On March 27th, Dr. Jérôme Dupras, expert in Ecosystems Services will be on Campus

BRAES Guest Speakers Series Presents:

“Economic value of Montreal’s green and blue belt non-market ecosystem services in a land use management and planning perspective”

Presenter: Dr. Jérôme Dupras

Assistant Professor, University of Québec

Friday, March 27th 

10:30 – 11:30 AM  Room: FIPKE 250

UBC Okanagan

RSVP with Carolina Restrepo at carolina.restrepo@ubc.ca

Abstract:

The Greater Montreal (Quebec, Canada) area is currently re-evaluating the future of its land use planning and development sector. One of the approaches being considered is the monetization of non-market goods and services provided by biodiversity and ecosystems in this region. This is in the interest of providing decision makers and stakeholders a tool for quantification and comparison. In this presentation, we will first present the green and blue belt projects in the Greater Montreal area. We will secondly present two studies of ecosystem services valuation in the target area : 1) the analysis of the green belt value based on a benefit transfer methodology, and 2) the analysis of the blue belt based on a contingent ranking approach. For the green belt, the value measured for the 11 non-market ecosystem services (ES) monetized for the Greater Montreal area reached $2.2 billion/year. More than three-quarters of this total value is provided by the services of air quality regulation, recreation, and habitat for biodiversity. Ecosystems providing the highest non-market values are urban forests, woodlands, and wetlands. For the blue belt, the evaluation focused on six ES related to aquatic ecosystems, namely biodiversity, water quality, carbon sequestration, recreational activities, landscape aesthetics and education services. We also estimated the value associated to the areas of restored sites. We calculated the monetary value that a household would be willing to pay for each additional qualitative or quantitative unit of an ES. Depending on the ES, these marginal values varied between $ 0.11 and $ 15.39 per household per additional ES unit. We believe that the results of this ecosystem services value exercise could lead to better resource allocation and enable policy-makers to design more effective land use policies in southern Quebec.

Mondays, March 23rd and 30th.

Your First Steps in the Open Source Language R (Second Edition)

Presenter: Matthias Bass, PhD. Student, Complex Environmental Systems Laboratory at UBCO

Time: 1-4 PM              Room: ARTS 219

REGISTRATION REQUIRED

BRAES and UBC Community: Free;  General Public: $20.00 For registration and additional information please contact: Carolina Restrepo at carolina.restrepo@ubc.ca

For workshop website click here

NO PROGRAMMING EXPERIENCE IS REQUIRED

Wednesdays, Dec. 3rd and 10th

Your First Steps in the Open Source Language R

Presenter: Matthias Bass, PhD. Student, Complex Environmental Systems Laboratory at UBCO

Time: 12:00-3:00 PM              Room: EME1151

REGISTRATION REQUIRED

BRAES and UBC Community: Free;  General Public: $20.00 For registration and additional information please contact: Carolina Restrepo at carolina.restrepo@ubc.ca

NO PROGRAMMING EXPERIENCE IS REQUIRED

Since May 2014 we welcome 3 new members to BRAES:

Dr. Greg Garrard, Associate Professor in Sustainability, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies

Dr. John Wagner, Associate Professor, Community, Culture and Global Studies, IK Barber School of Arts and Sciences

Dr. Aleksandra Dulic, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies

Our annual report is now ready!!!

Please go to the “About” section  to access the report