About the Webinar
The webinar will focus on key tradeoffs and economic values associated with different approaches to coastal adaptation, and what it means for adaptation that will be most beneficial to the public. Dr. Johnston will talk about tradeoffs between green and grey infrastructure for coastal adaptation and the benefits and costs that can result. The focus of the webinar will be on how economists conceptualize and measure the benefits and costs of coastal adaptation, with particular emphasis on more difficult-to-quantify non-market benefits. It will also cover the difference between financial (or accounting) benefits and costs and economic benefits and costs.
About the Presenter
Robert J. Johnston is Director of the George Perkins Marsh Institute and Professor of Economics at Clark University. He is also editor of the journal Resource and Energy Economics. Professor Johnston is an environmental economist whose research addresses economic valuation, benefit transfer and ecosystem services, with an emphasis on aquatic and coastal systems. He has also conducted significant work in climate change adaptation. He is currently co-chair of the Ecosystem Science and Management Working Group of the NOAA Science Advisory Board, and on the Steering Committee and Science Advisory Board of the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program, and the Senior Advisory Board of the Connecticut Sea Grant Program. He is a past member of the US EPA Science Advisory Board, and has served on multiple US National Research Council Panels. His publications include multiple books and approximately 100 journal articles on the use of economics to inform environmental management.