Evaluating Tradeoffs 

Among Ecosystem 

Services in the 

Management of 

Public Lands

Jeffrey D. Kline and Marisa J. Mazzotta 

United States 

Department of 

Agriculture

Forest Service

Pacific Northwest 

Research Station

General Technical Report 

PNW-GTR-865

June 2012

DEPAR TMENT OF AGRICULT URE
Authors

Jeffrey D. Kline is a research forester, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest 

Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Forestry Sciences Laboratory, 

3200 SW Jefferson Way, Corvallis, OR 97331; and Marisa J. Mazzotta is an 

environmental and resource economist, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 

Atlantic Ecology Division, 27 Tarzwell Drive, Narragansett, RI 02882.

Cover photo by Tom Iraci.

The Forest Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is dedicated to the principle of 

multiple use management of the Nation’s forest resources for sustained yields of wood, 

water, forage, wildlife, and recreation. Through forestry research, cooperation with the 

States and private forest owners, and management of the National Forests and National 

Grasslands, it strives—as directed by Congress—to provide increasingly greater service 

to a growing Nation.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and 

activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, and where applicable, 

sex, marital status, familial status, parental status, religion, sexual orientation, genetic 

information, political beliefs, reprisal, or because all or part of an individual’s income 

is derived from any public assistance program. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all 

programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of 

program information (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s TARGET 

Center at (202) 720–2600 (voice and TDD). To file a complaint of discrimination, write 

USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 

20250–9410 or call (800) 795–3272 (voice) or (202) 720–6382 (TDD). USDA is an equal 

opportunity provider and employer.
Abstract

Kline, Jeffrey D.; Mazzotta, Marisa J. 2012. Evaluating tradeoffs among 

ecosystem services in the management of public lands. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNWGTR-865. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific 

Northwest Research Station. 48 p.

The U.S. Forest Service has adopted the concept and language of ecosystem 

services to describe the beneficial outcomes of national forest management. We 

review the economic theory of ecosystem services as it applies to public lands 

management, and consider what it implies about the types of biophysical and 

other data that are needed for characterizing management outcomes as changes in 

ecosystem services. Our intent is to provide a guide to policymakers, managers, 

researchers, and others for evaluating and describing the tradeoffs involved in the 

management of public lands. Characterizing ecosystem services fundamentally is 

about explaining the benefits of national forests to the American public, with an 

emphasis on addressing their interests and concerns about how public lands are 

managed. Our hope is that this report will foster dialog about what people value 

about national forests and how public land management agencies might best go 

about securing those benefits. 

Keywords: Ecosystem services, landscape analysis, public benefits, nonmarket 

values, national forest planning and management.
Contents

1 Introduction

2 National Forest Management

6 An Economic Theory of Landscape Management and Tradeoffs

13 Tradeoffs

20 Social Values

26 From Theory to Application

30 Incorporating Ecosystem Services Into National Forest Management

32 Ecosystem Services Typologies

37 Information Needed for Describing Tradeoffs

40 Policy Implications

42 Acknowledgments

43 References
1

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

“Tradeoff—a balancing of factors all of which are not attainable at the 

same time” (Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 1990).

Introduction

All choices involve tradeoffs. Consider, for example, dessert. There may be times 

when we want to have our cake and eat it too, but by choosing cake we also choose 

not to have, say, pie. Choosing to have one thing now—like cake—almost always 

entails accepting that we cannot have another thing now—like pie. There also is 

the matter of the later trip to the dentist, which could involve additional conditions 

that we must accept in the future. That brings up the issue of time. What we choose 

in the present may influence the range of choices available to us or others in the 

future. If choosing cake today means that tomorrow the pie shop goes out of business, tomorrow we may not have the opportunity to choose between cake and pie. 

Choices also almost always involve some uncertainty. Which will taste better, the 

cake or the pie? And how likely is the pie shop to close? Lastly, choices can be difficult when they must satisfy many. If ordering dessert for a group, we may not agree 

amongst ourselves about which might be better, the cake or the pie. Do we vote; flip 

a coin? Such is the nature of everyday choices, such as those involving what car to 

buy, what college to attend, where to go for dinner, and what to have for dessert. 

Managing public lands also involves tradeoffs. Choices about whether, where, 

and when to harvest timber, thin, graze, reserve, or burn—all involve tradeoffs 

among numerous factors that differ across landscapes and over time. They have 

consequences that are desirable to some and undesirable to others; and, reasonable 

people will disagree about the likelihood of particular consequences. Sometimes 

there will be sufficient information with which to describe and weigh all of the relevant factors that characterize a choice, but many choices will be fraught with missing information. The political context in which public lands management decisions 

are made also is complex. Some people will support proposed actions, some people 

will oppose, and some will oppose no matter what the intended consequences. Forest managers often express the sentiment: “We just want to manage without getting 

sued.” How can an agency charged with managing public lands go about making 

sound management choices that garner public acceptance or approval? We believe 

that it begins with an understanding of how tradeoffs are evaluated, and an appreciation of the limitations of scientific information to support evaluating tradeoffs. 

Addressing those two issues is the purpose of this report. 

The U.S. Forest Service has adopted the concept and language of ecosystem 

services to describe the beneficial outcomes of national forest management 

(e.g., USDA FS 2012). Ecosystem services are the services produced by forest 

The concept of 

ecosystem services 

fundamentally is about 

explaining the benefits 

of national forests to 

the American public.
2

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

ecosystems that people enjoy or benefit from, including scenic views, fish and wildlife, clean water, and timber, to name a few. A hope is that the language of ecosystem services will help national forest managers to (1) better articulate to the public 

and stakeholders the benefits that national forests provide to the American public, 

(2) foster public support for particular management actions that might otherwise be 

subject to legal challenge by various groups, and (3) persuade entities who benefit 

from particular services (e.g., water supply for cities, trails for recreation groups) 

to assist in carrying out projects on national forests to enhance forest stewardship 

(Smith et al. 2011). Ideally, an ecosystem services framework could foster these 

goals by providing a means for evaluating and describing the beneficial outcomes of 

national forest management. The framework would provide a benefit structure for 

articulating forest planning goals, as well as define specific benefits that could be 

measured and evaluated to support project-level planning and implementation. It is 

a worthy goal and one that calls for a shared conceptual understanding of tradeoffs 

in landscape management and pragmatism about what information might be useful 

for describing them.

In this report, we review the economic theory of tradeoffs as it applies to public 

lands management and ecosystem services, and consider what it implies about the 

types of biophysical and other data that are needed for characterizing management 

outcomes as changes in ecosystem services. Our intent is to provide a guide to 

policymakers, managers, researchers, and others for evaluating and describing the 

tradeoffs inherent in the management of public lands. Characterizing ecosystem 

services fundamentally is about explaining the benefits of national forests to the 

American public, with an emphasis on addressing their interests and concerns about 

how national forests are managed. Our hope is that this report will foster dialog 

about what people value about national forests and how public land management 

agencies might best go about securing those benefits. 

National Forest Management 

Forest management has long recognized the need to consider an array of forest 

uses and values. As early as 1864—before creation of the National Forest System—George Perkins Marsh warned of adverse environmental effects from land 

clearing and noted various “services” that forests provide to people (Marsh 1864: 

87, 91, 95, 232). The original mission of the Forest Service focused on protecting 

water and timber. But with demands soaring after World War II, the Forest Service 

emerged as a primary supplier of natural resource commodities, including timber 

and rangeland for grazing livestock (USDA FS 2005). Public demand for outdoor 

recreation also grew with highway improvements, increasing car ownership, and a 
3

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

shift away from agrarian lifestyles, among other factors. Continuing socioeconomic 

changes and legislation passed during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s broadened the 

Forest Service mission to include an even greater array of public benefits (Apple 

2000, MacCleery 1993, MacCleery and LeMaster 1999). Key legislation included 

the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960, which introduced multiple-use 

management, and the National Forest Management Act of 1976, which incorporated multiple-use management into forest planning. Nonmarket benefits grew in 

stature to rival commodity (or market) values as a management focus. Multiple-use 

management eventually evolved to incorporate ecosystem management—formally 

adopted by the Forest Service in 1992 (Thomas 1996, USDA FS 1992). Whereas 

multiple-use management tended to focus on landscape outputs—cubic feet of 

timber, animal unit months of grazing, or recreation days, for example—ecosystem 

management focused more on landscape conditions, with outputs more often 

viewed as byproducts of meeting ecosystem objectives (Grumbine 1994, Kaufmann 

et al. 1994, MacLeary and LeMaster 1999). Ecosystem management also broadened 

the management perspective to consider social and ecological interactions over a 

variety of spatial and temporal scales, rather than outputs produced at a single time 

and place (MacLeary and LeMaster 1999).

The evolving need to consider a wider array of benefits has made managing 

national forests more complex. It has expanded the amount of information required 

for characterizing management effects and increased the level of scrutiny that 

national forests receive from the public and nongovernmental organizations. Earnest research efforts by the Forest Service and others have developed and improved 

methods for weighing multiple forest benefits, but have not eased the complexity 

(text box 1). At the same time, there has been increasing recognition that many forest benefits derive from landscape conditions and processes that transcend national 

forest boundaries. For landscape management to effectively provide desired forest 

benefits, it must consider the role of all lands—public and private—when devising management activities and evaluating their likely outcomes. This “all lands” 

perspective broadens the geographic scope over which forest benefits and the 

landscape conditions and processes on which they depend might be evaluated. 

National forest management as currently conducted involves (1) forest planning, which involves developing broad and long-term landscape objectives; and 

(2) project-level planning and implementation, which involves developing and 

executing individual local projects that pursue objectives outlined in the forest plan. 

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 requires managers to assess the 

environmental effects of any ground-disturbing project proposed. Individuals or 

interest groups use litigation under the Administrative Procedure Act (1966) and the 

Appeals Reform Act (1992) to ensure that their particular concerns are addressed in 
4

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

Text box 1: The Forest Service and research pertaining to 

ecosystem services

The recent interest in ecosystem services within the Forest Service continues a line of scientific inquiry pertaining to the public benefits of national 

forest management. In forestry, the roots of such inquiry arguably extend 

back decades to work by Gregory (1955), who applied traditional production 

economics theory to forestry to define multiple-use management as a problem 

of joint production of multiple outputs. Gregory (1955) focused on those forest 

outputs of interest at the time, including timber, forage, water, recreation, and 

habitat for species of commercial or recreational interest. Building on Gregory 

were other works on multiple-use forestry, including Pearse (1969), O’Connell 

and Brown (1972), Walter (1977), Alston (1979), and Teeguarden (1982), to 

name a few. However, the National Forest Management Act (1976) mandated 

that the forest managers address a wider array of forest benefits and values, 

including nonmarket benefits, in their analyses of proposed projects. This ushered in a period of especially intensive research effort among environmental 

and resource economists, focused on describing nonmarket values associated 

with the management of public forests. 

Of particular importance is the work of John Krutilla at Resources for the 

Future, whose work on the economics of public forest lands was funded in 

part by the Forest Service during the 1970s as the agency sought to define “a 

rational basis for multiple-use” (Buckman 2010). In previous work, Krutilla 

had noted the importance of “providing for the present and future the amenities associated with unspoiled natural environments, for which the market 

fails to make adequate provision” (Krutilla 1967: 778). Krutilla provided 

economic reasoning for why nonmarketed natural resources had economic 

value, and why the opportunity costs of protecting natural resources and their 

services should be considered and compared to extractive-use values. He was 

one of the first economists to propose an approach to measuring nonmarket 

values (Resources for the Future 2003). Up to that time, the service flows 

provided by natural environments were typically relegated to the category of 

intangibles and did not play a meaningful role in economic analysis (Flores 

2002: 3). Krutilla’s efforts for the Forest Service eventually formed the 

foundation for the widely cited Multiple-Use Management: The Economics of 

Public Forest Lands, by Bowes and Krutilla (1989). 

(continued on next page)
5

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

assessments conducted to support forest planning and individual projects. Frequent 

use of litigation by various interest groups has led to many proposed projects now 

taking years to litigate and then implement, assuming they survive litigation. 

From the Forest Service perspective, these changes have resulted in a management 

process that impedes the ability of national forests to complete needed work in a 

timely manner—work that is viewed as necessary to fulfill the Forest Service’s own 

ecosystem restoration objectives. 

A factor that may have increased the likelihood of litigation is the Forest Service’s own reporting and reward requirements, which have focused on accomplishing functional targets assigned by Congress. Examples of targets include cubic feet 

of timber produced and sold, amount of firewood offered, miles of road constructed 

or decommissioned, acres of forest fire fuels reduced, and annual unit-months of 

grazing permits awarded (Smith et al. 2011). For some observers, the focus on functional targets has tended to obscure the degree to which managers actually consider 

a full array of forest benefits in planning and project-level decision processes. The 

lack of integrated assessment, whether real or perceived, conceivably fostered distrust among particular nongovernment organizations and the public about whether 

the Forest Service adequately considered all factors affected by proposed management actions. Some national forest policymakers and managers speculate that the 

Bowes and Krutilla (1989) noted two key informational needs: (1) characterizing the responses of vegetation and wildlife to management, and (2) 

the economic valuation of biophysical products (e.g., ecosystem services). In 

response, much of the economics research in forestry throughout the 1980s 

to the present has focused on valuing the nonmarket benefits of ecosystem 

services provided by forests, to support management decisions. These efforts 

are exemplified in works such as Valuation of Wildland Resource Benefits by 

Peterson and Randall (1984), and Amenity Resource Valuation by Peterson et 

al. (1988). These and other works also have involved Forest Service funding 

and scientists. This work continues within the agency today, with examples 

such as A Primer on Nonmarket Valuation, by Champ et al. (2003). Although 

much progress has been made in evaluating ecosystem services, the informational challenges identified by Bowes and Krutilla (1989) remain as the 

greatest obstacles to applying the ecosystem services framework to national 

forest management. It is now increasingly recognized that further progress 

requires multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches.
6

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

focus on functional targets and associated distrust made litigation over proposed 

projects all the more likely. 

Interest in including ecosystem services concepts and language into national 

forest management arises in part from the Forest Service’s recognition that management processes may not always have provided a sufficient accounting of public 

benefits. A hope is that the concept and language of ecosystem services will enable 

the agency to present a stronger rationale for forest planning goals and specific projects that are planned and implemented, by outlining a more inclusive set of benefits 

as outcomes of management. Ideally, these changes, combined with an open and 

meaningful public participatory process, will make national forest management 

more understandable and less contentious. It is a worthy goal; however, introduction of an ecosystem services framework into national forest management does not 

necessarily ease the work of weighing and characterizing the tradeoffs associated 

with proposed plans and projects. That task still depends on managers being able to 

characterize likely changes in landscape conditions and processes, and associated 

ecosystem services, as expected outcomes of management in ways that people can 

understand and trust. That always has been, and still is, the challenge. 

Forest planning is the appropriate avenue for incorporating the concept and 

language of ecosystem services into national forest management. Forest plans 

provide the broad goals and objectives that guide management by describing 

desired future conditions for national forests. Forest plan goals should be stated in 

terms of the relevant and valued benefits provided by national forests. Project-level 

planning and implementation involves specific management actions at local scales, 

to effect movement toward the desired future conditions outlined in forest plans. 

Project-level planning and implementation should draw upon the benefits language 

provided in forest plans to describe the expected outcomes of management actions. 

Both the forest and project-level planning and implementation processes can be 

entirely consistent with an ecosystem services conceptual framing of landscape 

benefits. We believe that the analytical tasks involved in evaluating and characterizing ecosystem services actually are rather similar to the ways in which national 

forest managers have addressed multiple landscape benefits in the past. The timing, 

then, would seem appropriate for reviewing the economics of landscape management and its associated social benefits, in the context of ecosystem services. 

An Economic Theory of Landscape Management 

and Tradeoffs

In a public lands management context, ecosystem services are beneficial outcomes 

that derive from landscape conditions (e.g., forest structure, species composition) 

A hope is that the 

concept and language 

of ecosystem services 

will enable the agency 

to present a stronger 

rationale for forest 

planning goals and 

specific projects 

that are planned and 

implemented.
7

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

and processes as they are altered by management (fig. 1). Each year, managers 

decide how to spend their allocated management budget. Managers consider 

existing landscape conditions in light of the broad objectives identified in the forest 

plan, and identify a reasonable set of management activities to pursue, whose costs 

fit within the allocated budget. The conceptual model includes the significant role 

that natural disturbance—wildfire, insects, and disease, for example—can play in 

influencing the types of management activities that are accomplished and the future 

landscape conditions managers will face. Management activities and the resulting 

changes they effect on the landscape, combined with vegetative growth, natural disturbances, and other landscape changes define the landscape conditions managers 

will face the following year (fig. 1). The process of evaluating landscape conditions 

relative to forest plan goals, identifying and implementing projects, and monitoring 

their effects continues as a cycle, repeating year after year (e.g., Kline 2004).

The social benefits and costs associated with landscape management accrue in 

any given year according to the landscape conditions present, management actions 

taken, and natural disturbances that occur (fig. 2). Landscape conditions and their 

spatial arrangements largely determine the types and amounts of various ecosystem 

services society receives. For example, vegetation, riparian conditions, and other 

landscape characteristics determine the quality of surface water available for human 

consumption. The spatial arrangements of forest structure and species composition 

determine habitat conditions and wildlife populations. The developed recreation 

infrastructure will determine the variety of recreation opportunities available. The 

degree to which any given ecosystem service is a benefit depends on a combination 

Landscape

conditions

Natural

disturbance

PostdisturbanceDuringdisturbancePredisturbance

Landscape

conditions

Natural

disturbance

PostdisturbanceDuringdisturbancePredisturbance

Landscape

conditions

Natural

disturbance

PostdisturbanceDuring

disturbance

Predisturbance

Time

Management

actions

Figure 1—Conceptual model of management and disturbance influences on landscape conditions 

through time.
8

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

of factors, including how scarce it is, how accessible it is to people, how much it is 

valued by people, and by how many people it is valued. 

Management actions produce costs associated with the planning, labor, and 

equipment used to implement projects (fig. 2). Natural disturbances that occur 

produce additional costs associated with, for example, smoke, property damage, 

and suppression in the case of wildfire. Any ecological damages—or reduced flows 

of ecosystem services resulting from natural disturbance or management—are 

reflected in altered landscape conditions and associated declines in ecosystem services in future years. The whole process takes place in the larger context of climate 

and climate change, which can alter landscape and natural disturbance processes 

and the influence that management might have on them (e.g., Kline 2004). 

The forest landscape thus exists as a stock of natural capital with a capacity 

to produce flows of ecosystem services over time. Landscape conditions at any 

point in time determine the type, quality, and quantity of the ecosystem services 

produced, and the potential benefits that people receive. Managers decide how best 

to influence landscape conditions through management, with consequent changes in 

ecosystem services. The value of the ecosystem services produced from the landscape, less management costs and costs associated with any natural disturbances, 

make up the net social benefit or economic return that the landscape provides to the 

public in a given year. Although ecosystem services include benefits not typically 

expressed by people in terms of dollars, such as aesthetics, wildlife, and various 

recreational experiences, these “nonmarket benefits” are no less important to the 

economic evaluation of forest management actions than benefits for which values 

can more easily be expressed in terms of dollars, such as timber and grazing. The 

Figure 2—Benefits and costs associated with landscapes, management, and disturbance 

in a given year.

Management actions

Landscape

conditions

Natural

disturbance

PostdisturbanceDuring

disturbance

Predisturbance

Ecosystem

services

Management

costs

Disturbance

costs

In a public lands 

management context, 

ecosystem services are 

beneficial outcomes 

that derive from 

landscape conditions 

and processes as 

they are altered by 

management.
9

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

economics of landscape management in a public lands context is about reflecting 

the variety of benefits that people perceive from landscapes to inform policy and 

management decisions in pursuit of the greatest good. If a particular ecosystem 

service is of interest to people, then it is of economic interest to managers.

Flows of ecosystem services are not constant, but rather fluctuate over time 

according to changing landscape conditions. Managers largely plan and implement projects in the present to manipulate landscape conditions, and thereby 

effect changes in flows of ecosystem services in the future. In this way, each 

management action taken or not taken contributes to defining an ecological 

trajectory of landscape conditions and associated ecosystem services over time 

(fig. 3). This trajectory is initiated by a management action and subsequently 

influenced by effected changes in forest structure and species composition in years 

following a management action, and any influences those actions might have on 

natural disturbance processes. 

For example, consider a landscape featuring a fixed network of hiking trails that 

attracts a known level of use measured in hiking days (fig. 4a). In the absence of 

any management action, managers might expect the level of hiking days to remain 

fairly constant from year to year. Now suppose managers decide to increase the 

recreation capacity of an existing trail network by adding a new trail. This might 

be expected to draw greater numbers of users, resulting in an expected increase in 

Landscape

conditions

Ecosystem

services

Landscape

conditions

Ecosystem

services

Landscape

conditions

Ecosystem

services

Landscape

conditions

Ecosystem

services

Landscape

conditions

Ecosystem

services

Landscape

conditions

Ecosystem

services

Year4

Year3

Year2

Year1

Year6

Year5

●

●

●

●

● ●

Water quality

Figure 3—Landscape conditions and associated ecosystem services trajectory through time—water 

quality as an example.
10

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

hiking days (fig. 4a). Conversely, perhaps an alternative plan would increase timber 

harvesting. Managers might consider a harvest visible from a large proportion of 

the hiking trails in the trail network (fig. 4b). The proposed harvest reasonably 

might be expected to displace would-be hikers, who may choose to hike elsewhere, 

because the trail network might be perceived as less scenic than it was before the 

harvest. The result might be an initial decline in hiking days with gradual recovery 

over time with sufficient regrowth of forest vegetation (fig. 4b).

Other time trajectories will exist for other ecosystem services as they might be 

influenced by proposed management actions. For example, managers might consider excluding livestock from a particular stream corridor to reduce soil compaction and erosion, enable riparian vegetation to recover, and improve water quality 

(fig. 4c). Managers might decide to address declines in a local elk population by 

selectively harvesting several forest stands to improve their forage value (fig 4d).

Similar to the influence of management actions, changing landscape conditions 

and especially natural disturbances, such as wildfires, insects, and disease, also 

will contribute to defining the manner in which flows of ecosystem services differ 

from year to year. Consider again our hiking example, where in the absence of any 

Figure 4—Hypothetical expected ecosystem services trajectories with and without specific management actions: (a) hiking days with new trail, (b) hiking days with clearcut, (c) water quality with 

livestock exclusion, and (d) elk population with selective harvest.

0

20

40

60

80

100

Exclude Time

livestock

Water quality

0

20

40

60

80

100

Selective Time

harvest

Elk population

0

20

40

60

80

100

Add trail Time

Hiking days

c d

0

20

40

60

80

100

Clearcut Time

Hiking days

Without management action With management action

a b
11

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

management action, managers might expect the level of hiking days to remain fairly 

constant from year to year (fig. 5a). Now suppose a wildfire burns through most of 

the existing trail network. An initial effect might be for the entire trail network to 

be closed to users such that hiking days are dramatically reduced (fig. 5a). However, 

during the first few years following the wildfire, perhaps a profusion of wildflowers 

draws increasing numbers of hikers attracted to the new scenery. Others may also 

be attracted by the wildfire event itself, curious to witness the degree of destruction. In ensuing years, perhaps hiking again declines as the young tree cover of the 

recovering forest offers little in the way of scenic views. Eventually, as the trees 

mature, hiking days may fully rebound to their prewildfire level. 

Other time trajectories will exist for other landscape conditions and ecosystem 

services. For example, grazing units might initially decline owing to temporary 

closure of the area, but quickly increase as forage thrives on the burned landscape 

(fig. 5b). Woodpecker populations might increase with the growing numbers of 

snags, then decline as snags collapse (fig. 5c). Carbon storage, which had been 

on a gradually increasing trajectory, initially might decline, but eventually would 

recover with regrowth (fig. 5d). 

Figure 5—Hypothetical expected ecosystem services trajectories with and without wildfire: (a) hiking days with wildfire, (b) grazing units with wildfire, (c) woodpeckers with wildfire, and (d) carbon 

storage with wildfire.

0

20

40

60

80

100

Wildfire Time

Woodpeckers

0

20

40

60

80

100

Wildfire Time

Carbon storage

0

20

40

60

80

100

Wildfire Time

Hiking days

0

20

40

60

80

100

Wildfire Time

Grazing units

a b

c d

Without wildfire With wildfire
12

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

Evaluating and communicating the potential benefits that managers expect 

from any given management action ideally would include information describing 

the expected time trajectories of valued ecosystem services as they are altered by 

management, combined with some measure of the degree to which those services 

are valued by people. The actual path that different ecosystem services might take 

typically will not be known with certainty. Natural disturbances as well as variation 

in climatic conditions that affect vegetative growth will ensure some unpredictability. At best, managers may be able to anticipate a set of confidence bounds 

defining the range of values over which the true path might stray. Conceivably, 

these confidence bounds widen through time reflecting greater error in predictions 

made further into the future (fig. 6). An implication of widening confidence bounds 

is that future ecosystem services trajectories that managers might expect to result 

from different proposed management actions may at times overlap such that the 

distinction between the expected outcomes of two different alternatives might be 

cloudy at best (fig. 7). Such circumstances call for describing the degree of confidence that managers have in their expectations of management outcomes, including 

the degree to which one outcome is likely to differ from another. Any characterization of expected time trajectories should include some representation of the level of 

confidence that managers have in predictions (e.g., confidence bounds), as well as 

an indication of uncertainty associated with potential natural disturbances. Under 

Year4 Year

3 Year2 Year1 Year6 Year

5

W

ater q

u

ality

●

●

●

●

●

●

Time

Trajectory Confidence bounds

Figure 6—Example of expected ecosystem services trajectory showing expanding confidence 

bounds through time.

Evaluating and 

communicating the 

potential benefits 

that managers expect 

from any given 

management action 

ideally would include 

information describing 

the expected time 

trajectories of valued 

ecosystem services 

as they are altered by 

management.
13

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

adaptive management, these trajectories would be reestimated periodically, to 

enable adjustments to management as events on the landscape unfold.

Tradeoffs

National forests can be viewed as striving to produce a “portfolio” of ecosystem 

services to provide the greatest overall benefit to the public within a landscape’s 

capacity to produce services, and within any necessary safe minimum standards, 

mandated institutional constraints, and legal requirements (e.g., the Endangered 

Species Act). National forest plans define the portfolio of services a national forest 

will strive for, by outlining the broad- and long-term objectives for the managed 

landscape. Project-level planning and implementation pursues management activities in accordance with forest plans to enhance flows of particular ecosystem 

services—to improve a specific fish or wildlife population, for example, or reduce 

the likelihood that natural disturbance (e.g., wildfire) might adversely affect flows 

of ecosystem services. However, many ecosystem services and the associated 

landscape conditions from which they derive are interrelated in either conflicting 

or synergistic ways such that changes in one service necessarily involve changes in 

another service. In some cases, increased flows of one service may only be possible 

Year4 Year 3 Year2 Year1 Year6 Year 5

W

ater q

u

ality

Time

●

●

●

●

●

●

● ● ●

●

●

Alternative 1: Trajectory Confidence bounds

Alternative 2: Trajectory Confidence bounds

●

Figure 7—Two expected ecosystem services trajectories resulting from two difference management 

alternatives, showing overlap of expanding confidence bounds through time.
14

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

by accepting decreased flows of another service. Evaluating and communicating 

expected management outcomes necessarily must account for these interrelationships and the tradeoffs—the exchange of one level of service for another—made 

necessary when implementing a project that will affect multiple ecosystem 

service flows.

Conceptually, tradeoffs among ecosystem services are best illustrated by using 

the economic concept of “production possibility frontiers” (e.g., Bowes and Krutilla 

1989: 49, Stevens and Montgomery 2002). Production possibility frontiers show the 

combinations and levels of ecosystem services that can be produced on a landscape 

given that landscape’s capacity to produce those services (e.g., its size and biophysical features) and management inputs (e.g., labor) and capital improvements (e.g., 

roads, trails, culverts). The “landscape” can be a national forest or a ranger district 

or a larger area encompassing a national forest and neighboring lands, depending 

on what makes sense for characterizing a given set of ecosystem services and their 

management. In either case, production possibility frontiers combine the relationships that characterize the production of individual ecosystem services in terms of 

Figure 8—Example of the joint production possibilities choice set expected from select 

management alternatives. 

●

Spotted owls

Timber

A

C ●

●B
15

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

specific landscape conditions and processes to describe how the production of one 

ecosystem service relates to production of another service. 

Consider two ecosystem services that can be thought of as competitive in 

production. For example, producing merchantable timber can be considered competitive with production of spotted owls. We will assume that timber production is 

a positive function of land and site quality and is best served by managing forest 

stands on shorter rotations, such that it is negatively related to amount of land 

devoted to the old-growth habitat preferred by spotted owls. Under these assumptions, a forest landscape can only produce so many spotted owls and so much 

timber, up to some limit at which the production of owls can only be increased by 

decreasing the production of timber. That limit is the production possibility frontier 

(fig. 8). The production possibility frontier defines the range of combinations of 

jointly produced ecosystem services (e.g., owls and timber) given a set of inputs—

inputs in this case being the fixed landscape and the management budget. We can 

produce any combinations of owls and timber inside the frontier (e.g., points A and 

B) as well as any combinations on the frontier itself (e.g. point C). However, once 

on the frontier, we can only produce more owls by producing less timber or more 

timber by producing fewer owls—hence the need to make tradeoffs among services 

produced on the landscape, by exchanging timber for owls or owls for timber.

The feasible points within the area defined by the production possibility frontier identify the levels of services associated with different management regimes. 

Comparing the service levels of two different management regimes identifies the 

tradeoffs associated with choosing one regime over another. For example, if the 

management regime associated with service levels defined by point B were chosen 

over the status quo regime defined by point A, managers could expect less timber 

and more owls as a result—trading off (or exchanging) timber for owls (fig. 8). 

Understanding the production possibilities for a given landscape enables managers 

to identify and weigh the possible output combinations that might be expected on 

a given landscape, and may make it more feasible to avoid unnecessary tradeoffs. 

For example, suppose the public wanted to avoid having to give up timber production in exchange for gains in spotted owls that the move from point A to point B 

entails. If managers had adequate information about the full range of production 

possibilities available on the landscape, they could instead strive for a management 

regime closer to that defined by point C that would yield increases in both timber 

and spotted owls. 

Better outcomes typically are those that enable greater production of both services or of one service without giving up any other, and ideally by moving from any 

interior point to a point on the frontier itself. Shifting to better outcomes may only 
16

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

be feasible through judicious application of management over long time periods. 

Ideally, management actions would pursue improvements in desired ecosystem 

services over time. That is, managers would seek to initiate ecological time trajectories that move outcomes from interior positions out toward the production possibilities frontier (fig. 9). However, identifying management actions with which to move 

landscape conditions toward those better outcomes relies on having good information about what ecosystem services combinations are possible and what management actions would bring them about. These conditions may not always exist.

An important characteristic of production possibility frontiers is that they 

define joint production possibilities given existing resource endowments and 

inputs. That is, the position of the frontier—the line—is based on the resource 

endowments and biophysical characteristics (e.g., land area, soils, topography) of 

the landscape under management along with inputs of labor and capital enabled by 

the management budget. Increases in either factor can shift the frontier outward 

(to the right) enabling greater joint production possibilities. For example, a land 

Figure 9—Hypothetical time trajectory of year-to-year improvements in ecosystem 

services outcomes.

●

Spotted owls

Timber

Year

1

● Year

5

●Year

4

●Year

2

●Year

3
17

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

management agency could increase the resource endowment by expanding the size 

of the managed landscape. It could purchase more land or through education and 

financial incentives try to persuade neighboring private landowners to manage 

according to a similar set of management objectives—an “all-lands” approach. 

Conversely, reductions in the resource endowment and inputs will tend to contract 

the frontier inward (to the left) toward lesser joint production possibilities. For 

example, if budget reductions mean that fewer hiking trails can be maintained or 

campgrounds staffed, that could contract inward the production possibility frontier 

in terms of recreation. Natural disturbances also could alter production possibilities 

by enhancing or damaging landscape conditions and associated ecosystem services. 

Conceivably, other exogenous factors—most notably changing climate—could also 

alter production possibilities and would factor into management considerations 

given a sufficiently long planning horizon. 

Another characteristic of production possibility frontiers is their shape, which 

defines the general relationship between two ecosystem services in production (fig. 

10). Competing ecosystem services are those for which more of one service can 

only be had at the expense of producing less of the other service. The simplest form 

of the production possibility frontier for two competing services is linear, denoting 

a constant exchange of one output for another (fig. 10a). Production possibility frontiers depicting competing services also can be convex (fig. 10b) or concave (fig. 10c) 

when there are nonlinear relationships between two services at the frontier. The 

actual shape is determined by the precise relationship between the two ecosystem 

services in terms of the landscape and input factors involved in their production. 

The slope of the production possibility frontier at any point is the rate at which 

one service (x) must be given up to produce more of another service (y) when a 

Service x Service x Service x

Service y

Service y

Service y

a b c

Figure 10—Possible shapes of production possibility frontiers for outputs that are competing in production: (a)

linear form, (b) convex form, and (c) concave form.
18

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

landscape is producing the maximum joint production combination possible (on the 

frontier). The linear form (constant slope) implies that the same inputs can produce 

either service equally well so that, when inputs are shifted to increase one service, 

the quantity of the other that must be given up remains constant for all initial combinations of the two services. A convex form (fig. 10b) occurs when small increases 

in one service can only be had by giving up increasing amounts of another service. 

Economists refer to this as “diminishing marginal productivity” (e.g., Lesser et al. 

1997). For example, when the initial quantity of service x is low (at a point near the 

y-axis), a small increase can be had by giving up a small amount of y. Conversely, 

when the quantity of x already is high (at a point near the x-axis) that same increase 

in x can only be had by giving up a much larger amount of service y (fig. 10b). 

Similarly, when the quantity of service y is high (at a point near the Y-axis) a given 

increase in y can only be had by giving up increasing amounts of service x.

The concave form (fig. 10c) implies that, as more of one service is produced, 

less and less of another service must be given up for each additional unit. This can 

be the case when the production of one service (service x in the diagram) results in 

an externality, or unintended negative effect, that hinders production of the other 

service. For example, increasing hiking trails could have a detrimental effect on 

wildlife habitat, by bringing more people into forest areas. As more of the service 

affected by the externality (e.g., wildlife habitat) is produced relative to the other 

service (e.g., hiking trails), increasingly smaller amounts of the other must be given 

up (e.g., Baumol and Bradford 1972). This occurs because decreasing production of 

service x will also decrease its negative effect on service y, resulting in increasing 

gains in y for the same change in x, as x decreases. Other complexities related to 

biological production and relationships between species may also lead to a concave 

production possibility frontier (e.g., Brown et al. 2010, Swallow et al. 1990), but are 

beyond the scope of this report. 

Some ecosystem services are not competitive in production with others. Rather, 

the production of one service might coincide with (or complement) the production 

of another. Ecosystem services that are complementary in production occur when 

both ecosystem services are positively related to the same landscape conditions 

or processes, such as two wildlife species thriving in the same type of habitat, or 

when one ecosystem service depends on another as a factor in its production, such 

as spotted owls and old growth. Similar to competing services, the precise relationships among complementary services can be linear or nonlinear depending on the 

specific relationships among the two ecosystems services and the landscape and 

input factors involved in their production. Complementary relationships among ecosystem services generally are less of an issue when considering tradeoffs associated 
19

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

with management activities, because they generally do not pose potential conflicts 

associated with expected outcomes. You generally do not have to give up old 

growth to gain in spotted owls, for example. However, complementary services can 

be important to tradeoff analysis if one of a set of complementary services is easier 

to measure than the others and can thus serve as an indicator for other services for 

which measurement may be more difficult. 

We have only considered production possibility frontiers for two ecosystem 

services as this is the easiest scenario to represent using simple graphics. Conceptually, one can imagine production possibility relationships for multiple services, but 

displaying multiple production possibility relationships quickly becomes more difficult, as does empirically estimating those relationships. In fact, it may not always 

be possible to characterize the inherent complexity in the production relationship 

among some ecosystem service combinations using relatively simple production 

possibility frontiers. Rather, the complexity of natural systems might more often 

imply complex production relationships that feature thresholds, tipping points, or 

other nonlinear production changes that defy characterization using simple mathematical functions. Managers often may lack sufficient information with which to 

accurately describe the true relationship between various ecosystem services. Gaps 

in knowledge about how different ecological agents and processes interact at landscape scales can make even speculating about such complex relationships controversial. Indeed, the precise position of the production possibility frontier may be largely 

unknown, so that management alternatives are more likely to yield ecosystem 

services outcomes that are inferior to production possibilities defined by the frontier 

itself. These are questions of ecology and necessarily call for ecological information 

to support the evaluation and communication of management outcomes.

Yet, lack of well-defined projections of production possibilities need not 

prevent managers from framing management actions and associated tradeoffs in 

terms of what ecosystem services are possible on a given landscape. But it does 

mean that any characterization of expected services must be conditioned on the 

degree of confidence in those expectations. Even with imperfect information, a 

focus on outcomes framed in the context of what ecosystem services are possible 

on a landscape, and how they are related, can be a useful way to focus dialog and 

debate. Managers have some sense of what levels of ecosystem services are possible 

on a given landscape and can describe how relevant ecosystem services are likely 

to change as a result of projects under consideration. These two conditions are all 

that is necessary to characterize tradeoffs among ecosystem services associated 

with pursuing one project or another, if only qualitatively. Ideally, analysis would 

be based on empirical functions that describe a suite of ecosystem services relative 
20

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

to the landscape conditions (or factors) that will be directly or indirectly affected 

by a proposed project, such as trees per acre, stand density, stand structure, or the 

amount of understory, for example. However, in the absence of empirical information, analysts may need to rely on a qualitative narrative or some other way of 

describing how proposed projects are expected to affect the relevant ecosystem 

services, including potential magnitude of changes in ecosystem services. Understanding the specific relationships between landscape conditions, management 

activities, and their influence on ecosystem services is thus an essential first step 

toward considering tradeoffs among services.

Social Values 

The production relationships among landscape conditions and ecosystem services 

present only part of the tradeoff picture—the part having to do with the degree to 

which different combinations of ecosystem services can be produced or supplied

on a given landscape with a given management budget. They say nothing about 

the social value of individual services or which combination of services might 

be socially preferred or demanded by the public. Identifying which combination 

of ecosystem services might be most preferred requires additional information 

describing the relative values that people place on different ecosystem services 

or the preferences they hold for particular ecosystem service combinations. This 

involves the issue of what people expect to gain as a return on the Nation’s investment in managing national forests.

In economics, the fundamental concept of an individual’s level of satisfaction 

or well-being is utility—the satisfaction that an individual expects from a given 

choice or course of action (e.g., Gwartney and Stroup 1980:7). For example, a hiker 

living near a particular national forest might perceive a level of satisfaction from 

the hiking trails offered by that forest. How much satisfaction conceivably might 

depend on the number of trails (or trail miles) offered. To use a simple example, if 

a forest offers only 1 mile of trail, the hiker receives one level of satisfaction. If the 

forest offers 2 miles of trail, the hiker likely receives a higher level of satisfaction. 

Hiking the same 1 mile of trail might eventually get boring, after all, and so having 

a second mile of trail would offer a nice change of pace. It is safe to assume then 

that the hiker’s overall level of satisfaction—or utility—increases as a positive 

function of hiking trail miles (fig. 11). The increase in satisfaction associated with 

an incremental increase in trail miles is referred to as the hiker’s marginal utility 

associated with an additional trail mile (e.g., Gwartney and Stroup 1980:89). 

The positive relationship between trail miles and the hiker’s satisfaction likely 

will not be constant. Rather, each trail mile added to the forest may eventually 

begin to yield incrementally less satisfaction such that the hiker’s marginal utility 

Understanding the 

specific relationships 

between landscape 

conditions, 

management activities, 

and their influence on 

ecosystem services 

is thus an essential 

first step toward 

considering tradeoffs 

among services.
21

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

associated with an additional trail mile is “diminishing” (fig. 11). The hiker only has 

time to hike so many miles of trail, after all, and so at some point, adding an additional trail mile to the forest is unlikely to yield much increase in the hiker’s overall 

satisfaction. Conceivably, at some point the hiker’s level of satisfaction may even 

decline with each additional trail mile if the hiker feels that there already are too 

many trails and perhaps too many other hikers as a result. At some point, the hiker’s 

marginal utility for additional trail miles can even turn negative, such that further 

increases in trail miles would yield lower levels of overall satisfaction for the hiker. 

Returning to our cake example, this would be the point at which our stomach has 

informed us that indeed we have eaten way too much cake.

If an individual receives an equal level of utility from different combinations 

of the same two ecosystem services, that person can be said to be indifferent as to 

which is preferred. This equality in satisfaction can be represented by an indifference curve (fig. 12). Consider, for example, an individual who enjoys both hiking 

and fishing, and therefore receives utility from both hiking trails and trout streams. 

The national forest near where this individual lives provides both hiking trails and 

Figure 11—Example of utility (or satisfaction) of an individual with increasing number of trail 

miles provided by a national forest.

U

tility

Hiking trail miles

●

●
22

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

trout streams, but the total miles of hiking trails that can be maintained and miles 

of trout streams that can be restored to prime condition are limited by the landscape 

and the annual budget. Similar to the way that the shape and slope of the production possibility frontier depicts the nature of tradeoffs necessary in production of 

two services, the shape and slope of the indifference curve depicts an individual’s 

relative value or preference for two services. The indifference curve describes how 

much of one service an individual is willing to give up in exchange for another, 

starting at a particular initial endowment. 

For example, starting at point A in figure 12—where hiking trails are plentiful and prime trout streams less plentiful—the hiker might be willing to give up 

some miles of hiking trails for an additional mile of prime trout stream on the 

nearby national forest and would be equally satisfied with either outcome. However, 

starting at point B—where hiking trails are less plentiful and prime trout streams 

are more plentiful—the same person would sacrifice incrementally fewer and fewer 

miles of hiking trails for each additional mile of trout stream. That is, they might 

feel that the quantity of prime trout streams is more than adequate and what they 

Hiking trail miles

Trout stream miles

●A

●B

Figure 12—Example of an indifference curve describing preferences for jointly produced 

combinations of hiking trails and trout streams. 

Focus groups, 

surveys, and other 

public input can be 

used to define valved 

ecosystem services, 

solicit perspectives 

on relevant tradeoffs, 

and assess support or 

opposition.
23

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

really want is more hiking trails. This concave shape generally is assumed when the 

incremental (marginal) value of services decreases (is diminishing) with greater and 

greater quantities available. The slope or steepness of the indifference curve at any 

given point indicates the general rate of trade or exchange of one ecosystem service 

for another. 

Although this conceptual framing presupposes an economic view of value, 

it is flexible enough to accommodate noneconomic considerations. For example, 

there can be points beyond which an individual might be unwilling to give up any 

additional amount of an ecosystem service in return for any additional amount of 

another ecosystem service. An example of this might be a case involving a threatened or endangered species. An individual may be willing to accept some decline 

in, say, spotted owl populations to accommodate some harvesting on national forests, but may be unwilling to allow additional harvest if doing so might contribute 

to the demise of the species. In this way, economic theory can accommodate factors 

beyond money and self-interest (e.g., social mores, morals) into analysis of tradeoffs 

in public lands management by acknowledging constraints on certain uses and the 

provision of particular services.

Because they are specific to individuals, indifference curves for one individual 

will not exactly match the indifference curves for another individual. However, by 

adding up individual indifference curves, it is conceptually feasible to describe a 

“social welfare function” that is similar to an indifference curve, but for society as a 

whole (fig. 13). Conceptually, a social welfare function tells us the different combinations of two ecosystem services that are equally preferred or valued by society, as 

a matter of collective choice. When combined with a production possibility frontier, 

the social welfare function describes the best combination of ecosystem services 

from the perspective of society as a whole. That combination is defined by the 

tangency of the social welfare function with the production possibility frontier (fig. 

13), which in our example defines the socially preferred maximum combination of 

hiking trail miles and prime trout stream miles possible from a given landscape. 

In practice, managers usually will lack information about the social welfare 

function depicting social preferences for the combined production of two or more 

ecosystem services. However, they may be able to determine the relative values 

of services over their most likely range of production, using results from a survey 

of the public, for example. Relative values could be used to compute the negative 

ratio of the value of one service over another (fig. 14). Similar to the case with 

a social welfare function, the tangency of that ratio—a straight line—with the 

production possibility frontier would identify the socially preferred maximum 

combination of services that could be produced on the landscape over that defined 
24

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

production range, given a defined management budget (Stevens and Montgomery 

2002). Whether based on a social welfare function or a values ratio, the combination of ecosystem services defined by tangency with the production possibilities 

frontier identifies that management outcome that makes people as happy as they 

can be, given the production possibilities available on the landscape. That does not 

necessarily mean that everyone is happy with the management outcome identified; 

some people could remain unhappy. This raises the issue of how forest benefits are 

distributed among the many individuals who make up the public.

Forest management can affect the welfare of individual citizens differently 

because individuals bear unequal tax burdens associated with national forest management and reap unequal benefits (or costs) associated with management activities. 

They also have different expectations and beliefs about the purpose of public lands. 

National forest managers know this well from the public input they receive regarding proposed plans and projects. No proposed alternative will please everyone. 

In general, all taxpayers bear the financial costs of national forest management. 

Figure 13—Tangency of production possibility frontier with social welfare function, describing the 

socially preferred maximum combination of hiking trails and trout streams possible.

Hiking trail miles

Trout stream miles

●

Production possibilities

frontier

Social welfare function
25

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

However, those who gain the most directly from management investments might 

include people who live near enough to national forests to routinely recreate in 

them, neighboring property owners whose property values are positively influenced 

by national forest proximity, and individuals whose livelihoods depend on national 

forest activities such as timber harvesting and recreation. Other individuals might 

not gain so directly, but as citizens and taxpayers they also have a say in national 

forest management. Sometimes, who benefits and who does not can be ambiguous, 

and will depend on the perceptions and preferences of affected individuals. For 

this reason, the process of evaluating and communicating management alternatives 

must include consideration of who might be affected by proposed actions and how. 

Some benefits will be less well recognized by individuals (e.g., national forests as a 

source of clean water for human consumption), and managers may need to educate 

the public about these less-obvious benefits. 

Focus groups and surveys of the public can be used to define valued ecosystem 

services, solicit perspectives on relevant tradeoffs, and assess support or opposition 

Hiking trail miles

Trout stream miles

●

- Value trout streams

Value hiking trails

Figure 14—Tangency of production possibility frontier with value (price) ratio, describing the 

socially preferred maximum combination of hiking trails and trout streams possible.
26

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

to proposed planning goals or projects (e.g., Asah et al. 2012, Garber-Yonts et al. 

2004). They also can be used to develop relative values or preference weights for 

select ecosystem services to support tradeoff analysis. Particularly useful would be 

information describing how much of one service people might be willing to give up 

in return for a gain in other services over the range of changes likely to result from 

proposed plans or projects. 

Whether dollar values are necessary is somewhat uncertain. Although survey 

research methods developed over the past 30 years by economists and other social 

scientists have resulted in fairly reliable techniques for estimating dollar values for 

ecosystem services (e.g., Champ et al. 2003, Freeman 2003), such methods can be 

expensive and time-consuming to implement. Moreover, recent history suggests 

that estimating dollar values for ecosystem services has not necessarily improved 

the dynamics of political and legal processes involving public lands management. 

We feel that dollar values for ecosystem services are not always necessary or useful 

for evaluating and describing tradeoffs (text box 2). However, in their absence, 

ecological information must define key services that people care about in terms that 

people readily understand (Wainger and Mazzotta 2011). Such information could 

take the form of benefit indicators (e.g., Boyd 2004, Boyd and Wainger 2002, King 

and Mazzotta 2000, Wainger et al. 2010). This should be sufficient to facilitate 

dialog about proposed plans and projects by characterizing expected outcomes in 

ways that reflect peoples’ perceptions about the landscape under management. 

From Theory to Application

Evaluating tradeoffs associated with managing public lands can be quite complex 

in practice. One complication is the sheer number of ecosystem services potentially 

affected by a given management action and the need to track how each service 

might change over time and space. It is relatively easy to think about how two different ecosystem services might jointly behave in response to a proposed management action, but it may be more challenging to represent that empirically. Greater 

difficulties arise when addressing multiple ecosystem services and the interactions 

among them. These situations typically would require complex empirical models 

with which to characterize key relationships among landscape conditions and 

processes and their resulting ecosystem services, including the use of mathematical 

algorithms and optimization methods to evaluate likely management outcomes (e.g., 

Stevens and Montgomery 2002). Also contributing to complexity in evaluating and 

communicating tradeoffs is the inter-temporal nature of forest management effects. 

Although management costs largely are incurred in the present—the year in which 

actions are taken—the social benefits that managers might expect to result from 

proposed actions often occur well in the future. A riparian restoration project today, 
27

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

Text box 2: Are dollar values necessary?

A common perception that many people have regarding ecosystem services 

and public forest management is that it is necessary to estimate dollar values 

for ecosystem services in order for them to be weighed in management 

decisions. Although values for many forest outputs, such as timber, can be 

estimated using market prices, values for many ecosystem services, such 

as wildlife habitat and recreation, involve nonmarket values that can only 

be estimated using specialized valuation techniques developed by natural 

resource and environmental economists. The resources available to support 

forest planning and management may not always be sufficient to estimate 

nonmarket dollar values. However, dollar values may not always be necessary 

for evaluating the effects of proposed management plans and projects. 

Nonmarket valuation methods have involved varying levels of controversy 

in their development, which has led to significant refinements over the years. 

In forestry, the multiple-use mandate of public forests, which occurred simultaneously with the early development of nonmarket benefit valuation methods, 

stimulated significant interest in valuing resource and amenity benefits arising 

from forests (e.g., Bowes and Krutilla 1989, Peterson et al. 1988, Peterson and 

Randall 1984). Today there are generally accepted protocols for measuring 

forest benefits values and for transferring values to different locations (e.g., 

Desvousges et al. 1992, Loomis 2005, Rosenberger and Loomis 2001). Prevailing opinion among most economists is that well-designed studies following generally accepted protocols outlined in published literature generally will 

result in useful information regarding the values of nonmarket forest benefits 

arising from ecosystem services. Guidelines for measuring nonmarket values 

are even outlined by federal agencies (e.g., EPA 2000, Office of Management 

and Budget 2003). 

However, measuring nonmarket values for ecosystem services is not without difficulty. It can involve specialized survey methods, such as travel cost 

and contingent valuation, or benefits-transfer methods based on meta-analysis 

of past studies (e.g., Champ et al. 2003). These methods can be expensive and 

time-consuming, and can require specialized expertise to implement. These 

demands often place nonmarket valuation beyond the reach of public agencies 

for routine management applications. Also, relative values for different ecosystem services almost certainly change over time. Unless existing databases 

of nonmarket values estimates (e.g., Loomis 2005, Rosenberger and Loomis

(continued on next page) 
28

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

for example, might yield improved fish habitat and greater numbers of fish 5, 10, or 

more years from now, assuming that unforeseen natural disturbances such as wildfire do not disrupt the restoration process. The further into the future management 

effects are expected, the greater the uncertainty surrounding that expectation will 

be. As a result, near-term costs (and benefits) often will trump longer term expected 

benefits (and costs) in the minds of the public and stakeholders. It is why economists 

almost always assume some degree of discounting of the costs and benefits associated with expected future outcomes. Uncertainty about the future also is why many 

economists suggest eating dessert first. 

Although complex ecological modeling exercises have been applied to landscape management issues to evaluate an array of spatial and temporal ecosystem 

services effects resulting from forest management scenarios (e.g., Barbour et al. 

2007, Spies et al. 2007), their high cost and time requirements have so far made 

them impractical for routine application to the work of national forests. Also, to date 

these types of landscape analyses have tended to limit prediction ability to management effects likely to result from a few select management scenarios, rather than to 

the full range of production possibilities available. In effect, this leaves the actual 

2001) are regularly updated based on new studies, they eventually become 

inaccurate. The Office of Management and Budget recognizes these difficulties in its guidelines for regulatory analysis, and thus acknowledges three 

categories of benefits and costs of government regulations: (1) those benefits 

and costs that can be monetized; (2) those that can be quantified but not 

monetized; and (3) those that cannot be quantified (Office of Management and 

Budget 2003). 

Contrary to an often-stated platitude, lack of a dollar value for a particular 

landscape attribute or output does not mean that its value enters a given project evaluation as a “zero.” Proposed projects should never be evaluated based 

solely on those ecosystem services for which managers do have good information. Such misuse of imperfect information can lead to biased decisions that 

favor particular uses and outputs. Rather, managers should compile the best 

information available about the relevant set of ecosystem services of concern 

to the public and stakeholders. If relative values in the form of rankings can be 

obtained, or dollar values estimated, all the better. However, even if managers can only qualitatively characterize likely outcomes, this information can 

inform a public engagement process that weighs management alternatives 

through active participation and collaboration by interested parties. 
29

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

production possibility frontier ill defined (fig. 15). Evaluating tradeoffs with more 

limited ecological information can yield ambiguous conclusions, even with good 

information about relative values. For example, analysts might be able to simulate two management scenarios that are expected to result in ecosystem services 

combinations A and B (fig. 15). This would enable analysts to say how much less 

timber and how many more owls might result from choosing B over A, but that 

analysis reveals nothing about the numerous other combination opportunities that 

might exist. For example, it does not inform managers about whether there are other 

combinations—perhaps a point C—that would allow the same landscape to produce 

more of both owls and timber, nor does it suggest a set of management activities 

that could be implemented to move in that direction. 

Although characterizing the actual spatial and temporal tradeoffs associated 

with management activities may be difficult, it may not be necessary to actually 

describe specific empirical relationships across the entire landscape. At relatively 

localized scales, particular ecosystem services undoubtedly will fluctuate over time 

Figure 15—Social preference and its intersection with the production possibility choice set when 

information is limited. If A and B were the only options we were aware of, B would be superior. 

However, itf we were also aware of C, that would be superior.

Spotted owls

Timber

●

●

A

C ●

B
30

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

in response to management actions and natural disturbances. However, what may 

matter more than these localized effects in a national forest management context 

are the levels of ecosystem services produced from the landscape as a whole—the 

bigger picture. When management actions and their more immediate localized 

effects are evaluated, debated, and presented, ideally they would be framed within a 

larger landscape context with a focus on how local actions and effects contribute to 

achieving broader landscape-level goals. This is consistent with the conceptual link 

that defines project-level planning as the on-the-ground implementation of broad 

landscape goals outlined in national forest plans. It also is consistent with an “alllands” approach that takes into account the role that neighboring (e.g., private) lands 

play in influencing ecosystem services produced on the broader landscape. Analysis 

and communication about management actions during both forest planning and 

project implementation could focus on describing expected time trajectories of specific ecosystem services as likely outcomes of specific management strategies and 

actions under consideration, while evaluation of tradeoffs could focus on what the 

landscape as a whole might produce and how plans and specific projects contribute 

to those broad landscape goals. 

Neither ecological nor social science can anticipate the outcomes that management actions will have on complex ecological and social systems without resorting 

to some degree of simplification. Still, economic theory offers a rigorous and 

standardized framework for guiding the evaluation of tradeoffs. Complexity and 

uncertainty will always characterize this process and at best, only a partial accounting of potential changes in ecosystem services resulting from management may 

be possible in many cases. However, the fact that information is imperfect does 

not mean that it cannot be useful in evaluating and communicating the purpose 

of broad landscape goals and individual management actions. On the contrary, 

imperfect information may be par for the course. However, national forest managers 

must recognize and communicate uncertainties that exist in imperfect information. 

And the Forest Service must give managers the license to do so, by standing behind 

planning processes and the decisions of managers exercising sound professional 

judgment in light of persistent but unavoidable uncertainties. 

Incorporating Ecosystem Services Into National Forest 

Management 

The process of evaluating and describing forest management outcomes in terms of 

ecosystem services likely will involve many activities with which national forest 

managers are already familiar, including:

Economic theory 

offers a rigorous 

and standardized 

framework for guiding 

the evaluation of 

tradeoffs.
31

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

1. Selecting ecosystem services for analysis, including developing a typology 

that defines and classifies valued landscape ecosystem services in a way 

that is relevant to the public and stakeholders; and, identifying the most 

relevant subset of those on which to focus analysis of likely management 

effects. 

2. Measuring or describing expected management outcomes in terms of the 

relevant subset of valued ecosystem services, recognizing the ability of 

the landscape to provide them. This may include ecological analysis and 

modeling to predict management outcomes, or qualitative description of 

expected outcomes and uncertainties.

3. Ascribing values or public preferences to landscape conditions and associated ecosystem services. This involves either formally estimating dollar 

values for relevant landscape conditions and associated ecosystem services, 

or identifying preference weights to describe the relative value or importance of various combinations of landscape conditions and associated ecosystem services.

4. Evaluating and describing tradeoffs to the public and stakeholders, including making explicit both the ecological and social tradeoffs inherent in pursuing one or another project versus the status quo, and presenting and using 

some type of selection process to rank, prioritize, or compare the outcomes 

of alternatives under consideration.

The specific focus, detail, and extent of these activities will differ depending 

on whether they are conducted in a forest planning or project-level planning and 

implementation context. Ideally, these steps would be conducted as part of an open 

and meaningful public engagement process; one that fosters trust among participants that the Forest Service adequately considers their concerns when developing 

national forest plans and implementing projects. 

In the previous section we alluded to various challenges associated with obtaining the information necessary for describing ecosystem services and evaluating 

tradeoffs among them. Resolving all of the issues involved in meeting these challenges is beyond the scope of this report. However, we will briefly address two primary challenges facing any team embarking on an ecosystem services analysis. The 

first issue concerns developing appropriate classifications or typologies for delineating specific ecosystem services as benefits of public lands management. The second 

issue concerns how best to proceed given potential limitations of available data.
32

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

Ecosystem Services Typologies

At least since passage of the National Forest Management Act of 1976, natural 

resource analysts have attempted to develop classifications or typologies for describing the variety of benefits that natural landscapes provide to people (e.g., Bowes 

and Krutilla 1989: xix). In a national forest example, Randall and Peterson (1984: 

38) defined “resources” as the ecological outputs or components of ecosystems that 

provide valued goods and services, including wood products, water, flood protection, 

recreation, and various ecological benefits. Their typology included both market and 

nonmarket goods and services, and is a logical precursor to later ecosystem services 

typologies developed by Daily (1997) and Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 

(2005), for example. The more recent emergence of global interest in the ecosystem 

services concept as a way to inform ecosystem protection and management has 

resulted in a proliferation of other ecosystem services definitions and classification 

schemes, with the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) perhaps garnering the 

most attention. Although definitions and typologies are widely debated in research 

literature (e.g., Boyd and Banzhaff 2007, Brown et al. 2007, Costanza 2008, Fisher 

and Turner 2008, Fisher et al. 2009a, Turner et al. 2008), it is important to understand that virtually any proposed definition or typology usually is intended to suit a 

particular purpose. This will greatly influence the degree to which any given typology will be appropriate to the needs of public lands management. 

Variations among definitions and typologies arise because different individuals and organizations tend to characterize ecosystem services in ways that serve 

their specific context or purpose, whether it is environmental advocacy, developing 

environmental markets, green accounting, or public lands management. For this 

reason, a definition or typology intended to serve one context or purpose will not 

necessarily be appropriate to another context or purpose. A key way in which 

typologies differ is in the precision with which they define individual services for 

possible measurement. Ecosystem services typologies can be viewed as existing 

along a spectrum characterized by the degree of required precision, which makes 

them appropriate to different contexts and purposes (fig. 16). For example, a typology intended primarily to support rhetorical argument in favor of greater ecosystem 

protection can be relatively imprecise (and even vague) in its classification of individual services. The intent might simply be to provide a general listing of benefits 

that people receive from nature. At the other end of the spectrum are typologies 

intended to support cost-benefit analysis or an environmental counterpart to gross 

domestic product (GDP), for example, where greater precision is necessary to avoid 

ambiguity and potential double counting of benefit values (fig. 16). 
33

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

Published examples of typologies exist all along the precision spectrum. 

Tending toward the advocacy side of the spectrum is Daily (1997) and the widely 

cited Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), which in recent years have helped 

to bring the concept of ecosystem services to the forefront of environmental and 

natural resource policymaking. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) 

typology proposes a comprehensive itemization of individual services within four 

general categories: supporting, regulating, provisioning, and cultural services. 

Although appealing as an organizational framework, many of the individual 

services identified within these general categories are either ambiguous or simply 

not amenable to measurement (e.g., inspiration). Other services are double counted. 

For example, many of the services listed as “regulating services” (e.g., air quality 

regulation, erosion regulation, water purification) and “supporting services” (e.g., 

soil formation, photosynthesis, nutrient and water cycling) are actually intermediate 

services that are necessary for producing virtually any of the final services listed as 

“provisioning” (e.g., food, fiber, fuel, etc.). As intermediate services, their value or 

worth would be accounted for by evaluating provisioning services alone. Although 

useful for initiating policy discussions about ecosystem protection, the imprecision 

of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) typology makes it less appropriate for contexts calling for actual measurement. 

At the other end of the precision spectrum are typologies such as Boyd and 

Banzhaff (2007) and Boyd and Krupnick (2009). These focus on developing ecosystem service measures as an environmental component (or counterpoint) to GDP. In 

this context, ecosystem services measures must be comprehensive so as to include 

everything of value, but also must be very precise to avoid any double counting. 

Increasing need for typology precision

Figure 16—Typology precision spectrum based on intended uses. GDP = gross domestic product.
34

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

Boyd and Banzhaff ( 2007) and Boyd and Krupnick (2009) thus focus on defining 

final goods and services, as distinguished from intermediate goods and services, 

which contribute to the production of final goods and services. For example, clean 

water can be a final service when part of a municipal water supply, but also an 

intermediate service that contributes to the health of a salmon population. Any 

accounting of water quality as an ecosystem service would necessarily focus on its 

role in the municipal water supply and would exclude its contribution to salmon, 

because the later already would be included in an evaluation of the salmon population as an ecosystem service. Final services are biophysical features, quantities, or 

qualities that require little further translation to make clear their relevance to human 

well-being (e.g., Boyd and Krupnick 2009: 5, 10). This level of precision is a worthy 

ideal to strive for in definition and measurement. However, such refined typologies typically will be impractical in landscape management contexts, because the 

detailed information necessary for characterizing every final good and service and 

its production simply will not be available. Moreover, in many cases, the requirement that measurement be limited to only final goods and services is unnecessary, 

because measures of intermediate services often can provide adequate management 

endpoints for landscape managers when information is limited.

The degree of precision appropriate for characterizing the landscape benefits in 

the national forest management context is likely somewhere in the middle, though 

managers should be encouraged over time to strive for greater precision rather than 

less. Although the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) typology is often 

cited in Forest Service publications (e.g., Collins and Larry 2077, Smith et al. 2011), 

its usefulness as a basis for landscape management arguably is limited if precise 

economic valuation of final services is desired. (e.g., Fisher et al. 2009b, Fisher and 

Turner 2008, Kline 2006, Smith et al. 2011, Turner et al. 2008, Wainger and Mazzotta 2011). Too many listed “services” are too vaguely defined to enable measurement, and too many services tend to double count other services. At the same time, 

national forest managers likely do not need a comprehensive accounting of all 

benefits, and in most cases would lack sufficient data to provide such an accounting 

anyway. Rather, managers might need only an accounting of those select landscape 

conditions and associated ecosystem services most affected by proposed management actions and that are most valued or of most concern to the public and stakeholders. These could be identified through public engagement processes to identify 

relevant ecosystem services reflecting the landscape in questions and values people 

hold for it (e.g., Smith et al. 2011).

The EPA (2006) defines ecosystem services as “outputs of ecological functions 

or processes that directly or indirectly contribute to social welfare [people].” This 
35

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

treatment of benefits is generally consistent with analytical methods such as costbenefit analysis, which have been used in federal policymaking and public lands 

management for decades. Similarly, an appropriate benefits typology to support 

public lands management would provide enough detail to enable clear distinctions 

among valued landscape conditions, but be general and flexible enough to enable 

measurement using readily available or easily obtainable data. In national forest 

and project-level planning and implementation contexts, a benefits typology might 

best be tailored to landscape conditions characteristic of individual national forests. 

However, it also may be advantageous for the Forest Service to define a nationally consistent process for developing ecosystem services typologies in forest 

planning rules. 

An obvious challenge that can arise in developing typologies of valued landscape condition and ecosystem services on a given national forest is the possibility 

for disagreement among the public, stakeholders, and managers regarding the relative worth or importance of specific landscape conditions and ecosystem services. 

For example, one group might value trails for off-road vehicles and suggest this as an 

important landscape attribute to include in a national forest’s typology of benefits. 

Another group may have an affinity for pristine wilderness free of any human incursion and not view off-road vehicle trails as appropriate. The seeming polarity in the 

interests of different groups can create opportunities for tension to arise in the development of ecosystem services typologies. This may be most appropriately addressed 

by including a comprehensive set of valued services—including potentially competing values—in any characterization or evaluation of benefits and tradeoffs.

A somewhat related issue—and one more problematic in terms of agency 

credibility—is the potential duality of factors available to support management 

decisions, comprising (1) those factors that stakeholders or the public are concerned 

about, and (2) those factors that managers or scientists believe stakeholders and 

the public should be concerned about. For example, suppose that managers and 

scientists see a need to restore riparian areas by excluding all recreational uses 

in order to protect and enhance habitat for a rare or endangered snail—perhaps 

its protection is even required by law. Managers and scientists might argue for 

including snail habitat in the ecosystem services typology. However, various 

members of the public and some stakeholders may not share this same concern, 

object to the exclusion of recreational uses, and not agree that snail habitat be part 

of any typology. The best science available will not matter if it is not relevant, 

meaningful, or believable to the public. Managers often must juggle these 

competing management expectations, recognizing that they cannot ignore public 

perceptions and opinions, but also cannot ignore scientific information that the 

In national forest 

contexts, a benefits 

typology might 

best be tailored to 

landscape conditions 

characteristic of 

individual national 

forests.
36

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

public may not be privy to, may not agree with, or may not understand. Effectively 

addressing and resolving disagreements arising from disparate perspectives and 

perceptions of scientific information is a necessary part of the job of public lands 

management. In some cases, that process may involve educating the public and 

stakeholders about why particular factors either should be or must be considered 

when evaluating proposed management actions. 

Another way in which the delineation of describing ecosystem services can 

differ is the degree to which any defined ecosystem service can be separated from 

human interaction with it. Ecosystem services typically are biophysical things and 

many of them can be defined and evaluated using strictly biophysical measures, 

such as cubic feet of timber, number of fish, acre-feet of water, for example. In these 

cases, the metrics used to describe ecosystem services are sufficient if they are 

meaningful to people in the context in which a given ecosystem service is valued, 

be it harvesting timber, securing a threatened fish population, or supplying a 

municipality with drinking water. However, in other cases, peoples’ perceptions of 

and values for ecosystem services are influenced by how people interact with them. 

In these cases, evaluating ecosystem services can involve measures that characterize peoples’ interactions with biophysical landscape conditions, such as hiking 

trail miles, snowmobile trail miles, and acres of wilderness. Measuring these types 

of services involves understanding how different people interact with particular 

ecosystem services and how those interactions might differ from one individual to 

another, and possibly interact with each other (e.g., cross country ski trails versus 

snowmobile trails). 

Recreation-related ecosystem services in particular are not always neatly linked 

to a few biophysical metrics, because recreation often depends on diffuse and varied 

sets of landscape conditions that can differ both by type of recreation activity and by 

the preferences of individual recreationists. For example, a hiking trail might feature 

varied topography, open forest, and the possibility of viewing wildlife, a waterfall, 

or panoramic vista along the way. A trout stream might feature adequate access for 

anglers, appealing scenery, and riparian conditions amenable to trout, such as cool 

temperatures, gravel substrate, and varied current. However, recreationists’ preferences for recreation-related ecosystem services also will differ depending on the 

nature of individual uses and preferences. Some hikers prefer quiet wilderness while 

others are satisfied with even the most congested of popular trails. Some anglers 

desire pristine conditions while others are less discerning as long as they are able to 

catch fish. Whatever typology is used to delineate ecosystem services should encompass the relevant diversity of uses and values for ecosystem services to ensure that it 

is meaningful to people and stakeholders who experience management outcomes. 
37

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

Information Needed for Describing Tradeoffs

Another important step in evaluating forest management tradeoffs is characterizing 

how valued ecosystem services are likely to change in response to management 

activities under consideration. This step arguably is more important than placing 

dollar values on ecosystem services, because value estimates are of little use in 

the absence of information describing the expected outcomes of management. 

Ideally, analysis of the likely outcomes of landscape management would be based 

on credible scientific information linking expected changes in ecosystem services 

to specific changes in landscape conditions and processes resulting from proposed 

plans and projects. The quantity and quality of scientific information available 

for evaluating management effects in this way can differ depending on how well 

particular ecosystem processes are understood and how well they can be described 

by ecologists and biophysical scientists as changes in ecosystem services. 

In some cases, the state of knowledge about an individual ecosystem service 

may enable empirical prediction and description of changes likely to result from 

proposed plans or projects. For example, many economists refer to a need for 

ecological production functions (e.g., Polasky 2008) that link the production of a 

given ecosystem service in space and time to landscape conditions and processes 

necessary to its production. Empirical relationships characterizing expected 

changes in ecosystem services are likely based on a lengthy process of scientific 

inquiry that has resulted in a widely accepted understanding of the relationship 

between specific landscape conditions and processes and an ecosystem service 

that derives from them. In other cases, the state of knowledge about an individual 

ecosystem service may be less well developed and enable only a best guess estimate 

or qualitative description of what scientists think might happen as a result of a 

proposed plan or project. Such variation in the types of data available for evaluating 

and describing ecosystem services is unavoidable in forest management.

Whether dealing with empirical data and models or qualitative data and narratives, evaluating and communicating expected management outcomes calls 

for managers to (1) identify key landscape conditions that affect the quantity 

and quality of valued ecosystem services; (2) characterize key relations between 

those landscape conditions and the levels of ecosystem services produced; and (3) 

describe the degree of uncertainty in the data and models used to predict management outcomes. This process includes describing the spatial and temporal aspects 

of expected outcomes. For example, with a proposed riparian restoration project, the 

public and stakeholders may want to know how soon and over what area proposed 

restoration activities are likely to increase fish numbers or yield water quality 

improvements, as well as how long those improvements are likely to last. Especially 
38

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

useful is information that enables quantitative or qualitative description of how one 

ecosystem service might vary with increases or decreases in other services—the 

information needed for describing tradeoffs. 

In the absence of good information, professional judgment may be necessary to 

at least define whether the potential relationship between two ecosystem services 

is complementary, competitive, or unrelated, and also whether it is expected to 

be linear or nonlinear and likely to include turning points or thresholds. In these 

cases, characterizing likely management outcomes may tend more toward the use of 

simple tables, graphics, or narratives. For example, known or hypothesized relationships among select ecosystem services of interest might be presented in a simple 

matrix with a “+” symbol denoting a positive relationship, a “-” sign denoting a 

negative relationship, a “0” denoting no known or hypothesized relationship, and 

a “?” denoting conflicting information or hypotheses (table 1). Additional symbols 

could be used to note the strength or magnitude of a hypothesized relationship—

three plus signs for a strong positive relationship; one negative sign for a weak negative relationship, for example. Similarly, graphical representations of the expected 

shape of the functional relationships may be presented. Sets of tables might be 

used to illustrate how conditions are expected to differ over time and space. Simple 

descriptions obviously do not capture the complexity in landscape conditions and 

processes. However, comprehensive simulation of likely management outcomes 

often is not possible, nor is it always necessary or appropriate for engaging the 

public and stakeholders in management decisions. 

Timber 

(cubic feet 

harvested/year)

? - - - - - - -

Stored carbon 

(tons)

+ + + + + + +

Water quality 

(temperature)

+ 0

Water quality 

(temperature)

+ +

Hiking 

(visitor days/year)

Table 1—Example table showing direction and magnitude of hypothesized 

relationships between ecosystem services for a given landscape

Service (units) Timber Stored carbon Water quality Spotted owls Hiking

Note: The table is for illustrative purposes only and does not imply the nature of actual relationships between specific 

ecosystem services listed. Gray shading indicates areas on the form that are deliberately left blank.

“+” denotes a positive relationship. 

“-” denotes a negative relationship. 

“0” denotes no known or hypothesized relationship.

“?” denotes conflicting information or hypotheses.

In the absence of 

good information, 

professional judgement 

may be necessary 

to define potential 

relationships between 

ecosystem services 

and management.
39

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

Ideally, managers would evaluate and describe all of the beneficial and detrimental outcomes likely to transpire over time and space as a result of management actions under consideration. These outcomes would then be evaluated using 

appropriate approaches. Two approaches that are commonly used to evaluate 

management outcomes are cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis. 

Cost-benefit analysis weighs both financial and nonfinancial benefits and costs over 

time to determine the net social benefits expected to result from a given action. It 

often is used to rank projects to determine funding priorities. Cost-effectiveness 

analysis determines the least costly way to achieve a specific objective or, alternatively, the return per dollar spent in terms of outputs produced. Cost-effectiveness 

analysis is most appropriate when different project alternatives each address the 

same purpose and need, and the mix of ecosystem services effects expected from 

each alternative is roughly the same. The choice of approach depends on the degree 

to which alternatives under consideration might put the landscape on entirely 

different ecological trajectories with significant differences in resulting ecosystem 

services flows.

As with information describing production of ecosystem services, data for 

characterizing the values or preferences that people hold for specific ecosystem 

services also might be limited. However, it still is useful to consider the degree of 

importance with which people view particular services and how they might weigh 

the acceptability of different outcomes. This begins with identifying the basic relationship between valued ecosystem services in terms of human uses or preferences. 

For example, are two services viewed by the public or specific users as substitutes, 

complements, or unrelated? It also includes identifying how much of one service 

people are willing to give up (or exchange) for more of another. Such information 

can at least provide a general indication of relative value, which is the minimum 

information necessary for evaluating tradeoffs. We stress, however, that managers 

should not worry too much about estimating values or preferences for expected 

changes in ecosystem services until they are first able to adequately describe those 

expected changes. There is little need for trying to understand values or preferences 

for proposed management outcomes if managers are unable to adequately describe 

what those outcomes might be. 

Evaluating tradeoffs thus may also often take the form of a narrative of how 

forest management alternatives are likely to affect the forest landscape and why 

particular outcomes are desirable to different groups of people with a variety of 

perspectives. Narratives must describe expected outcomes such that the public and 

stakeholders can understand the likely benefits and costs of proposed actions, as 

well as how those benefits and costs are distributed among different people. 
40

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

Narratives might focus on commonsense factors that are grounded in ecological and 

economic theory so that professional judgments are reliable and trustworthy. The 

manner in which information is presented may matter more than its limitations, as 

long as managers are candid about those limitations and sensitive to the concerns 

of the public and stakeholders. Managers can begin by asking the questions: What 

information is available and how can it be presented in a sound and useful way? 

How can professional judgment be applied in an adaptive and collaborative management process that recognizes peoples’ concerns as well as ecosystem integrity 

and forest health? 

Policy Implications 

A hope within the Forest Service is that the concept and language of ecosystem 

services will help managers evaluate and describe the ways in which national forest 

management benefits the public—as part of an open and meaningful public engagement process. However, in addition to introducing ecosystem services concepts, the 

promise of adaptive management relies on building a record of outcomes on which 

to base management adaptations. Therefore, managers also will need adequate 

resources for monitoring landscape conditions over time, to verify that actual 

outcomes are close to expected outcomes, as landscapes respond to implemented 

plans and projects. Incorporating ecosystem services into public lands management 

thus involves implementing a comprehensive strategy for evaluating, describing, 

and monitoring the outcomes of management over time and communicating those 

to the public in ways that welcome meaningful public input. Several actions can 

help in this process: 

1. Support research collaborations among economists, social scientists, 

and managers to examine how the public and stakeholders perceive and 

describe forest benefits in their own words. Such inquiry is necessary to 

develop appropriate benefit typologies for evaluating and communicating 

expected management outcomes. This includes examining whether ecosystem services language is an effective way to communicate the benefits 

and tradeoffs associated with national forest management. There has been 

little research indicating that ecosystem services terminology is an effective 

way to describe the benefits of national forest management. In fact, existing studies we are aware of (e.g., Metz and Weigel 2010) suggest that, while 

people understand and are interested in protecting various benefits provided 

by nature, the term “ecosystem services” is neither well-understood nor 

particularly appealing to many people. Initial research effort might focus on 

Incorporating 

ecosystem services 

into public lands 

management involves 

implementing a 

comprehensive 

strategy for evaluating, 

describing, and 

monitoring the 

outcomes of 

management over time 

and communicating 

those to the public in 

ways that welcome 

meaningful public 

input.
41

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

identifying what factors resonate with the public and what words the public 

uses to describe them. 

2. Support collaborative research among economists, social scientists, ecologists, and managers to develop “public-friendly” metrics for describing 

forest benefits. Metrics should define biophysical characteristics, quantities, and qualities that require little further translation to make clear their 

relevance to people (e.g., Boyd and Banzhaf 2007, Wainger and Boyd 2009, 

Wainger and Mazzotta 2011). The likely responses of these metrics to different types of management actions should be understood, as should their 

relationship to metrics describing other forest benefits, so that joint production relationships can be described. All of this is the essential information 

for evaluating and communicating tradeoffs associated with management 

actions, as well as monitoring resulting outcomes.

3. Support collaborative research among economists, social scientists, ecologists, and managers to develop analytical frameworks and decision processes that explicitly incorporate uncertainty and risk in describing forest 

benefits. This would facilitate collaborative deliberation about management 

actions informed by the best available science combined with best professional judgment. It could include formalizing adaptive management procedures to guide mid-course corrections as management outcomes become 

evident over time. It also could incorporate precautionary principals and safe 

minimum standards approaches to explicitly account for critical uncertainties and maintain viable options for the future, when potentially irreversible 

changes might result from management actions under consideration. 

4. Provide guidance to national forest managers about how to address uncertainty that arises from a lack of information. Increased funding for monitoring, and collaborative research focused on characterizing forest benefits 

would help to improve the quantity and quality of scientific information 

available for describing management outcomes. 

5. Continue to find effective ways to communicate with members of the public 

and stakeholders about national forest planning and projects, and to involve 

them in deliberative or collaborative decisionmaking processes. This 

includes continuing to ensure that national forest and project-level planning 

and implementation processes and documents are accessible and understandable to the public and stakeholders, that national forest goals and mandates are clearly stated, and that the quality and limitations of any analyses 

conducted in support of proposed projects are explained. 
42

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-865

These actions will not resolve all of the challenges involved in evaluating and 

characterizing forest benefits. One persistent difficulty will be reconciling local 

interests with national interests. Another will be the continued tendency for management opponents to sometimes focus on a narrow range of services or resource 

outputs, or to simply oppose all actions out of hand. Improved decision frameworks 

and information may not be particularly useful when perceptions are hardened 

to scientific persuasion. Presenting information more effectively might help if an 

impasse involves information and how it is interpreted or understood. However, 

if an impasse arises from a difference in world views about what public lands are 

for, better information will not always help. Inviting potential opponents into the 

management process early might help to defuse potential conflict by enabling 

people to voice complaints upfront and thereby gain a stake in and ownership of the 

decision process. Given its complexity in application, characterizing the benefits 

of public lands management and associated tradeoffs will remain an imperfect 

exercise involving combinations of conceptual, empirical, and qualitative analysis. 

However, this is consistent with how difficult decisions often must be made, using 

professional judgment based on the best information available combined with public 

and stakeholder input. 

Acknowledgments 

Partial funding for this report was provided by the Ecosystem Services Team, 

Pacific Northwest Research Station, Portland, Oregon. We thank Susan Alexander, 

John Allen, Stanley Asah, Jamie Barbour, Karen Bennett, Dale Blahna, Bob Deal, 

Krista Gebert, Rickard Hokans, Thomas Mafera, Chris Miller, David Seesholtz, 

Nikola Smith, and Tom Spies for helpful discussions and comments.
43

Evaluating Tradeoffs Among Ecosystem Services in the Management of Public Lands

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