Open space provides a range of benefits to many people of a community, beyond the benefits that accrue to private landowners. Parks and natural areas can be used for recreation; wetlands and forests supply storm-water drainage and wildlife habitat; farms and forests provide aesthetic benefits to...

The market for conservation easements provides a way to ensure the continued existence of open space amenities where rural communities face development pressure. The object of this research is to identify factors affecting land trust agents’ preferences for conservation easements and to...

As is the case with most rural agricultural communities, western Colorado is dependent on fossil fuels transported from distant sources. This results in vulnerability to fuel supply disruptions and price shocks (Ederington et al., 2011; Yu, Wang, and Lai, 2008). A predictable and locally derived...

Ascribing agricultural land values solely to productive capacity does not accurately capture the impact of environmental amenities on western land prices. We analyze rural land prices in Wyoming using a hedonic price model. Geographic information systems data includes on-parcel wildlife and fish...

Ascribing land value solely to productive capacity does not accurately capture the impact environmental amenities provide on western land prices. Agricultural land prices in Wyoming are estimated using a hedonic price model and Geographic Information Sciences (GIS) data. These GIS measurements...

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data are used in a hedonic model to measure the impact of recreational and scenic amenities on agricultural land values. Results indicate agricultural land values are determined by environmental amenities as well as production attributes. Significant amenity...