Doctoral Dissertation Research: Ecosystem Commodification Through Commercial Wetland Mitigation Banking Practice in the United States

商业湿地缓解银行是美国自1992年以来发展起来的一项以市场为基础的环境政策。该政策允许个人通过从湿地银行购买信用来满足《清洁水法》第404条的要求，而不是建立自己的湿地恢复来减轻他们拟议中的对湿地的影响。商业湿地银行是私人开发商在预期信贷需求时创造的大片恢复的湿地。这一博士论文研究项目的总体目标是澄清创建湿地市场的独特问题，湿地市场被设想为一系列生态系统服务，与目前普遍存在的单个空气或水污染物单位的市场形成对比。这项研究将使用生态田野调查、关键信息者访谈、纪录片历史和空间分析来调查在过去十年中湿地功能市场的创建和稳定过程。它将专注于两个很早就采用银行业务的地区，但方式截然不同：明尼苏达州和美国陆军工程兵团芝加哥地区。虽然湿地缓解银行是一个非常有前途的政策工具，有许多热情的支持者，但其生态和经济特征在很大程度上是假设的，而不是调查的。这个项目将一起检查这些相关的功能。该项目将是定量和定性的，调查将由区域研究和每个区域的单一交易和单一银行的扩展案例研究组成。这项区域研究将大致描述随着芝加哥地区和明尼苏达州湿地缓解银行业的崛起而出现的社交网络、技术、景观功能变化和商业战略的发展。文献研究和基于采访的工作将绘制监管机构、私人资本和湿地科学家之间的社会和政治网络，这些科学家创造、传播和制度化了银行惯例。基于地理信息系统的空间分析将提供该区域湿地景观结构和功能变化的信息。单一交易的案例研究意在为区域研究勾勒出的大体轮廓提供实际内容。研究活动将仔细检查将湿地功能从受影响地点“移动”到堤岸地点的过程。本研究将利用景观分析、水文模型和基于实地考察的参照点比较等方法，探索在交易的影响和缓解地点之间建立“等价性”的物理基础。这项研究的结果将表明，在美国环境政策的大趋势下，银行实践有可能为湿地功能创造一个稳定的市场，这一趋势是利用市场力量在清洁空气和清洁水等公共产品中创造私人利益。该项目将及时为一场关于美国湿地政策未来的非常积极和持续的辩论做出贡献。近年来，随着贸易协议引导市场关系扩展到生态系统服务领域，“污染信用交易”扩大到广泛的空气和水污染物，并跨越国界，生态系统服务通常被视为公共非市场产品。本届政府最近加强了建立以市场为基础的政策工具的承诺，将其作为解决环境政策问题的主要途径。总体而言，这些政策背离了美国环境管理的历史趋势，它们的成功实施需要彻底了解生态系统服务市场的创造过程。具体地说，这项研究的结果将引起参与《清洁水法》管理的大量监管机构的兴趣，他们中的许多人最近才接触到银行业务。由于银行业是一项复杂的监管安排，尚未引起公众或非营利环保团体的高度关注，因此，这项研究的结果将在这些团体中传播，以促进对银行政策特点的了解。此外，湿地缓减堤岸在学术上也鲜有受到关注。该项目将是利用社会科学和自然科学的综合方法研究银行业的首批项目之一。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。

Commercial wetland mitigation banking is a market-based environmental policy that has developed in the United States since 1992. The policy allows individuals to fulfill the requirements of Section 404 of the Clean Water Act by purchasing credits from a wetland bank rather than building their own wetland restoration to mitigate their proposed impact to a wetland. Commercial wetland banks are large tracts of restored wetland created by private developers in anticipation of credit demand. The general objectives of this doctoral dissertation research project are to clarify the unique problems of creating a market for wetlands, conceived of as a bundle of ecosystem services, in contrast with the now-common markets for units of individual air or water pollutants. This research will use ecological fieldwork, key informant interviews, documentary histories, and spatial analysis to investigate the process by which a market in wetland functions has been created and stabilized over the past decade. It will focus on two regions that adopted banking practices early, but in sharply contrasting ways: the state of Minnesota and the Chicago District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. While wetland mitigation banking is a very promising policy tool with a number of enthusiastic supporters, both its ecological and economic features are largely assumed rather than investigated. This project will examine these related features together. This project will be both quantitative and qualitative in nature The investigation will be composed of a regional study and an extended case study of a single transaction and a single bank in each region. The regional study will describe broadly the development of social networks, technologies, landscape functional changes, and business strategies that have accompanied the rise of a wetland mitigation banking industry in both the Chicago area and in Minnesota. Documentary research and interview-based work will map the social and political networks between regulators, private capital, and wetland scientists that have created, spread, and institutionalized the conventions of banking. GIS-based spatial analysis will provide information on the structural and functional changes in the wetland landscape of the region. The case study of a single transaction is intended to give practical content to the broad outlines sketched by the regional study. Research activities will closely examine the process of "moving" wetland functions from the site of impact to the bank site. Metrics of landscape analysis, hydrologic modeling, and fieldwork-based comparison with reference sites will be used to explore the physical basis for the creation of "equivalence" between the impact and mitigation sites of the transaction.Results of this research will indicate the potential for banking practices to create a stable market for wetland functions within the larger trend in United States environmental policy towards using market forces to create private interests in public goods such as clean air and clean water. The project will make a timely contribution to a very active and ongoing debate about the future of wetlands policy in the United States. Recent years have seen the expansion of "pollution credits trading" to a broad range of air and water pollutants, and an expansion across national borders as trade agreements guide the expansion of market relations into the domain of ecosystem services, which have usually been conceived of as public non-market goods. The current Administration recently reinforced its commitment to establishing market-based policy tools as the primary way of resolving environmental policy problems. In general, such policies are a departure from the historical trends of environmental management in the United States, and their successful implementation requires a thorough understanding of the process of creating markets in ecosystem services. Specifically, the results of this study will be of interest to the large population of regulators involved in Clean Water Act administration, many of whom have only recently encountered banking practices. Because banking is a complex regulatory arrangement that has not yet attracted a great deal of attention from the public or from non-profit environmental groups, the results of this study will be disseminated among these groups to foster an understanding of the features of banking policy. Furthermore, wetland mitigation banking has received little scholarly attention. This project will be one of the first to examine banking using integrated approaches of the social and natural sciences. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.