Geology topics

Travis Warziniack

Publications and source records attributed to Travis Warziniack.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2025

Natural capital accounting on forested lands: An application to the Colorado River basin

This paper creates a first set of forest natural capital accounts and demonstrates how these accounts can be integrated with general equilibrium models of the economy. Focusing on the Colorado River Basin, we show that deforestation has direct implications for the forest industry and indirect impacts on the economy through water treatment costs and carbon stock. 327,000 acres of forest are projected to be lost to development by 2100, representing a loss of 1.3 million tons of carbon stored in forests. The direct economic impacts associated with forest loss are estimated to be over $30 million, with $28 million of that coming directly from the value of lost carbon.

Conference Paper↗

USGS2020

Do actions speak louder than words? Comparing the effect of risk aversion on objective and self-reported mitigation measures

Risky behaviors are of public concern when they are associated with negative externalities. Public programs and policy seek to incentivize less risky behaviors in an effort to reduce or eliminate such social costs. It is in this context that the relationship between risk aversion and risky behaviors is of particular interest. However, the literature on risk aversion and risky behaviors has largely relied on self-reported behaviors. Whether intentional or unintentional, self-reported behaviors may differ from objective measures of behavior. Because policies and programs are often based on objective measures of behavior, rather than self-reports, we ask the question of whether observed relationships between risk preferences and self-reported behaviors extend to objective measures of behavior.

Journal of Environmental Behavior and Organization↗

USGS2018

Responding to risky neighbors: Testing for spatial spillover effects for defensible space in a fire-prone WUI community

Often, factors that determine the risk of an environmental hazard occur at landscape scales, and risk mitigation requires action by multiple private property owners. How property owners respond to risk mitigation on neighboring lands depends on whether mitigation actions are strategic complements or strategic substitutes. We test for these neighbor interactions with a case study on wildfire risk mitigation on private properties. We use two measures of wildfire risk mitigation—an assessment by a wildfire professional and a self-assessment by homeowners. Taken together, the two assessments provide the first empirical explanation for strategic complements in wildfire risk mitigation and a more complete picture of how homeowners respond to this landscape-scale risk. We find homeowners that mitigate risk on their land are more likely to have neighbors that do the same, and homeowners that fail to mitigate risk are more likely to have neighbors that fail to do so as well. Due to spatial spillovers, motivating a few key residents to take action could reduce risk across the landscape.

Colorado↗