In the Spring semester of 2003, Dr. Mitchell Mathis, HARC Environmental Economist and Director of the Valuing Nature in Texas Program, taught a special course at Rice University called "Valuing Nature: An Economic Perspective." The course challenged students to explore the economics of "intangible" (non-market) yet valued aspects of the natural environment such as: aesthetic beauty, recreation, biodiversity, and a host of other environmental goods and services provided by the ecosystem at no cost, such as air and water purification, CO2 sequestration, soil enrichment and erosion control, flood control, and heat regulation. Students also became familiar with such concepts as sustainable development, environmental and ecological economics, ecological assets, efficiency, optimality, complexity, economic trade-offs, opportunity costs, scarcity, property rights, market failure, externalities, tragedy of the commons, public goods, and free riding, economic policy instruments. Finally, students explored methods for estimating these various values in dollar terms, and how these estimates can be incorporated into environmental decision-making frameworks such as cost benefits analyses, as well as management approaches and policy design. Students finished the semester with a class project to estimate the value of incorporating nativelandscaping and shade trees into Rice University parking areas. The class' final report presents the results of the project, which suggest significant economic value associate with providing these environmental amenities as part of campus parking (ranging roughly from $9 - 17 per year) based on "willingness to pay" amounts elicited through a campus survey.
In the Spring semester of 2003, Dr. Mitchell Mathis, HARC Environmental Economist and Director of the Valuing Nature in Texas Program, taught a special course at Rice University called "Valuing Nature: An Economic Perspective." The course challenged students to explore the economics of "intangible" (non-market) yet valued aspects of the natural environment such as: aesthetic beauty, recreation, biodiversity, and a host of other environmental goods and services provided by the ecosystem at no cost, such as air and water purification, CO2 sequestration, soil enrichment and erosion control, flood control, and heat regulation. Students also became familiar with such concepts as sustainable development, environmental and ecological economics, ecological assets, efficiency, optimality, complexity, economic trade-offs, opportunity costs, scarcity, property rights, market failure, externalities, tragedy of the commons, public goods, and free riding, economic policy instruments. Finally, students explored methods for estimating these various values in dollar terms, and how these estimates can be incorporated into environmental decision-making frameworks such as cost benefits analyses, as well as management approaches and policy design. Students finished the semester with a class project to estimate the value of incorporating nativelandscaping and shade trees into Rice University parking areas. The class' final report presents the results of the project, which suggest significant economic value associate with providing these environmental amenities as part of campus parking (ranging roughly from $9 - 17 per year) based on "willingness to pay" amounts elicited through a campus survey.
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