This dissertation examines questions of water sustainability in contexts of wine production and state-led neoliberal development in the Temecula Valley, southern California, where wine tourism is at present being harnessed as an engine of economic growth. Natural and anthropogenic forces, such as global climate change, desertification, urban development, and the marketization and commodification of natural resources, affect the distribution and availability of water throughout the globe. As a result, the use of water, and associated political and environmental processes and consequences, in the production of global commodities, including wheat, citrus, and coffee, recently have come under increased scrutiny. Given wine's importance as a global commodity, and the concurrent growth of wine tourism as a worldwide phenomenon, local and regional water systems experience increasing strain to meet heightened demand for wine and the associated influx of tourists. This dissertation presents an ethnographic account of water use in the production of wine in Temecula, a desert-like setting already deficient in water that faces increasing human-induced pressures on its limited supply. Despite its social importance, very few dedicated ethnographies of wine and winemaking within the United States exist. This dissertation also describes the waterworld of Temecula, using (and critiquing) the model presented by Ben Orlove and Steven C. Caton that examines water in terms of value, equity, governance, politics, and knowledge systems, showing how these elements manifest in three "sites": the watershed, the water regime, and the waterscape. In Temecula, the winery serves as a central locus within the waterworld, a contested representation of the interests, goals, and perspectives of primary actors and stakeholders, while also serving as an important vector of landscape transformation through time. Despite this, no anthropological treatment examining water and winemaking within broader frameworks of the political economy of the environment and historical ecology is extant, a lacuna that this dissertation addresses. Throughout 2012, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork including archival research, interviews, and participant-observation. For the majority of my fieldwork, I spent time at an established winery in Temecula, during which I participated in many tasks related to wine production, with a focus on water use. Throughout this process, I interviewed dozens of people, including long-time residents, early pioneers in the Temecula wine industry, winery and vineyard employees, water management professionals at local and state levels, environmental service technicians, and many others. This dissertation demonstrates that under conditions of neoliberal development in challenging economic times in Temecula, environmental concerns such as water availability and sustainability are suppressed or downplayed in order to prioritize goals related to economic growth and development. Ultimately I suggest that developers and local business leaders are guiding this political legerdemain, even if only implicitly, above the din of objections from at least a good number of area wineries, vineyards, and residents. Also, I suggest that as an applied outcome, the totality of potential costs and outcomes at all scales, including regional, must be considered, rather than obfuscated, simplified, or restricted to a local boundary, especially in terms of natural resources and their governance, when such areas lie within locales inexorably connected within a delicate ecological web.

As part of the EPA’s initiative to reduce the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico, a feasibility study for a potential water quality trading (WQT) program in the Kentucky River Watershed (KRW) was conducted. While theoretically, emission trading programs are among the most efficient means of reducing pollution, empirical evidence suggests low-trade volume as a primary concern for the long-term success of such programs. Some of the important reasons for the low volume of trade are due to lack of suitable market trading mechanism for point sources and lack of information on willingness to pay (WTP) for abatement credits. Our study aims to tackle these issues by gathering a profile of municipal sewage treatment plants as point source polluters in the KRW, while simultaneously analyzing their preferences for WQT market mechanisms and WTP using a survey based approach. The survey was conducted in 2012. Municipal sewage treatment plants’ ranked preferences are analyzed using an exploded logit model and WTP is analyzed using Ordinary Least Squares and Tobit models.

This dissertation presents three different closely related topics on the value of eco-friendliness in the financial market. The first essay attempts to estimate hedonic stock price model to find a contemporaneous relationship between stock return and firms’ environmental performance and recover the value of investor’s willingness to pay of eco-friendliness. This study follows stock and environmental performances of the 500 largest US firms from 2009 to 2012. The firms’ environmental data come from the Newsweek Green Ranking, both aggregate measures: green ranking (GR) and green score (GS), and disaggregate measures: environmental impact score (EIS), green policy and performance score (GPS), reputation survey score (RSS), and environmental disclosure score (EDS). The results show a non-linear relationship between environmental variables and stock return, i.e. upside down bowl shape or increasing in decreasing rate. That means for low green ranking firms the marginal effect is positive while for high green ranking firms the marginal effect is negative. The investor’s willingness to pay (WTP) for a greener stock for firms in the lowest 25 green ranking, on average, is 0.0096% higher stock price. The second essays attempt to determine if a firm’s environmental performance affects future systematic risk. Systematic risk measures an individual stock’s volatility relative to the market price. This study also uses the Newsweek Green Ranking’s environmental variables. The results show significant evidence of a non-linear relationship between green variables and systematic (market) risk, but the shape is not unanimous for all environmental variables. The shape of the relationship for green ranking (GR), for example, is U-shape. This means that for the firms in the bottom rank, improving rank will lower systematic (market) risk, and for the firms in the top rank improving rank will increase systematic (market) risk. On average the marginal effect for the firms in the bottom and top 25 firms are -0.2% and 0.09% respectively. The third essay is the effect of a firm’s environmental performances on a firm’s idiosyncratic risk. Idiosyncratic risk measures an individual stock’s volatility independent from the market price. This study also uses the Newsweek Green Ranking’s environmental variables. The results show significant non-linear relationships between environmental variables and idiosyncratic risk, even though there is no unanimous shape among the environmental variables. In the case of green ranking, for example, it has U-shape; for the firms in the bottom rank, improving green ranking will lower idiosyncratic risk and for firm in the top green ranking, improving green ranking will increase idiosyncratic risk. On average the marginal effect for firm in bottom and top 25 firms are -0.4% and 0.2% respectively.

While farmers’ market vendors rely on loyal and frequent patrons to purchase their products, it is unclear how the intrinsic differences among farmers’ market shoppers serve as indicators of potential shopping frequency at farmers’ markets. The objectives of this thesis are to identify consumers’ intrinsic values associated with characteristics of local foods, examine how these values are reflected in consumption behaviors among farmers' market shoppers, and explore the relationship between consumption activities and shopping frequency at farmers' markets. Results suggest that the differences between frequent and infrequent farmers’ market shoppers could be explained by the individual’s levels of high and low involvement in consumption activities that reflect intrinsic values associated with benefits of locally produced foods. Market patrons who generally exhibit higher levels of involvement in these activities are more likely to be frequent farmers’ market shoppers; this is particularly true for those who are drawn to activities associated with public life or group settings. This information can be used by farmers’ market managers and vendors to develop targeted marketing strategies for retention of frequent market shoppers and also for increasing market patronage for less frequent market shoppers.

Fruit and vegetable (FV) intake continues to decline among sub-population in the United States. Current policies and interventions have aimed to improve intake by improving access to fruits and vegetables. One Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested strategy is to improve access to farmers’ markets in rural areas. The aims of this study were to determine if the frequency of shopping at Farmers’ Markets is associated with fruit and vegetable intake, adjusted for age, income and education and to compare rural and non-rural areas frequency of Farmers’ Market attendance based on Kentucky farmers’ market interview participants (n = 102). The results of the descriptive, cross-sectional study determined that the Kentucky farmers’ market customers Fruit and Vegetable Score was positively associated with frequency of purchase of locally grown fruits and vegetables at farmers’ markets. However, the frequency of farmers’ market attendance was most commonly limited to ‘once a week’ (as a result of participants attending ‘Only attends market when need something’). It was concluded that alleviating the barriers customers face to use farmers’ markets is the best way to increase the attendance of farmers’ markets and as a result increase the purchases of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Although capitalism is usually seen as the culprit for many of the environmental issues society faces today, it is not necessarily at fault. The Seven Deadly Sins of Sustainability: Pride, Greed, Sloth, Gluttony, Wrath, Lust, and Envy, are the underlying reasons why capitalism fails in the face of sustainability. Through recognition of these human vices, better strategies can be used to address environmental issues through leveraging capitalistic economic solutions.

[Truncated abstract] The salinisation of agricultural land, urban infrastructure and natural habitat is a serious and increasing problem in southern Australia. Government funding has been allocated to the problem to attempt to reduce substantial costs associated with degradation of agricultural and non-agricultural assets. Nevertheless, Government funding has been small relative to the size of the problem and therefore expenditure needs to be carefully targeted to interventions that will achieve the greatest net benefits. For intervention to be justified, the level of salinity resulting from private landholder decisions must exceed the level that is optimal from the point of view of society as a whole, and the costs of government intervention must be less than the benefits gained by society. This study aims to identify situations when government intervention is justified to manage dryland salinity that threatens to affect road infrastructure (a public asset). A key gap in the environmental economics literature is research that considers dryland salinity as a pollution that has off-site impacts on public assets. This research developed two hydrological/economic models to achieve this objective. The first was a simple economic model representing external costs from dryland salinity. This model was used to identify those variables that have the biggest impact on the net-benefits possible from government intervention. The second model was a combined hydro/economic model that represents the external costs from dryland salinity on road infrastructure. The hydrological component of the model applied the method of metamodelling to simplify a complex, simulation model to equations that could be easily included in the economic model. The key variables that have the biggest impact on net-benefits of dryland salinity mitigation were the value of the off-site asset and the time lag before the onset of dryland salinity in the absence of intervention. ... In the case study of dryland salinity management in the Date Creek subcatchment of Western Australia, the economics of vegetation-based and engineering strategies were investigated for road infrastructure. In general, the engineering strategies were more economically beneficial than vegetation-based strategies. In the case-study catchment, the cost of dryland salinity affecting roads was low relative to the cost to agricultural land. Nevertheless, some additional change in land management to reduce impacts on roads (beyond the changes justified by agricultural land alone) was found to be optimal in some cases. Reinforcing the results from the simple model, a key factor influencing the economics of dryland salinity management was the urgency of the problem. If costs from dryland salinity were not expected to occur until 30 years or more, the optimal response in the short-term was to do nothing. Overall, the study highlights the need for governments to undertake comprehensive and case-specific analysis before committing resources to the management of dryland salinity affecting roads. There were many scenarios in the modelling analysis where the benefits of interventions would not be sufficient to justify action.

The management of congestible recreation resources has been based largely on the concept of satisfaction. This concept is poorly defined and often does not reflect objectives for management of recreation resources. One way of addressing these problems is to define and use measurable objectives for management of recreation resources. One such objective is economic efficiency. The concept of efficiency is defined and economic theory developed to identify efficient allocations of congestible resources, the efficient capacities of resources under different allocation mechanisms, and the efficiency costs of use of lottery-based allocation mechanisms. The usefulness of this body of economic theory in allocation of backcountry recreational resources is addressed through investigation of ability to measure demand for congestible resources, and the problems associated with use of surrogate measures of demand. Theoretical models of efficient management of congestible resources cannot be applied with the current state of knowledge because existing non-market valuation methods are not able to identify Hicksian-compensated demand functions for congestible backcountry recreation. Use of Marshallian demand measures introduces the possibility of resource misallocations of unknown direction and magnitude.

This paper hopes to analyze the intersection between diversity and numbers of visitors and landscape preservation in the National Park Service. Current scholarship addresses either diversity in the Park System or carrying capacity and human population pressures. However, both are critical issues facing the National Park Service in the 21st century, and looking at the issues in isolation means missing a key interaction and potentially working to solve one problem that in turn amplifies another. Here, diversity of park-goers and preservation priorities will be addressed together, each as part of the other. Pinnacles National Park, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and Muir Woods National Monument each face human population pressures, yet each park has unique issues that illuminate the larger struggles within in NPS to ensure its mission to preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations is still being met 100 years after conception.

abstract: This dissertation consists of three substantive chapters. The first substantive chapter investigates the premature harvesting problem in fisheries. Traditionally, yield-per-recruit analysis has been used to both assess and address the premature harvesting of fish stocks. However, the fact that fish size often affects the unit price suggests that this approach may be inadequate. In this chapter, I first synthesize the conventional yield-per-recruit analysis, and then extend this conventional approach by incorporating a size-price function for a revenue-per-recruit analysis. An optimal control approach is then used to derive a general bioeconomic solution for the optimal harvesting of a short-lived single cohort. This approach prevents economically premature harvesting and provides an "optimal economic yield". By comparing the yield- and revenue-per-recruit management strategies with the bioeconomic management strategy, I am able to test the economic efficiency of the conventional yield-per-recruit approach. This is illustrated with a numerical study. It shows that a bioeconomic strategy can significantly improve economic welfare compared with the yield-per-recruit strategy, particularly in the face of high natural mortality. Nevertheless, I find that harvesting on a revenue-per-recruit basis improves management policy and can generate a rent that is close to that from bioeconomic analysis, in particular when the natural mortality is relatively low. The second substantive chapter explores the conservation potential of a whale permit market under bounded economic uncertainty. Pro- and anti-whaling stakeholders are concerned about a recently proposed, "cap and trade" system for managing the global harvest of whales. Supporters argue that such an approach represents a novel solution to the current gridlock in international whale management. In addition to ethical objections, opponents worry that uncertainty about demand for whale-based products and the environmental benefits of conservation may make it difficult to predict the outcome of a whale share market. In this study, I use population and economic data for minke whales to examine the potential ecological consequences of the establishment of a whale permit market in Norway under bounded but significant economic uncertainty. A bioeconomic model is developed to evaluate the influence of economic uncertainties associated with pro- and anti- whaling demands on long-run steady state whale population size, harvest, and potential allocation. The results indicate that these economic uncertainties, in particular on the conservation demand side, play an important role in determining the steady state ecological outcome of a whale share market. A key finding is that while a whale share market has the potential to yield a wide range of allocations between conservation and whaling interests - outcomes in which conservationists effectively "buy out" the whaling industry seem most likely. The third substantive chapter examines the sea lice externality between farmed fisheries and wild fisheries. A central issue in the debate over the effect of fish farming on the wild fisheries is the nature of sea lice population dynamics and the wild juvenile mortality rate induced by sea lice infection. This study develops a bioeconomic model that integrates sea lice population dynamics, fish population dynamics, aquaculture and wild capture salmon fisheries in an optimal control framework. It provides a tool to investigate sea lice control policy from the standpoint both of private aquaculture producers and wild fishery managers by considering the sea lice infection externality between farmed and wild fisheries. Numerical results suggest that the state trajectory paths may be quite different under different management regimes, but approach the same steady state. Although the difference in economic benefits is not significant in the particular case considered due to the low value of the wild fishery, I investigate the possibility of levying a tax on aquaculture production for correcting the sea lice externality generated by fish farms. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Biology 2014