Putting a price tag on environmental projects

Unlike a grocery store, the goods and services in the environment — think clean water, tree cover, or flood control — don’t come with a price tag. Researchers in the University of Delaware Department of Applied Economics and Statistics have received a $1.5 million grant to assess the value of what is gained or lost from environmental projects.

The three-year grant from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, the chief research and development center for the federal environmental engineering agency U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, will pave the way for UD environmental economists to develop a web-based platform to help the Corps. 

The research team is led by Maik Kecinski, associate professor in the Department of Applied Economics and Statistics and also includes department colleagues Kent Messer and Martin Heintzelman, as well as three graduate researchers. The team will create an online platform to help the Corps estimate the monetary value of the ecosystem impacts through its ongoing and proposed projects across the U.S.

Kecinski said many of the Corps’ projects involve natural resources, such as building dams or restoring rivers. Those projects require labor hours and equipment, each with a market value.

“But the big piece the Corps doesn’t have is what is the environmental value that’s created or lost through these projects?” Kecinski said.

The project came about after ERDC representatives visited UD in 2023. Kent Messer, Professor of Applied Economics, presented research about behavioral aspects around water quality and conservation and learned about ERDC’s research needs.

Messer said that the big takeaway from those discussions was that ERDC was interested in having a platform to show the ecosystem services value of its projects.

“So that was an exciting opportunity to connect and partner with them on the development of a tool that could help them in this regard,” Messer said.

Messer said the opportunity to work with the Corps to assess its projects nationwide is “huge” for the University and for UD’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

“It speaks enormously to our college’s prominence in environmental economics issues,” Messer said.

Martin Heintzelman, chair of UD's Department of Applied Economics and Statistics, said the project will help raise the profile of the department.

“This is really in our wheelhouse in terms of the kind of research we do,” Heintzelman said. “It’s a great opportunity for us to be applying research to policymakers, people who are going to use this work to make better decisions as they’re going about their work constructing, managing, and sometimes de-constructing water and related projects.”

The researchers hope the web-based platform will play a role in policy and decision-making, helping the Corps make more informed decisions on environmental projects in the future.

“One thing I hope is going to come from this is the choices we make today are going to create a better tomorrow. That’s what it is all about” Kecinski said.