Major Fields:

Natural Resource and Environmental Economics, Sustainability in Agriculture, Fisheries, and Water, Production Economics, Natural Capital Valuation, Bioeconomic Modeling, Applied Econometrics, and Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events

Active Granted Projects

  • Co-PI, with S. Cho (PI), P. Armsworth, C. B. Sims, X. Giam, and M. Papers, "Dynamic Portfolio of Spatial and Temporal Forest-Based Biodiversity Conservation," USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), Mar. 2022 - Feb. 2025 (accepted for funding).

  • Co-PI, with B. Phipps (PI), B. Kowalkowski, B. McFadden, K. V. Nedunuri, T. Mark, W. Rossi, and C. Schluttenhofer, "Sustainable Aquaculture Production of High Omega-3-Containing-Fish Using a Novel Feed Additive (Hemp)," DA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Sustainable Agricultural Systems (SAS), Sep. 2021 - Aug. 31. 2026.

  • PI, with M. Interis, D. Petrolia, S. Rush, E. Yu, and C. Hellwinckel, "Sustainable Bioenergy Production and Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services," funded by USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), Jun. 2019 - May 2023.

  • Co-PI, with J. Lehrter (PI), R. Baker, J. Cebrian, B. Dzwonkowski, L. Kalin, L. Lowe, D. Petrolia, S. Powers, and D. Tian, "Building Resilience for Oyster, Blue Crabs, and Spotted Seatrout to Environmental Trends and Variability in the Gulf of Mexico," funded by NOAA-RESTORE program, Sep. 2019 - Aug. 2024.

  • Co-PI, with V. G. Gude (PI), A. Kim, H. Cho, M. Marufuzzaman, M. L. Tagert, "Resilient Biomass-Combined Heat and Power Systems for Rural Communities," funded by USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), Apr. 2020 - Mar. 2023.

Completed Grants

  • Co-PI, with B. M. Gramig (PI), "On-Farm Benefits and Costs of Conservation Practices and Systems," funded by the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS), Sep. 2018 - Aug. 2022.

  • Co-PI, with J. K. Abbott, "Assessing Inclusive Ocean Wealth in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands," funded by the Lenfest Ocean Program, Oct. 2018 - Sep. 2020.

  • PI, with K. Coatney, B. Strickland, and S. Garrett, "Management of Smart Invasive Species Using Spatial Optimal Control: A Pilot Study of Wild Pigs in the Delta, funded by Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Stations (MAFES)-Strategic Research Initiative (SRI) grant, Jan. 2019 - Dec. 2020.

  • Co-PI, with G. Karunakaran (PI), D. Wise, and J. Maples, "Effect of Regulatory Burden on Cost and Technical Efficiencies of Catfish Farms," funded by Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Stations (MAFES)-Strategic Research Initiative (SRI) grant, Jan. 2019 - Dec. 2019.

  • Co-PI, with K. Coble and X. Li, "Analyses of the Returns to Irrigation for the Southeastern United States," funded by the USDA Chief Economist Office, Jul. 2018 - Dec. 2018.

Other Previously Participated Projects

The earliest economists thought about natural resources, such as land and forests, as capital assets. This means that nature should be accounted for in a similar fashion as financial assets (e.g., stocks and bonds), real assets (e.g., real estate and machines), and human assets (e.g., knowledge and health). Over the past few decades the idea that nature is capital has expanded beyond economic theory. However, most natural capital, such as fish, wildlife, water, air, and forests, remains unaccounted (or mis-accounted) for in national and other public accounts like GDP. Valuing natural capital is essential for reforming national accounts and developing other measures of social progress and sustainability. Valuing natural capital provides an approach to inform local resource management, by providing the value of conservation of natural resources to compare to the benefits of their consumption. The idea of natural capital has remained restricted to a useful metaphor despite the number of efforts underway to measure ecosystem services (the benefits people gain in terms of material, recreation, and cultural benefits from nature) and to map natural resources to understand the spatial distribution of “natural capital.” We are working to move natural capital from a useful metaphor to a measurable, actionable concept with support from the Knobloch Family Foundation. To date, we have recovered the natural capital value for fish in the Gulf of Mexico and shown how their value jumped with the recent shift towards a tradable quota system.

  • Coastal Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (Coastal SEES):

NSF Grants led by Malin Pinsky: http://pinsky.marine.rutgers.edu/nsf-coastal-sees-grant-announced/

Coastal SEES is focused on the sustainability of coastal systems. For this solicitation we define coastal systems as the swath of land closely connected to the sea, including barrier islands, wetlands, mudflats, beaches, estuaries, cities, towns, recreational areas, and maritime facilities; the continental seas and shelves; and the overlying atmosphere.

Humans benefit from their use of coastal environments for enjoyment, dwelling, food, industry, and commerce, and benefit from the myriad of ecosystem services that coastal environments provide. However, human activities often result in physical, chemical, and ecological alterations that influence and interact with natural state and variability, over a range of spatial and temporal scales. A major challenge is to understand the dynamics of this coupled human-natural system in order to inform societal decisions about the uses of coastal systems, including for economic, aesthetic, recreational, research, and conservation purposes.

Scientific understanding is foundational and must include an understanding of reciprocal feedbacks between humans and the natural environment; how people and organizations interpret, assess, and act upon scientific and other evidence; and how they weigh these interpretations against other interests to influence governance and decision-making. Thus, coastal sustainability relies on broad and intimately interconnected areas of scholarship about natural and human processes. Coastal SEES projects will be expected to lead to generalizable theoretical advances in natural sciences and engineering while, at the same time, integrating key aspects of human processes required to address issues of coastal sustainability.

As natural areas within agroecosystems are developed or converted to cropland, ecosystem services such as biocontrol and carbon storage may be compromised. We hypothesize that ecosystem services and landowners’ net profits can be increased by optimizing the spatial distribution and management practices of grasslands that are interspersed in agricultural landscapes. We have been testing this hypothesis in a representative Midwestern landscape by developing and parameterizing a spatially explicit model of crop production, soybean pest control practices, carbon storage, and grassland natural enemy abundance and dispersal. Our model will estimate how stressors affect the supply of grassland-derived ecosystem services, focusing on grassland loss from land use change and changes in grassland composition that result from invasive plant species or management practices. This model will inform new decision-making tools that help optimize ecosystem service provisioning.

Weather and climate patterns are a driving force behind the success or failure of Corn Belt cropping systems. Useful to Usable (U2U) is an integrated research and extension project working to improve farm resilience and profitability in the North Central U.S. by transforming existing climate data into usable products for the agricultural community. Our goal is to help producers make better long-term plans on what, when and where to plant, and also how to manage crops for maximum yields and minimum environmental damage.