Cooperative Extension produces public value through educational programming that benefits the greater community. Forests provide numerous valuable benefits to society through the provision of ecosystem services. Cooperative Extension educational programming positively impacts forest owners, who in turn conduct actions that enhance ecosystem services. A heretofore unrecognized relationship exists between Cooperative Extension and ecosystem services that provides opportunity for mutual benefit. Applying ecosystem services values to Extension natural resources-related programmatic outcomes through benefit transfer provides an avenue for Extension to make significant advancements in monetizing public value. Beyond serving simply as a source of financial justification, however, linkages with ecosystem services also provide Cooperative Extension with opportunities to improve the design and delivery of educational programs, do a better job articulating an array of public benefits resulting from agency accomplishments, and optimize allocation of sparse resources and Extension efforts. This dissertation thoroughly explores these concepts by providing an overview of: Cooperative Extension in general and Extension forestry more specifically; public value in an Extension context; ecosystem services; ecosystem services valuation; benefit transfer, and; connections between these diverse topics. In addition, benefit transfer principles are applied to an existing Extension evaluation data set in attempt to monetize Cooperative Extension's impact, lessons learned are explored, and the Cooperative Extension public value discussion is re-framed as one aspect of overall continuous organizational improvement. / Ph. D. / Cooperative Extension produces public value through educational programming that benefits the greater community. Forests provide numerous valuable benefits to society through the provision of ecosystem services such as clean air, aesthetic beauty, and clean water. Cooperative Extension educational programming positively impacts forest owners, who in turn conduct actions that enhance ecosystem services. A heretofore unrecognized relationship exists between Cooperative Extension and ecosystem services that provides opportunity for mutual benefit. Applying ecosystem services values to Extension natural resources-related programmatic outcomes through benefit transfer—a process by which monetary values from primary studies are applied to similar sites where original studies are not possible due to high costs or time constraints--provides an avenue for Extension to apply monetary values to the public benefits it provides. Beyond serving simply as a source of financial justification, however, linkages with ecosystem services also provide Cooperative Extension with opportunities to improve the design and delivery of educational programs, do a better job articulating an array of public benefits resulting from agency accomplishments, and optimize allocation of sparse resources and Extension efforts. This dissertation thoroughly explores these concepts by providing an overview of: Cooperative Extension in general and Extension forestry more specifically; public value in an Extension context; ecosystem services; ecosystem services valuation; benefit transfer, and; connections between these diverse topics. In addition, benefit transfer principles are applied to an existing Extension evaluation data set in attempt to monetize Cooperative Extension’s impact, lessons learned are explored, and the Cooperative Extension public value discussion is reframed as one aspect of overall continuous organizational improvement.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/92586 |
| Date | 06 February 2018 |
| Creators | Goerlich, Daniel Lee |
| Contributors | Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, Mortimer, Michael J., Hull, Robert Bruce IV, Munsell, John F., Boyd, Heather H., Moeltner, Klaus |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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