My second research interest was about preferences for biodiversity.
I worked on the ERC-funded RELATE project under Prof. Zoe Davies.
My job was to analyse the ~7000 responses to the four seasonal surveys including choice experiment data, wellbeing responses, and spatial aspects.
Instead of the expert derived metrics of biodiversity (e.g., tree cover, species richness), we used participatory methods to understand the attributes of biodiversity that the public related to.
My part of the research demonstrates that respondents may be willing to pay for increased variety of colours, smells, and sounds in forests, although the WTP is scope-sensitive.
I then investigated seasonal trends through a test-retest study to show that the distribution of WTP was broadly stable over time.
Finally, we used our survey data to show that WTP and wellbeing measures were inversely correlated i.e., respondents with the highest wellbeing had lower WTP for marginal increases in biodiversity.
I also contributed statistics and comments as a co-author on some of the other papers from the project, some out already and some forthcoming.
Open access: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108410
Replication data, Ngene + R code, and survey: https://github.com/pmpk20/WinterPaper and https://data.kent.ac.uk/480/
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to the efforts, time, and patience of the entire RELATE team and reviewers and editors at Ecological Economics, we got it sorted.
We found that:
Respondents were willing to pay for an increased variety of colours, smells, and sounds in forests. They may also be willing to pay for changes in the quantity of deadwood for decomposition in forests.
Findings were very scope-sensitive. We discuss implications for (a) CE design, (b) forest management.
Why does it matter:
The contribution here is (1) sensory attributes, (2) in-depth mixed-methods pre-testing is really useful for embedding public preferences into these types of methods.
What changed in review:
Adding way more nuance to our claims about (a) pre-testing and embedding participatory methods in CE designs, (b) scope-sensitivity, (c) implications for management.
We dropped the plot in-text of the conditional WTP estimates but as I really liked the idea, it kind of lives on in Figures B1 and B2.
We also deleted the spatial analysis (no global or local clustering of preferences for sensory attributes) which might see the light of day eventually, or maybe not!
Updated robustness of the mixed logit models for (i) pref-space/WTP space, (ii) different covariate specifications, (iii) with/out correlations, (iv) different interactions with sensory impairments.
"Seasonal stability of preferences for attributes of forest biodiversity".
First author with the RELATE team.
Test-retest between-subject study that tests (a) whether preference-parameters are seasonally-stable over the course of a year, (b) whether the scale parameter varied seasonally, (c) whether mean WTP was stable, and (d) whether the distribution of WTP was stable.
"Effects of latent wellbeing on preferences for attributes of forest biodiversity".
First author with the RELATE team.
We use a complex hybrid structural equation model to show that deriving higher latent wellbeing from forest colours, smells, and sounds, reduced mean WTP for these attributes.
"Quantifying temporal changes in the monetary value of forest cultural ecosystem services globally: a meta-analysis".
Third author with the RELATE team.
Max did so much work on this meta-analysis you wouldn't believe. There's a nice pre-pandemic story within about temporal trends in the values elicited by different methods across different CES.
“Public preferences for urban wildflower meadows: evidence from an in situ choice experiment”.
First author with Prof. Martin Dallimer, Prof. Zoe Davies, Dr Thomas Lundhede, Dr Gail Austen, Dr Tristan Pett.
Tristan's PhD project looked at preferences for urban wildflower meadows across different meadow types, parks, and cities. My contribution was to show that after controlling for park and city effects, the effect of meadow type was limited to salient visual attributes only. I then discuss this through the lens of hypothetical bias.
"Evaluating the effect of an information treatment on preferences for native and invasive non-native birds."
Prof. Martin Dallimer, Prof. Zoe Davies, Dr Thomas Lundhede, Dr Tristan Pett.
Another from Tristan's project but this time on variation in preferences for different birds and whether those depend on information provided to respondents.