USGS Social and Economic Analysis Branch: The Human Side of Managing Public Lands

The Social and Economic Analysis (SEA) Branch of the U.S. Geological Survey's Fort Collins Science Center does something unusual within the USGS: it leads projects that combine social, behavioural, economic and natural science to understand how people and natural resources interact. Its work serves the Interior Department's land and resource bureaus and partnerships with other federal and state managers, through research, technical help and training.

Managing resources means dealing with people as well as ecosystems, so SEA's scientists pair social-science methods with the Fort Collins centre's strengths in rangeland and agriculture, wildlife, ecology and biology — all aimed at better management, policy and decisions.

What the branch does

Economics and ecosystem services. Public officials answer for how they spend public money and what their decisions produce. SEA economists measure how spending ripples through local economies as sales, jobs and income; estimate non-market values of policies and land management; and value ecosystem services — the goods and services people get from ecosystems.

Policy and negotiation. Resource management increasingly means negotiating with many stakeholders. SEA turns its research on multi-party negotiation into courses taught every year at Fort Collins, and studies which institutional arrangements help plans succeed and how to handle disputes over science.

Human dimensions. How people value resources, what management they prefer, and how decisions affect them all belong in land and water planning. SEA surveys visitors, residents and other stakeholders about their activities and views; studies how public-land management relates to well-being and community sustainability amid climate change and energy development; and looks at how scientists and the public use scientific information.

Selected projects

• The value of Landsat. Landsat satellites image the whole world's cities, farms and wild lands at moderate resolution, feeding climate research, agriculture and environmental management. Little is known about how businesses, non-profits, tribes and state and local governments use and value this federally funded imagery, so SEA runs repeated surveys and in-depth case studies to track users and estimate the market and non-market value of the images.
• ASPN. Public lands provide recreation, commercial uses, environmental education and subsistence, and social and economic analysis is a required part of judging land-management actions — but not a skill many planners have. With other federal agencies SEA is building Assessing Socioeconomic Planning Needs, a web tool that tells planners which social and economic issues to address and produces an analysis plan tailored to their land unit.
• Human dimensions of climate change. The Interior Department's 2009 climate change task force found many communities and user groups that depend on public lands and waters at risk. An interagency collaborative of researchers and managers is producing practical guidance and regional case studies on effects such as changes in economic activity, subsistence, health, recreation, infrastructure and community resilience.

• Collaboration and dispute resolution. Decisions on Bureau of Land Management land involve many stakeholders. Through an online survey of BLM employees and interviews with field-office managers, USGS researchers identified what resources staff use, what they need, what holds back skills in collaboration and dispute resolution, and how staff feel about them — informing BLM's new strategic plan on the subject.
• Everglades restoration. The Everglades are among the nation's most threatened ecosystems. As water flows are restored, SEA economists — with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the South Florida Water Management District, the University of Florida and others — are valuing the ecosystem services that the Central Everglades Planning Project could change.
• Farms and conservation. Public recognition of social, aesthetic and recreational values shapes how farmland should be managed. Under guidance from the USDA Farm Service Agency, SEA supplies biological, social and economic information for USDA conservation programs. The largest, the Conservation Reserve Program, covers about 25 million acres of erodible or sensitive private land in 47 states; current studies include vegetation responses to drought in Texas, CRP grasslands as refuges for pollinators in Colorado, and wetlands as amphibian habitat in Iowa.
• Restoration and local economies. Restoration projects also generate revenue, jobs and income nearby. With the Interior Department's policy analysis office, its restoration programme and the BLM, SEA is building case studies of restoration costs, inputs and local economic effects.

Sources

• Schuster, R.M., and Walters, K., 2015, Social and Economic Analysis Branch — Integrating policy, social, economic, and natural science: U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2014–3070, Fort Collins Science Center. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/fs20143070
• Photos: Katie Walters, Mark Vandever, Rudy Schuster and others, U.S. Geological Survey, from the fact sheet's PDF.
• Rewritten in hubnx's own words.