TY - GEN A1 - Drechsler, Martin T1 - Flexibility trade‐offs in conservation offsets T2 - Conservation Biology N2 - Conservation offsets promise cost‐effective conservation of biodiversity, especially under economic and environmental change, because they represent a more flexible approach to biodiversity conservation, allowing for the economic development of ecologically valuable land provided that this development is offset by restoration of previously developed areas. The level of flexibility is determined by the trading rules. Lax rules allow for more flexibility, which promises cost savings, but will likely lead to unintended loss of biodiversity. I analyzed the trade‐off between economic costs and ecological benefits (biodiversity conservation) in biodiversity offsetting with an ecological‐economic model that considered the three main types of offset flexibility: spatial, temporal, and ecosystem type. I sought to examine the influence of ecological and economic conditions on offset flexibility trade‐offs. Large variation in the conservation costs and small costs of habitat restoration strongly increased trading activity and reduced the ecological benefit. The ecological benefit was most sensitive to spatial flexibility when a short range of ecological interaction was considered. At a large interaction range, spatial flexibility delivered large cost savings without overly reducing the ecological benefit. Risks and time lags associated with habitat restoration favored an offsetting scheme in which credits are awarded with the initiation of restoration projects rather than their successful completion—given appropriate offsetting multipliers were chosen. Altogether, under scarce resources, the level of flexibility in an offsetting scheme should be chosen by carefully balancing ecological benefits and economic costs. KW - conservation offsets KW - cost‐effectiveness KW - dynamic KW - ecological‐economic model KW - flexibility KW - spatial KW - trade‐off KW - compensaciones por conservación KW - compromiso KW - dinámica KW - espacial KW - flexibilidad KW - modelo ecológico‐económico Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14144 SN - 0888-8892 SN - 1523-1739 VL - 38 IS - 1 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Reutter, Felix A1 - Drechsler, Martin A1 - Gawel, Erik A1 - Lehmann, Paul T1 - Social costs of setback distances for onshore wind turbines: a model analysis applied to the German State of Saxony T2 - Environmental and Resource Economics N2 - Wind power is a key for decarbonizing economies. Yet, wind turbines can produce negative environmental externalities. These include bird collisions and disamenities for residents. Setback distances for onshore wind turbines to settlements and bird nests are a common policy instrument to address these externalities. In this paper, we evaluate the cost-effectiveness of setback distances. We use a spatially-explicit model to investigate the social costs of different options for setbacks to settlements and red kite nests. In terms of social costs, we consider production costs and external costs associated with residents’ disamenities and red kite impacts given an exogenously set wind energy production target. The model is applied using data for the German State of Saxony. Three key results are: (1) More restrictive setbacks may increase social costs. (2) Uniform red kite setbacks reduce social costs rather than uniform settlement setbacks. (3) Differentiated settlement setbacks for different settlement types lead to substantially lower social costs than uniform setbacks. KW - Wind turbines KW - Externalities KW - Setback distances KW - Social costs KW - Spatially-explicit modeling Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-023-00777-3 SN - 0924-6460 SN - 1573-1502 VL - 87 IS - 2 SP - 437 EP - 463 PB - Springer Netherlands ER - TY - GEN A1 - Drechsler, Martin T1 - A game‐theoretic systematics of conservation and management of spatial ecosystem services T2 - Natural resource modeling N2 - Since many ecosystem services involve spatial scales beyond farm size, their preservation and management in agricultural systems depend on the interaction of the landowners. For the analysis of such interactive land use a generic dynamic land‐use model is developed that considers different payoff structures in a systematic manner and relates land‐use dynamics to these payoff structures. A landowner's own payoff depends on the land use on neighboring land parcels. The landowners’ payoffs are interpreted in a game‐theoretic manner which allows for a game‐theoretic classification of the different land‐use dynamics generated by the model. The model is analyzed to determine the proportion, spatial aggregation and temporal turnover of land‐use measures. The model results are applied to a number of cases from literature in which the management of ecosystem services involves a regional scale, including pollinator conservation, pest control, and coordination incentives for the conservation of species in fragmented landscapes. Four main domains of model behavior are identified and related to the payoff structures (type of game), characterized by the proportions and temporal turnover of land‐use measures, and by whether the system has one or two stable equilibria. An important determinant of the land‐use dynamics is the spatial heterogeneity of the landowners' payoffs which. It affects the domain and the location in the domain by which the land‐use dynamics are characterized. KW - Ecosystem services KW - Land use KW - Simulation model KW - Spatial externality Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/nrm.12404 SN - 0890-8575 SN - 1939-7445 VL - 37 IS - 4 SP - 1 EP - 26 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken, NJ ER -