Dr. James Price: Researching the Economics of Water

Meet James. He’s an assistant professor and environmental economist at the UW-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences. What does economics have to do with water science, you might ask? Actually, a lot.

“Economics as a discipline does recognize that environmental natural resources have tremendous value,” James says. “It's just that these things are not oftentimes accounted for in policy decisions. Some of the work that I'm doing is to try to fill in those gaps in order to improve those decisions and outcomes.”

One of those gaps involves how we value the quality of groundwater in Wisconsin. James specializes in nonmarket valuation, a field of economics that assigns quantitative values to environmental goods and services—like water quality—that are not directly traded on markets. His current research covers all groundwater drinking water plants in the state, which are responsible for serving 42% of Wisconsin’s population with clean water. James is exploring the relationships between the quality of source water and the cost of treating that water. “Once we have that information, drinking water treatment plants can use it to look at the tradeoffs between, say, treating drinking water in plant versus protecting source water prior to entering [the system].”

James is also teaching several graduate courses: cost-benefit analysis for environmental resource decisions and statistics for freshwater science and policy. When the School of Freshwater Sciences opens to its first class of undergraduates in fall 2021, James will add a third course: environmental economics focused on water issues. “Students are engaged. They bring to every class a very interesting perspective that you would not find if I was in a regular econ program,” he says. “They’re bringing in all this information, this knowledge from other courses, in limnology and chemical hydrogeology, and things that I don’t know very much about. It’s fascinating for me as a teacher because I’m learning. I’m also able to impart something that most of these students haven’t engaged with before, which is this economics side of things. I think it’s been a great learning experience for everybody.”

He’s also excited about the future opportunities for interdisciplinary research with water policy implications. Possible collaborations include with Dr. Margaret Noodin and Dr. Tracy Boyer applying nonmarket valuation within Wisconsin’s Indigenous communities; with Dr. Sandra McLellan considering the costs and benefits of different municipal road salting strategies related to chloride impacts to local waterways; and with Dr. Dong-Fang Deng on how much Milwaukeeans are willing to pay for locally produced aquaculture products.

James’ interest in environmental economics stemmed from four years he spent in central Haiti supporting a reforestation program. “It was transformative,” James recalls. “It was fascinating to be part of that larger, long-term process. More generally, I realized while I was there, I needed a framework to help understand how people were relating to their environment, and making decisions to cut down trees in some cases and not in other cases, to plant certain crops at certain times. I found economics—it's not perfect—but it did a good job of helping to explain those things.”

His experience in Haiti led James to study environmental economics in grad school. He then got involved in water projects in Nepal and Canada before working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “In each of those cases I was working on water issues and I just developed a passion for it,” he says.

James moved to Milwaukee to take his current position at the School of Freshwater Sciences. Although he’s relatively new to the city, he says his family enjoys going down to the beach at Lake Michigan. He’s also been impressed with Milwaukee’s water culture coupled with a water ethic that seems to belie—in a good way—the economics of scarcity driving value.

“What strikes me about Milwaukee is its identity is so integrated with Lake Michigan and water issues,” James says. “I've lived in many places in the U.S. Most of them have been drier. The relationship with water there is due to the scarcity of water. But here, Milwaukee has this relative abundance of water. What strikes me is Milwaukeeans in general have this amazing appreciation for water and the sense that it needs to be protected, and cared for, and managed appropriately.”