as a whole seek to broaden the range of techniques available to encourage public input and to
develop an improved management plan for the estuary. In many respects the four approaches are
complementary, so that both general techniques and specific study suggestions are expected to be quite
similar. In other respects, however, the four approaches are quite different, with a decision science
perspective giving particular attention to the ways in which values and tradeoffs are formed, to the
quality and interpretation of expressed judgments and evaluations, and to the use of decision aids in
clarifying stakeholder concerns and in developing defensible linkages between the value- and fact-
based aspects of a proposed risk-management initiative. In light of the mandate for the research plan,
this discussion of a proposed study approach will focus on insights and techniques that are based in the
decision sciences and leave issues relating to the complementarity of the different approaches to
presentations at the May, 2001 workshop and to subsequent discussions.
A variety of techniques from the decision sciences can assist the Tampa Bay NEP in
developing plans for protection of the estuary that incorporate, and are responsive to, both the
complexities of the ecological risk-management challenges and the interests and values of the
5Full texts of these Research Plans appear as Appendices F through I of the Report. A sample
of the "Statement of Work" to which the plans respond appears as Appendix E.
6Decision Research, 1201 Oak Street, Eugene, Oregon 97401
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diverse set of stakeholders. Although implementation of the selected techniques would provide
immediate insights, many of their benefits will become even more apparent over time, as the TBNEP
moves on to the consideration of more costly and more controversial protection measures. Five
principal types of benefits are foreseen.
A. Nurturing collaborative exchanges. Dialogue, both within and across stakeholder groups,
has been and will continue to be an important reason for the success of the TBNEP. At Tampa
Bay, open discussions need to occur among many different parties: between technical experts
and laypersons, between natural and social scientists, between federal and state and local
government employees, and among representatives of varying perspectives and opinions. The
value-based approaches described in this research plan both foster and focus dialogue,
whereas techniques for decomposing complex problems and addressing uncertainties will help
to ensure that open dialogue also occurs among technical experts.
B. Implementing structured decision-making processes. Structured processes are essential for
understanding the diversity of values and concerns that characterize different stakeholders and
for using this information to create the best possible alternatives (in the form of recommended
actions). Because they establish an open and transparent decision process, structured methods
for involving stakeholders also provide a highly defensible mechanism for making policy
choices, one that is viewed as legitimate because the steps are clearly delineated and because
components of recommendations can easily be traced back to stakeholder expressions of
value.
C. Clarifying sources of scientific uncertainty. Scientific uncertainty is unavoidable in programs
such as the TBNEP, and over the next decade or two it is likely to increase as the Program's
focus moves from land-based and point-source to airborne and farfield sources of nitrogen
deposition. As a result, it is important to clarify differing perspectives among scientists and to
attempt to understand the reasons for these differences, in terms of identifying the best actions
for protecting the estuary and in terms of maintaining strong public support.
D. Learning over time. Developing management structures that can incorporate learning over
time is fundamental to the long-run success of a program such as the TBNEP. Some of this
learning will come in the form of staying in tune with the changing values of the residents of
Tampa Bay. In addition, adaptive management processes are likely to form an increasingly
important part of the TBNEP, because of the help they provide in establishing flexible
management responses to reducing uncertainty that incorporate learning over time and, by
carefully monitoring effects, reduce both the probability and expected cost of failures.
E. Improving the quality of communication Communication up to this point in time has
been relatively straightforward because the benefits of actions undertaken by the TBNEP
have been widely supported and highly visible whereas the costs have been low. As the
costs rise over time and the benefits become less salient, it will be important for the
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TBNEP to continue to communicate effectively with its diverse group of stakeholders;
this is likely to also become more difficult because the geographic area affected by
TBNEP programs will become larger. Different strategies will be called for depending
on whether the communication is about values or about facts; either way, an interactive,
two-way communication process is recommended.
The past success of the TBNEP program appears to have created excellent conditions and
motivation for undertaking a deeper look at both the values of stakeholders and the underlying science.
Techniques from the decision sciences can be used proactively to learn more about the relationships
among stakeholder concerns, the reasons for conflict among scientists, and the types of decision
processes that will be viewed as continuing to create defensible, legitimate recommendations. The
visible success of the program to date has created an unusual and welcome window of opportunity, one
that should be embraced soon in anticipation of the more difficult tradeoffs, and less visible benefits, that
are likely to come in the years ahead.
D.2. Tampa Bay Estuary Program Values Assessment: Charting Publicly Preferred
Passages, Prepared by Terry C. Daniel7 and Michael J. Meitner8.
The goal of the proposed program of research is to identify and assess public environmental
values associated with the Tampa Bay Estuary Program (TBEP) effort to restore and protect the
ecological health of the bay by reducing (or halting increases in) aquatic nitrogen pollution. Specifically,
the assessment will determine public preferences for nitrogen management options and associated
ecological conditions to provide insight into the nature of and the bases for current and future public
support for the TBEP effort. The study will illustrate the application of computer-based interactive
survey methods being developed in the context of other environmental quality and risk assessments.
The TBEP (established in 1991) has set the goal of holding nitrogen loads in the bay to 1992-
94 levels and restoring sea grass coverage to 1950 levels (minus permanently altered areas). Bay-wide
nitrogen targets are achieved by a voluntary trading scheme in which increased loads from one source
are balanced by reductions in another. The program has enjoyed substantial community support and
nationally recognized success. Projected increases in population and development in the bay watershed
will contribute additional nitrogen to the bay, so continued active management will be required to
balance contributions from new sources against reductions in existing sources. As achieving nitrogen-
reduction targets becomes more costly, currently agreed upon nitrogen load targets may be challenged,
along with the associated ecological/sea grass protection goals. In this context, better understanding of
relevant public beliefs and preferences will be important to guide policy-making and to build the public
support needed to implement and sustain the TBEP management programs.
7Professor of Psychology and Renewable Natural Resources, University of Arizona.
8Assistant Professor of Forestry, University of British Columbia.
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To establish the relevant temporal and geographic context for the assessment, historic and
contemporary environmental and social conditions will be presented to participants through computer
graphic and environmental data visualization systems. A converging operations research strategy will
separately assess public preferences for alternative nitrogen management/outcome scenarios by verbal-
questionnaire, conjoint-rating and scenario-creation procedures. Preferences expressed in each of
these contexts will be appropriately scaled and quantitatively related to physical parameters of total
nitrogen (with associated sea grass coverage) and to the relative contributions of nitrogen from different
sources. Obtained psychophysical relationships between preference indices and nitrogen pollution
parameters will be compared across different stakeholder and general public samples to determine
points of convergence and divergence in relevant public values, and to test the generalizability of
findings. Comparison of findings between elicitation methods will be used to gauge the convergent
validity of the assessment.
D.3. Understanding Public Values and Attitudes Related to Ecological Risk Management,
Prepared by James J. Opaluch9
This proposed research will identify and quantify values for important natural amenities of
Tampa Bay. The value measures will provide direct input into decision making regarding the alternative
programs to control nutrient inputs into Tampa Bay, and will put this into perspective of other programs
to improve the environmental amenities of Tampa Bay. This work is important for achieving continued
progress in provision of important environmental amenities. Although recent years have seen much
progress in protection and restoration of critical environmental amenities, many significant impacts and
threats remain. Limited resources are available to resolve these issues, and competing social needs
necessitates that management actions focus on resolving the highest priority issues in a cost effective
manner. Simultaneously, communities are becoming increasing resistant to management solutions
imposed from "outside". Continued progress towards achieving environmental improvement depends
on establishing consensus management strategies that focus efforts towards addressing the key
objectives at reasonable cost.
It is critically important that public values be represented in environmental decisions process,
since public money is to be used to fund resource protection activities, the public will ultimately bear the
costs management actions that increase cost to industry, and since under the Public Trust Doctrine,
government managers are mandated to act as trustees for the public. This sets forth a challenge to
identify the key environmental objectives of the community more clearly, and to focus management on
the highest priority goals of the community, which underscores the importance of efforts to elicit
priorities and values of the affected communities. Social scientists have much to contribute to these
issues, having invested substantial research efforts towards understanding processes to identify and
measure public values, and processes to develop consensus agreements among interested parties.
9Department of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, University of Rhode Island,
Kingston, Rhode Island 02881
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Measuring community environmental values in a way that can contribute to assessment of
specific management actions is an inherently difficult task, and not one that is amenable to routine
application of standard techniques. For example, it is a difficult task to determine how much people
care about reducing nitrogen deposition in Tampa Bay, and what level of expenditure of public dollars
is justified to support specific programs. The complex scientific nature of the problem also contributes
to the challenges faced in this task.
A flexible approach is essential in order to focus on the most critical issues and controversies
faced by the community, and to design an instrument that respondents can understand and that elicits
values for key Tampa Bay amenities. Therefore, it is important not commit prematurely to a specific
instrument design. Rather, the research process must first obtain a firm understanding of the key issues
and controversies from the perspective of the various communities, and steps must be taken to design
an effective survey instrument.
Thus, rather than simply applying a predetermined set of economic tools, we will set forth a
research process to identify public values regarding critical natural amenities of Tampa Bay. First, we
will obtain and carefully study documents that describe the critical issues faced in Tampa Bay in order
to obtain background information on the problems faced. Much of this work has already been
completed as part of developing the present proposal. The second stage of the research is to meet with
the various interested parties to get a more detailed understanding of the important issues from various
perspectives, and particularly to identify the important controversies. The goal of this stage in the
process is to expand our knowledge base on critical Tampa Bay issues and, just as importantly, to
develop a working relationship with the various parties. The next stage in the research will develop a
list and description of important values concerning Tampa Bay amenities, and identify those that can
reasonably be addresses within the context of the proposed study. We will then meet with Tampa Bay
management teams to describe the values that will be estimated. This will be the final opportunity for
input from the management team on the essential elements of the study, and we maintain flexibility up to
this stage, so that values measured by the research efforts can be of highest utility to the management
team.
Once we have come to agreement with the management council on the final set of values to be
estimated, we will organize and implement a set of focus groups and, later, a set of verbal protocols
with the goal of developing a survey instrument to measure important public values. Initial focus groups
will involve general discussions of the issues of concern, and will be used to understand the perspective
of participants, to identify how they think about issues, what language they use, which words are loaded
or likely to be misunderstood, what kinds of background information needs to be provided, whether
they care about the particular issues, and if so why. As the process moves along, more time will be
spent on specific issues identified to be important to the developing survey and pretesting successive
draft questions. The focus groups will include considerable discussion of the questions to ensure that
participants understand the questions, and that the survey responses convey the information we are
attempting to elicit.
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These focus groups will provide excellent qualitative information that is useful for understanding
values held by focus group participants. More importantly, the focus groups will provides essential
insights that help to identify difficulties in survey questions, and suggest approaches that can be used to
improve the survey design.
When we feel we have a workable draft survey, we will implement a set of verbal protocols on
the draft instrument. Verbal protocols are carried out by having an individual complete the survey,
while "talking aloud" to express what the individual is thinking about while answering the questions. This
will provide addition insights into the thought process underlying the survey format, and the survey will
be revised as appropriate, until investigators are confident that the survey provides the information being
sought.
When the survey development process is complete, we will implement the survey using a
sample of the public. The precise format of the survey will be determined through the rigorous survey
development process described above, and we strongly recommend that we maintain the flexibility to
determine the best survey instrument and means of implementation. However, we anticipate that the
survey will be administered as an in-person, self administered survey. We also anticipate that adequate
funds will not be available for probability sampling, and we can use standard weighting procedures to
correct for non-representative samples, to the extent possible. We will also apply standard rationality
tests to confirm that results of the survey indicate valid economic values.
The results of the survey will provide an assessment of public values for important amenities of
Tampa bay and will link with available scientific studies to provide direct input into management
options. We will carry out various "rationality tests" to confirm that the survey results are valid
measures of values of specific amenities described and not, for example, symbolic expressions of
concern for the environment, in general. The results are analogous to public referenda, but are much
more informative to policy makers and are more flexible. As such, the results will provide essential
public input into the management process and ensure that public values are represented in the public
decision process.
D.4. The Effect of Values and Cultural Models on Policy: An Anthropological Approach to
Environmental Policy in Tampa Bay, prepared by Douglas W. Christel, Dr. Willett Kempton,
and Jennifer Harris10
Policymakers and administrators in the Tampa Bay region have observed high levels of public
support for policies to reduce human impact on the Bay. This support has helped to make possible
government actions that restrict water-borne pollution, nutrient loadings, and other anthropogenic
impacts on the Bay. Current studies of the Bay's water and ecosystems suggest that further
improvements will require action to reduce the impact of the deposition of airborne materials into the
bay, which will require different types of policies, affecting different sources. Whether and how public
support will extend into these new policy areas is not yet known.
10
University of Delaware, Graduate College of Marine Studies
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The proposed research takes the approach, demonstrated in Kempton, Bister, and Hartley
(1996), Bunting-Howarth (2001), and Kempton, Rayner, Harris, and Marker (2001) that support or
opposition to policies can be understood by eliciting the public's values and cultural models. The goal of
this research is to understand the values and cultural models that Tampa Bay residents apply to the Bay
and to policies to preserve the Bay. Specifically, we will conduct interviews to elicit the values that lead
residents to place priority on protection of the Bay relative to other social or personal priorities. The
interviews will also elicit cultural models that people use to explain why various types of human impact
cause damage, how different elements of the Bay ecosystem interact, and how protection measures can
affect the preceding. Finally, the interviews will explore what is now known about air deposition into
the Bay and its impacts.
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