Balancing the Multiple Objectives of Conservation Programs

by Andrea Cattaneo, Daniel Hellerstein, Cynthia Nickerson, and Christina Myers

Many of the Nation's conservation programs use an index approach to prioritize environmental and cost objectives. In an index, objectives are weighted by relative importance. This report provides empirical evidence on the cost and environmental benefit tradeoffs of different weighting schemes in USDA's Conservation Reserve Program and considers how different weighting schemes encourage different sets of landowners to offer land for enrollment. The report finds that while small changes in index weights do not markedly affect levels of environmental benefits that can be achieved at a national level, larger changes can have a moderate impact.

Keywords: Conservation programs, multiple objectives, Conservation Reserve Program, CRP, environmental benefits index, EBI, objective weights, environmental benefit tradeoffs, conservation program design

In this publication...

• Entire Report
• Report Summary
• Abstract, Acknowledgments, Contents, and Summary
• Summary
• Introduction
• Indices in a Multi-Objective Program: Experience and Design in U.S. Conservation Programs
• The CRP Balancing Act: The Sensitivity of CRP Outcomes to Changes in EBI Weights
• Conclusions
• References
• Appendix A: Balancing Multiple Objectives in U.S. Conservation Programs: Indices and Beyond
• Appendix B: Modeling Participation Effects From Changing EBI Weights