Webinar Demonstration of Social Values for Ecosystem Services (SolVES) by Ben Sherrouse and Darius Semmens of USGS

Submitted by sdcarr on Wed, 02/06/2013 - 5:34pm
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Date: 
Thursday, May 2, 2013

Thursday, May 2, 1 pm EDT/10 am US PDT/5 pm GMT

Webinar Demonstration of Social Values for Ecosystem Services (SolVES) by Ben Sherrouse
and Darius Semmens of USGS. Social Values for Ecosystem Services (SolVES)
is a GIS-based tool to assess, map, and quantify nonmarket values of ecosystem
services as perceived by stakeholders. These perceived social values often
correspond to cultural ecosystem services, such as aesthetics and recreation.
These values can be compared among different stakeholder groups distinguished
by their attitudes and preferences regarding public uses, such as motorized
recreation or logging. SolVES derives a nonmonetary, 10-point social-values
metric, the value index (VI), from a combination of spatial and nonspatial
responses to public attitude and preference surveys. It then models the
relationship between VI and characteristics of the underlying environment, such
as average distance to water and dominant land cover. Additionally, SolVES
facilitates the transfer of social-value models to areas where primary survey
data are not available. Learn more about SolVES at http://solves.cr.usgs.gov.
Register at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/438764008.