Project Overview

Reports

Commodities

• Additional Plants: native plants

• Animals: bees, other

• Ecosystem: Ecosystem

• Natural Areas: wildlife

• Pollinators: habitat

Target Pests

Practices

• Pest Management: chemical control, decision support system, mechanical control, pesticide application timing, pesticides

• Crop Production: pollination/pollinator health/habitat

• Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity

• Sustainable Communities: sustainability measures

Pollinator populations are diminishing at an alarming rate across the world even as global agricultural systems become ever more reliant on them for food production. The main drivers causing the depletion of pollinator populations and ecosystems include intense land management, pesticide use, and invasive species. Decline in pollinator abundance has serious implications on food supplies and ecosystems across the world. The scale of conservation required to address pollinator population declines demands an unprecedented level of coordination across industry sectors, geographies, public and private organizations, and government agencies.  

Over the past three years, the Rights-of-Way as Habitat Working Group (Working Group) participants have prioritized their needs for increased institutional and management support of implementation of integrated vegetation management (IVM) and pollinator habitat conservation. Working Group participants have consistently and overwhelmingly identified a cost-benefit calculator as the most needed tool to educate and influence decision makers at their organizations in favor of habitat conservation and IVM practices. 

With prior funding from NCIPMC, UIC created a Cost-Benefit Task Force to conduct a feasibility study on the future development of a cost-benefit calculator for pollinator habitat conservation and IVM practices on ROW. From a literature review of published studies, UIC was able to identify a set of common cost variables studied and used by industry. UIC and Burns & McDonnell also created a survey to determine the availability of cost data from across the Working Group. Respondents indicated whether they could provide cost data for a range of vegetation management practices (i.e., routine vegetation management, post-construction, and special habitat projects), whether those practices were conventional versus pollinator-friendly, for which regions, and whether there were data on quantifiable benefits. Most respondents indicated their data was representative of the North Central region.  

For the proposed project, UIC plans to begin aggregating and further analyzing the actual cost data to determine industry average (or default) values for use in a future cost-benefit calculator. Due to the large quantity and complexity of data, UIC proposes to first focus on aggregating and analyzing cost data associated with routine vegetation management activities, such as mowing, herbicide applications, and brush removal.   

With the insight gained from this past year’s study and support from the Cost-Benefit Task Force, a data collection form will be designed for organizations to submit their detailed routine vegetation management cost data. UIC will then gather these data from at least 20 industry partners who have indicated they have available routine vegetation management cost data.  UIC will sort the cost data by industry type, region, activity, and whether the activity is pollinator-friendly or conventional. The analyzed data will provide average values that can be used to better forecast IVM and pollinator-friendly management costs on energy and transportation lands. The collection, aggregation, anonymization, and trend analysis of routine vegetation management cost data will also pave the way for similar activities for post-construction and special habitat projects and provide the necessary inputs for the future development of a fully-functional cost-benefit calculator for energy and transportation lands.  

Objective 1. Collect detailed data on costs from identified energy companies, transportation agencies, and contractors for routine vegetation management practices, both conventional and pollinator-friendly.

Objective 2:  Analyze cost data, focusing on trends of activity type, industry type, and region, to define average industry values for both conventional and pollinator-friendly practices.