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The Value of Wetlands Versus Open Water in Louisiana. Walter R. Keithly, Jr. Baifu Xu John Barras Richard F. Kazmierczak, Jr. Land Loss of Coastal Louisiana. “America’s Wetlands”, about 30% of the Lower 48 states’ coastal wetland; 20% of wetlands lost in the past 100 years;
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The Value of Wetlands VersusOpen Water in Louisiana Walter R. Keithly, Jr. Baifu Xu John Barras Richard F. Kazmierczak, Jr.
Land Loss of Coastal Louisiana • “America’s Wetlands”, about 30% of the Lower 48 states’ coastal wetland; • 20% of wetlands lost in the past 100 years; • Catastrophic loss rate: 25-35 square miles a year; • 90% of the continental US coastal marsh loss; • Hurricane Katrina caused southeastern Louisiana over $90 billion in physical losses and Hurricane Rita caused the southwest coastal area of Louisiana over $5 billion, and unexpected wetland loss.
Wetlands Restoration Measures • 129 federal and state restoration projects; • Less than 10% of the minimum funding needed for restoration; • 80 percent of all coastal Louisiana wetlands are privately owned.
Objectives • To identify the factors influencing the value of coastal wetland properties in southwestern Louisiana; • To examine the influence of open water and wetland types on private market property values; • To estimate implicit prices associated with underlying wetland characteristics.
Steps for Hedonic Model • Gather property transfers and price; • Collect explanatory variables; • Property characteristics (e.g., wetland type) • Structural characteristics (e.g., acreage, distance from coast) • Establish the relationship between price and explanatory variables.
How Did We Digitalize a Privately Owned Property? • Bill of Sales (Transfers); • Township Map: locate township, range, and section; • Scanned Topographic Maps; • Draw property polygons using ArcGIS.
Specific Model • Ln(Price/acre)=
Discussion/Key Findings • An increase of fresh marshes relative to open water enhances the price per acre, ceteris paribus; • An increase in intermediate marsh and/or brackish & saline marsh relative to open water decreases the price per acre, ceteris paribus; • Other significant positive influences include: interest in property and year; • Other significant negative influences include: total acres and higher expected erosion rate;