Geology topics

Aaron Joey Enriquez

Publications and source records attributed to Aaron Joey Enriquez.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2026

Are mobile device location data a substitute for travel cost surveys?

Mobile device location data offer a low-cost alternative for measuring visitation to outdoor recreation sites and are known to correlate with official visitation counts. Less is known about whether these data can recover recreation demand and consumer surplus comparable to surveybased methods. We compare travel cost models estimated using mobile device and survey data for 17 U.S. National Park Service sites. Results are mixed. We examine the roles of aggregation and sampling bias and use LASSO regression to assess whether sample and site characteristics explain discrepancies.

conterminous United States↗

USGS2025

Scoping decision-maker needs and science availability to support regional natural capital accounting in the U.S. Colorado River Basin

Natural capital accounting has the potential to yield important policy insights at multiple scales, but there remains a disconnect between regional-scale natural capital accounts and their use for informing policy. In this paper, we propose a roadmap that could lead to the creation of policy-relevant regional accounts, with steps split across an initial scoping phase and a subsequent development phase. We demonstrate the scoping steps in action with an application to the Colorado River Basin (“Basin”), a large watershed in the southwestern United States (U.S.) that has faced aridification and substantial high-profile tradeoffs around the use of its water and other natural resources. Drawing on prior U.S. Geological Survey science co-production efforts, we conducted a series of eight discussion sessions with 41 scientists and science representatives whose work is relevant to Basin water, riparian and riverine ecosystems, upland ecosystems and energy and minerals. We summarise participants' thoughts on key topics and economic linkages, their insights and questions of interest and their recommendations on existing scientific data sources and gaps. We evaluate the suitability of the available data for construction of System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) Central Framework and SEEA Ecosystem Accounting accounts, including those for land, water, forests, energy and minerals and ecosystems (covering extent, condition and ecosystem services). We present a series of lessons learned during the scoping phase, as well as lessons that could be relevant for future practitioners engaging in the development phase. The information can help guide the development of timely and relevant regional-scale environmental-economic accounts in the U.S. and beyond.

Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico,↗

USGS2025

Tradeoffs and win-wins between large landscape conservation and wildlife viewing in protected areas

Wildlife conservation around protected areas is critical and costly, yet its beneficiaries—particularly protected area visitors who enjoy viewing wide-ranging wildlife—rarely contribute towards landscape-scale conservation. We characterize the importance of wildlife viewing in two U.S. protected areas: Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. We surveyed park visitors ( N = 991) and used the travel cost method to test whether changes in the viewing experience would justify support for visitor-funded conservation. We find that benefits from wildlife viewing are substantial and dependent on protecting wide-ranging species and maintaining their abundance. Large carnivores, particularly grizzly bears, are especially important to wildlife viewers, who are willing to pay more to visit the parks by about 50%. Additionally, we gauged support for three conservation fundraising mechanisms within parks: a mandatory fee, a voluntary fund, and a tax on goods and services. Overall, we find that species population declines could have a greater effect on visitation than that from imposing conservation costs onto visitors, which visitors largely support regardless of income or politics. Our results demonstrate tradeoffs between maintaining visitor experience quality and protected area visitation, with a potential win-win for conservation beneficiaries to contribute towards action at a scale necessary for biodiversity protection.

Wyoming↗

USGS2024

Simple stated preference questions can enhance transdisciplinary projects: Linking perceived risks with willingness to spray and pay

Transdisciplinary projects can uncover crucial insights on people’s past and future risk-mitigation behavior. We focus on a novel risk context: increasing health threats from ticks on Staten Island, a New York City borough where the combination of high population density and extensive park systems and green spaces has resulted in a rise in locally-acquired tick-transmitted disease cases. We administered a knowledge, attitudes, and practices survey that additionally included simple economic stated preference questions about people’s willingness to spray tick pesticides in the future. We first analyze factors that are correlated with people’s perceptions of two types of risks: exposure to ticks and infection with Lyme disease. Next, we use the nonmarket valuation questions to test people’s willingness to spray and pay as a function of attributes of the hypothetical pesticides, including cost, effectiveness, and type. Across all model specifications, overall willingness to pay (WTP) to spray increases with increases in pesticide effectiveness, as well as with favorable pesticide type (organic). We uncover threshold pesticide effectiveness levels at which WTP to spray turns positive, and we find that lower pesticide effectiveness is required for organic pesticide. Finally, we test how perceived risks and various individual-specific characteristics correlate with WTP to spray. Combinations of higher perceived risks are linked both with higher WTP and lower breakeven pesticide effectiveness. Our work shows that a broad range of variables influence demand for self-protection actions, both directly and indirectly (through their effects on perceived risks). Such insights on people’s tradeoffs carry important policy implications, but they can be missed if economic information is either not elicited or elicited alone.

New York↗

USGS2024

Urban tick exposure on Staten Island is higher in pet owners

Over the past decade, Lyme and other tick-borne diseases have expanded into urban areas, including Staten Island, New York. While Lyme disease is often researched with a focus on human risk, domestic pets are also at risk of contracting the disease. The present study aims to describe differences in tick exposure, knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAP) between pet owners and non-owners, and to understand preventive strategies practiced by pet owners for themselves and their pets. We conducted KAP surveys via phone in 2020 and via face-to-face interviews in 2021, and we analyzed unique responses from 364 households on Staten Island. Pet owners were more likely to have ever found a tick on themselves or their household members (63%) than non-owners (46%) (p<0.001). Among pet owners, those who owned dogs (dog-only or both dog and cat owners) were more likely to have ever found a tick on their pets than cat-only owners (p<0.001). Compared with non-pet owners, pet owners were more likely both to know that ticks transmit Lyme disease (p<0.001) and to avoid gardening to reduce their tick exposure (p = 0.032), but they were less likely to wear protective clothing or adjust clothing (p = 0.013). Compared with cat owners who had never found a tick on their cats, cat owners who had ever found a tick on their cats were more likely to let their cats go outside (p<0.001). However, reported preventive measures on cats did not differ between pet owners who did and did not report tick exposure. The results indicate that encouraging pet owners to engage in preventative measures, both to protect themselves and their pets, is a potential avenue for healthcare providers and veterinarians to reduce risks from ticks.

New York↗

USGS2024

Valuing wildlife sightings at the species-wide and individual animal levels: An approach and application to bear viewing in Yellowstone National Park

Wildlife viewing is a popular recreation activity in parks and protected areas around the world, yet information on the nonmarket value that visitors derive from viewing specific species, and how that value is affected by small-scale population changes, is lacking. We devised an approach to fill the gap. First, we applied the travel cost method to obtain the value of a wildlife viewing trip. Next, we estimated a value per animal sighting, which we aggregated by the number of visitors who experienced and valued a sighting. Finally, we incorporated the probability of viewing an animal to determine an individual animal’s contribution to sighting value, which varies by species type, visibility, and seasonality. We examined bear viewing in Yellowstone National Park. For grizzly and black bears, respectively, per-sighting values are $16 and $14, aggregate annual sighting values are $6.9 and $9.7 million, and annual per-bear viewing values are $46,000 and $15,000.

Idaho, Montana, Wyoming↗