Estimating compensation ratios for tribal resources within a habitat equivalency framework

A challenging aspect of Habitat Equivalency Analysis (HEA) concerns adequately accounting for the relative value of the injured and restored or replaced resources. This issue is particularly relevant in the case of applying HEA to injured tribal trust (reservation) lands which enjoy special legal and cultural status. NOAA guidelines for HEA application state when choosing a metric to evaluate the quantity and quality of services provided by a unit of habitat, in addition to bio-physical characteristics, trustees should examine landscape, land ownership, and substitute resource characteristics. The analysis presents a theoretical framework and application of augmenting a traditional HEA analysis with discrete choice survey modeling results to ensure all key characteristics of the injured and restored or replaced resources are considered within the equivalency analysis. The example used is for the Spokane Tribe of Indians in Washington State and contamination of their tribal waterway, the Upper Columbia River/Lake Roosevelt. The addition of a discrete choice model of respondent preferences for site characteristics improves the standard HEA analysis by providing an empirical basis for unit equivalencies.