The Emerging Commodity of Restored Streams: Science, Policy, and Econmics in New Markets for Ecosystem Service Commodities

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The science and technology of stream restoration has matured alongside market-based strategies for environmental protection, and the two approaches are combined in the emerging stream mitigation banking industry. Stream mitigation banking allows developers to offset stream impacts by purchasing restoration "credits" produced by for-profit companies, essentially creating a market in stream ecosystems. Assuring the quality and quantity of impacted and restored streams, which is required by both market and regulation, is a task of measurement that has drawn scientists into emerging ecosystem markets. More generally, stream mitigation is a manifestation of ecosystem markets in their infancy, such as carbon trading. This research project will examine the application of science, policy, and markets at stream mitigation bank sites by fully leveraging mixed quantitative and qualitative methods. The investigators will combine field and modeling studies of hydrogeomorphic processes; interviews with scientists, regulators, and entrepreneurs; and historical and archival research to fully document and understand the practice of stream mitigation banking. Their ultimate goal is to understand how policy, science, and markets interact to leave a distinct imprint on the landscape. This research will draw on sophisticated theory and methods in very divergent branches of geography and related fields in the geosciences and social sciences to inform a vital environmental policy issue.This project will shed light on the new paradigm of using markets for environmental management. Theory derived from this project will be scalable and transferable (with appropriate modification) to emerging environmental markets in other locales and other phenomena, such as carbon trading, water quality trading, and endangered species habitat conservation banks. Because the stream mitigation banking industry is relatively young, this project also can inform practical policy and processes. In addition to benefitting researchers and students directly involved in this project, it will help to build the growing community of interdisciplinary scholars through a joint university short-course program.