Bark Beetle Epidemics, Life Satisfaction, and Economic Well-Being

Thomas Holmes,Frank Koch

doi:10.3390/f10080696

Abstract

Evidence of increased biotic disturbances in forests due to climate change is accumulating, necessitating the development of new approaches for understanding the impacts of natural disturbances on human well-being. The recent Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB) outbreak in the western United States, which was historically unprecedented in scale, provides an opportunity for testing the adequacy of the life satisfaction approach (LSA) to estimate the impact of large-scale forest mortality on subjective well-being. Prior research in this region used the hedonic method (HM) to estimate the economic impacts of the MPB outbreak, and results are used here to evaluate the reasonableness of economic estimates based upon the LSA. While economic estimates based upon the LSA model do not appear to be unreasonable, several limitations in using the LSA for nonmarket valuations are discussed. New avenues for research that link the LSA with stated preference methods are discussed that appear likely to address major concerns with standard LSA models as used in nonmarket valuation.

Highlights

Current scientific consensus, as reported in the recent U.S National Climate Assessment, suggests that climate change will affect forest health over slow and fast timescales, thereby decreasing the ability of many forest ecosystems to provide desired ecosystem services across broad landscapes [1].While gradual changes in climate will likely alter forest productivity and the distribution of species, of more immediate consequence are rapid changes in forest health conditions resulting from alterations in the frequency, intensity, duration, and extent of natural disturbances such as wildfires, insect outbreaks, and extreme drought [1,2]
County = 1.41; Routt County = 1.55; and Summit County = 1.53. While these results provide an initial indication that forest mortality due to mountain pine beetles (MPB) created a loss in well-being, they do not account for differences in either the characteristics of the people living in various counties, the extent of forest mortality occurring within counties, nor the differences in county fixed-effects
The results of this study extend the findings of previous research using the life satisfaction approach (LSA) to estimate the effects of a non-native invasive species on subjective well-being (SWB) [27] by demonstrating that, does the occurrence of a forest pest outbreak reduce life satisfaction, but the areal extent of an outbreak is directly related to the degree of SWB reduction

Summary

Introduction

As reported in the recent U.S National Climate Assessment, suggests that climate change will affect forest health over slow and fast timescales, thereby decreasing the ability of many forest ecosystems to provide desired ecosystem services across broad landscapes [1].While gradual changes in climate (decades to centuries) will likely alter forest productivity and the distribution of species, of more immediate consequence are rapid changes (months to years) in forest health conditions resulting from alterations in the frequency, intensity, duration, and extent of natural disturbances such as wildfires, insect outbreaks, and extreme drought [1,2]. Of further concern is the compounding effects of bark beetles and “hotter droughts” that have driven episodes of large-scale forest mortality in the southwestern United States [4] and Sierra Nevada Mountains [5], killing tens of millions of trees and altering ecosystem processes. Within the United States, amenity migration to the wildland–urban interface is driving the fastest growing land-use [6], placing increasingly extensive areas of residential landscapes at risk of massive forest mortality events driven by insect outbreaks. Between 1950 and 2000, outbreaks of the European spruce bark beetle (ESBB) caused an estimated 8% of tree mortality due to natural disturbances across the continent [7] and model simulations predict that ESBB will cause more extensive damage to European forests during the 100 years in response to warmer and dryer climatic conditions [8].

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion