Darius Semmens (Former Employee)
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 76
Validating a method for transferring social values of ecosystem services between public lands in the Rocky Mountain region
With growing pressures on ecosystem services, social values attributed to them are increasingly important to land management decisions. Social values, defined here as perceived values the public ascribes to ecosystem services, particularly cultural services, are generally not accounted for through economic markets or considered alongside economic and ecological values in ecosystem...
Authors
Benson C. Sherrouse, Darius J. Semmens
Market forces and technological substitutes cause fluctuations in the value of bat pest-control services for cotton
Critics of the market-based, ecosystem services approach to biodiversity conservation worry that volatile market conditions and technological substitutes will diminish the value of ecosystem services and obviate the “economic benefits” arguments for conservation. To explore the effects of market forces and substitutes on service values, we assessed how the value of the pest-control...
Authors
Laura López-Hoffman, Ruscena Wiederholt, Chris Sansone, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Paul M. Cryan, James Diffendorfer, Joshua H. Goldstein, Kelsie LaSharr, John H. Loomis, Gary F. McCracken, Rodrigo A. Medellín, Amy M. Russell, Darius J. Semmens
Quantifying and valuing ecosystem services: An application of ARIES to the San Pedro River basin, USA
A large body of research exists that identifies and values ecosystem services - the benefits that ecosystems provide to humans (MA, 2005) - and their underlying ecological processes. However, the development of software decision support tools that integrate ecology, economics and geography that can be independently used within the public, private, academic and NGO sectors is a more...
Authors
Kenneth J. Bagstad, Darius J. Semmens, Ferdinando Villa, Gary P. Johnson
Climate change's impact on key ecosystem services and the human well-being they support in the US
Climate change alters the functions of ecological systems. As a result, the provision of ecosystem services and the well-being of people that rely on these services are being modified. Climate models portend continued warming and more frequent extreme weather events across the US. Such weather-related disturbances will place a premium on the ecosystem services that people rely on. We...
Authors
Erik J. Nelson, Peter Kareiva, Mary H. Ruckelshaus, Katie Arkema, Gary N. Geller, Evan Girvetz, Dave Goodrich, Virginia Matzek, Malin Pinsky, Walt Reid, Martin Saunders, Darius J. Semmens, Heather Tallis
Moving across the border: Modeling migratory bat populations
The migration of animals across long distances and between multiple habitats presents a major challenge for conservation. For the migratory Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana), these challenges include identifying and protecting migratory routes and critical roosts in two countries, the United States and Mexico. Knowledge and conservation of bat migratory routes is...
Authors
Wiederholt Ruscena, Laura López-Hoffman, Jon Cline, Rodrigo A. Medellín, Paul M. Cryan, Amy M. Russell, Gary F. McCracken, James Diffendorfer, Darius J. Semmens
National valuation of monarch butterflies indicates an untapped potential for incentive-based conservation
The annual migration of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) has high cultural value and recent surveys indicate monarch populations are declining. Protecting migratory species is complex because they cross international borders and depend on multiple regions. Understanding how much, and where, humans place value on migratory species can facilitate market‐based conservation approaches...
Authors
James Diffendorfer, John, Loomiz, Leslie Ries, Karen S. Oberhauser, Laura López-Hoffman, Darius J. Semmens, Brice X. Semmens, Bruce Butterfield, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Josh Goldstein, Ruscena Wiederholt, Brady Mattson, Wayne E. Thogmartin
A comparative assessment of tools for ecosystem services quantification and valuation
To enter widespread use, ecosystem service assessments need to be quantifiable, replicable, credible, flexible, and affordable. With recent growth in the field of ecosystem services, a variety of decision-support tools has emerged to support more systematic ecosystem services assessment. Despite the growing complexity of the tool landscape, thorough reviews of tools for identifying...
Authors
Kenneth J. Bagstad, Darius J. Semmens, Sissel Waage, Robert Winthrop
Comparing approaches to spatially explicit ecosystem service modeling: a case study from the San Pedro River, Arizona
Although the number of ecosystem service modeling tools has grown in recent years, quantitative comparative studies of these tools have been lacking. In this study, we applied two leading open-source, spatially explicit ecosystem services modeling tools – Artificial Intelligence for Ecosystem Services (ARIES) and Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) – to the...
Authors
Kenneth J. Bagstad, Darius J. Semmens, Robert Winthrop
An application of Social Values for Ecosystem Services (SolVES) to three national forests in Colorado and Wyoming
Despite widespread recognition that social-value information is needed to inform stakeholders and decision makers regarding trade-offs in environmental management, it too often remains absent from ecosystem service assessments. Although quantitative indicators of social values need to be explicitly accounted for in the decision-making process, they need not be monetary. Ongoing efforts...
Authors
Benson C. Sherrouse, Darius J. Semmens, Jessica M. Clement
How do migratory species add ecosystem service value to wilderness? Calculating the spatial subsidies provided by protected areas
Species that migrate through protected and wilderness areas and utilize their resources, deliver ecosystem services to people in faraway locations. The mismatch between the areas that most support a species and those areas where the species provides most benefits to society can lead to underestimation of the true value of protected areas such as wilderness. We present a method to...
Authors
Laura López-Hoffman, Darius J. Semmens, James Diffendorfer
A framework for quantitative assessment of impacts related to energy and mineral resource development
Natural resource planning at all scales demands methods for assessing the impacts of resource development and use, and in particular it requires standardized methods that yield robust and unbiased results. Building from existing probabilistic methods for assessing the volumes of energy and mineral resources, we provide an algorithm for consistent, reproducible, quantitative assessment of...
Authors
Seth S. Haines, James Diffendorfer, Laurie S. Balistrieri, Byron R. Berger, Troy A. Cook, Donald L. Gautier, Tanya Gallegos, Margot Gerritsen, Elisabeth A. Graffy, Sarah J. Hawkins, Kathleen M. Johnson, Jordan Macknick, Peter B. McMahon, Tim Modde, Brenda S. Pierce, John H. Schuenemeyer, Darius J. Semmens, Benjamin Simon, Jason M. Taylor, Katherine Walton-Day
Impacts of climate change on ecosystem services
Key Findings By 2050, climate change will triple the fraction of counties in the U.S. that are at high or extremely high risk of outstripping their water supplies (from 10 percent to 32 percent). The most at risk areas in the U.S. are the West, Southwest and Great Plains regions. Regulation of drinking water quality will be strained as high rainfall and river discharge conditions may...
Authors
Peter Kareiva, Mary Ruckleshaus, Katie Arkema, Gary N. Geller, Evan Girvetz, Dave Goodrich, Erik J. Nelson, Virginia Matzek, Malin Pinsky, Walt Reid, Martin Saunders, Darius J. Semmens, Heather Tallis
Non-USGS Publications**
Liu, Y., Mahmoud, M., Hartmann, H., Stewart, S., Wagener, T., Semmens, D., Stewart, R., Gupta, H., Dominguez, D., Hulse, D., Letcher, R., Rashleigh, B., Smith, C., Street, R., Ticehurst, J., Twery, M., van Delden, H., Waldick, R., White, D., and Winter, L., 2008, Formal scenario development for environmental impact assessment studies, in Jakeman, A., A. Voinov, A. E. Rizzoli, and S. Chen, (Eds.) Environmental Modelling, Software and Decision Support, 3. IDEA Book Series, Elsevier, 338 pp.
Kepner, W.G., Hernandez, M., Semmens, D.J., and Goodrich D.C.,2008, The Use of Scenario Analysis to Assess Future Landscape Change on Watershed Condition in the Pacific Northwest (USA), in Use of Landscape Sciences for Environmental Security: NATO Security through Science Series, Springer Publishers, The Netherlands. ISBN 978-1-4020-6588-0, pp. 237-261.
Kepner, W.G., Semmens, D.J., Hernandez, M., and Goodrich, D.C., 2008, Evaluating Hydrological Response to Forecasted Land-use Change, Chapter 15 in Special Issue of Association of American Geographers. North American Land Cover Summit. Washington, DC. pp. 275-292. ISBN 978-0-89291-271-1.
Semmens, D.J., Goodrich, D.C., Unkrich, C.L., Smith, R.E., Woolhiser, D.A., and Miller, S.N., 2008, KINEROS2 and the AGWA modeling framework, in Wheater, H., Sorooshian, S., and Sharma, K.D., eds., Hydrological Modelling In Arid and Semi-Arid Areas: Cambridge University Press, New York, 206pp.
Miller, S.N., Semmens, D.J., Goodrich, D.C., Hernandez, M., Miller, R.C., Kepner, W.G., and Guertin, D.P., 2007, The Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment tool: Environmental Modeling and Software, v. 22, n. 3, p. 365-377.
Nikolova, M., S. Nedkov, D. Semmens, and S. Iankov, 2007, Environmental quality and landscape-risk assessment in the Yantra River Basin, in W. Kepner, W., Müller, F., Petrosillio, I., Jones, B., Krauze, K., Victorov, S., and Zurlini, G., (eds.), Use of Landscape Sciences for the Assessment of Environmental Security: NATO Security Through Science Series, Springer Publications, p. 202-217.
Kepner, W.G., Semmens, D.J., Basset, S.D., Mouat, D.A., Goodrich, D.C., 2004, Scenario analysis for the San Pedro River, analyzing hydrological consequences for a future environment: Environmental Modeling and Assessment, v. 94, p. 115-127.
**Disclaimer: The views expressed in Non-USGS publications are those of the author and do not represent the views of the USGS, Department of the Interior, or the U.S. Government.
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 76
Validating a method for transferring social values of ecosystem services between public lands in the Rocky Mountain region
With growing pressures on ecosystem services, social values attributed to them are increasingly important to land management decisions. Social values, defined here as perceived values the public ascribes to ecosystem services, particularly cultural services, are generally not accounted for through economic markets or considered alongside economic and ecological values in ecosystem...
Authors
Benson C. Sherrouse, Darius J. Semmens
Market forces and technological substitutes cause fluctuations in the value of bat pest-control services for cotton
Critics of the market-based, ecosystem services approach to biodiversity conservation worry that volatile market conditions and technological substitutes will diminish the value of ecosystem services and obviate the “economic benefits” arguments for conservation. To explore the effects of market forces and substitutes on service values, we assessed how the value of the pest-control...
Authors
Laura López-Hoffman, Ruscena Wiederholt, Chris Sansone, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Paul M. Cryan, James Diffendorfer, Joshua H. Goldstein, Kelsie LaSharr, John H. Loomis, Gary F. McCracken, Rodrigo A. Medellín, Amy M. Russell, Darius J. Semmens
Quantifying and valuing ecosystem services: An application of ARIES to the San Pedro River basin, USA
A large body of research exists that identifies and values ecosystem services - the benefits that ecosystems provide to humans (MA, 2005) - and their underlying ecological processes. However, the development of software decision support tools that integrate ecology, economics and geography that can be independently used within the public, private, academic and NGO sectors is a more...
Authors
Kenneth J. Bagstad, Darius J. Semmens, Ferdinando Villa, Gary P. Johnson
Climate change's impact on key ecosystem services and the human well-being they support in the US
Climate change alters the functions of ecological systems. As a result, the provision of ecosystem services and the well-being of people that rely on these services are being modified. Climate models portend continued warming and more frequent extreme weather events across the US. Such weather-related disturbances will place a premium on the ecosystem services that people rely on. We...
Authors
Erik J. Nelson, Peter Kareiva, Mary H. Ruckelshaus, Katie Arkema, Gary N. Geller, Evan Girvetz, Dave Goodrich, Virginia Matzek, Malin Pinsky, Walt Reid, Martin Saunders, Darius J. Semmens, Heather Tallis
Moving across the border: Modeling migratory bat populations
The migration of animals across long distances and between multiple habitats presents a major challenge for conservation. For the migratory Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana), these challenges include identifying and protecting migratory routes and critical roosts in two countries, the United States and Mexico. Knowledge and conservation of bat migratory routes is...
Authors
Wiederholt Ruscena, Laura López-Hoffman, Jon Cline, Rodrigo A. Medellín, Paul M. Cryan, Amy M. Russell, Gary F. McCracken, James Diffendorfer, Darius J. Semmens
National valuation of monarch butterflies indicates an untapped potential for incentive-based conservation
The annual migration of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) has high cultural value and recent surveys indicate monarch populations are declining. Protecting migratory species is complex because they cross international borders and depend on multiple regions. Understanding how much, and where, humans place value on migratory species can facilitate market‐based conservation approaches...
Authors
James Diffendorfer, John, Loomiz, Leslie Ries, Karen S. Oberhauser, Laura López-Hoffman, Darius J. Semmens, Brice X. Semmens, Bruce Butterfield, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Josh Goldstein, Ruscena Wiederholt, Brady Mattson, Wayne E. Thogmartin
A comparative assessment of tools for ecosystem services quantification and valuation
To enter widespread use, ecosystem service assessments need to be quantifiable, replicable, credible, flexible, and affordable. With recent growth in the field of ecosystem services, a variety of decision-support tools has emerged to support more systematic ecosystem services assessment. Despite the growing complexity of the tool landscape, thorough reviews of tools for identifying...
Authors
Kenneth J. Bagstad, Darius J. Semmens, Sissel Waage, Robert Winthrop
Comparing approaches to spatially explicit ecosystem service modeling: a case study from the San Pedro River, Arizona
Although the number of ecosystem service modeling tools has grown in recent years, quantitative comparative studies of these tools have been lacking. In this study, we applied two leading open-source, spatially explicit ecosystem services modeling tools – Artificial Intelligence for Ecosystem Services (ARIES) and Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) – to the...
Authors
Kenneth J. Bagstad, Darius J. Semmens, Robert Winthrop
An application of Social Values for Ecosystem Services (SolVES) to three national forests in Colorado and Wyoming
Despite widespread recognition that social-value information is needed to inform stakeholders and decision makers regarding trade-offs in environmental management, it too often remains absent from ecosystem service assessments. Although quantitative indicators of social values need to be explicitly accounted for in the decision-making process, they need not be monetary. Ongoing efforts...
Authors
Benson C. Sherrouse, Darius J. Semmens, Jessica M. Clement
How do migratory species add ecosystem service value to wilderness? Calculating the spatial subsidies provided by protected areas
Species that migrate through protected and wilderness areas and utilize their resources, deliver ecosystem services to people in faraway locations. The mismatch between the areas that most support a species and those areas where the species provides most benefits to society can lead to underestimation of the true value of protected areas such as wilderness. We present a method to...
Authors
Laura López-Hoffman, Darius J. Semmens, James Diffendorfer
A framework for quantitative assessment of impacts related to energy and mineral resource development
Natural resource planning at all scales demands methods for assessing the impacts of resource development and use, and in particular it requires standardized methods that yield robust and unbiased results. Building from existing probabilistic methods for assessing the volumes of energy and mineral resources, we provide an algorithm for consistent, reproducible, quantitative assessment of...
Authors
Seth S. Haines, James Diffendorfer, Laurie S. Balistrieri, Byron R. Berger, Troy A. Cook, Donald L. Gautier, Tanya Gallegos, Margot Gerritsen, Elisabeth A. Graffy, Sarah J. Hawkins, Kathleen M. Johnson, Jordan Macknick, Peter B. McMahon, Tim Modde, Brenda S. Pierce, John H. Schuenemeyer, Darius J. Semmens, Benjamin Simon, Jason M. Taylor, Katherine Walton-Day
Impacts of climate change on ecosystem services
Key Findings By 2050, climate change will triple the fraction of counties in the U.S. that are at high or extremely high risk of outstripping their water supplies (from 10 percent to 32 percent). The most at risk areas in the U.S. are the West, Southwest and Great Plains regions. Regulation of drinking water quality will be strained as high rainfall and river discharge conditions may...
Authors
Peter Kareiva, Mary Ruckleshaus, Katie Arkema, Gary N. Geller, Evan Girvetz, Dave Goodrich, Erik J. Nelson, Virginia Matzek, Malin Pinsky, Walt Reid, Martin Saunders, Darius J. Semmens, Heather Tallis
Non-USGS Publications**
Liu, Y., Mahmoud, M., Hartmann, H., Stewart, S., Wagener, T., Semmens, D., Stewart, R., Gupta, H., Dominguez, D., Hulse, D., Letcher, R., Rashleigh, B., Smith, C., Street, R., Ticehurst, J., Twery, M., van Delden, H., Waldick, R., White, D., and Winter, L., 2008, Formal scenario development for environmental impact assessment studies, in Jakeman, A., A. Voinov, A. E. Rizzoli, and S. Chen, (Eds.) Environmental Modelling, Software and Decision Support, 3. IDEA Book Series, Elsevier, 338 pp.
Kepner, W.G., Hernandez, M., Semmens, D.J., and Goodrich D.C.,2008, The Use of Scenario Analysis to Assess Future Landscape Change on Watershed Condition in the Pacific Northwest (USA), in Use of Landscape Sciences for Environmental Security: NATO Security through Science Series, Springer Publishers, The Netherlands. ISBN 978-1-4020-6588-0, pp. 237-261.
Kepner, W.G., Semmens, D.J., Hernandez, M., and Goodrich, D.C., 2008, Evaluating Hydrological Response to Forecasted Land-use Change, Chapter 15 in Special Issue of Association of American Geographers. North American Land Cover Summit. Washington, DC. pp. 275-292. ISBN 978-0-89291-271-1.
Semmens, D.J., Goodrich, D.C., Unkrich, C.L., Smith, R.E., Woolhiser, D.A., and Miller, S.N., 2008, KINEROS2 and the AGWA modeling framework, in Wheater, H., Sorooshian, S., and Sharma, K.D., eds., Hydrological Modelling In Arid and Semi-Arid Areas: Cambridge University Press, New York, 206pp.
Miller, S.N., Semmens, D.J., Goodrich, D.C., Hernandez, M., Miller, R.C., Kepner, W.G., and Guertin, D.P., 2007, The Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment tool: Environmental Modeling and Software, v. 22, n. 3, p. 365-377.
Nikolova, M., S. Nedkov, D. Semmens, and S. Iankov, 2007, Environmental quality and landscape-risk assessment in the Yantra River Basin, in W. Kepner, W., Müller, F., Petrosillio, I., Jones, B., Krauze, K., Victorov, S., and Zurlini, G., (eds.), Use of Landscape Sciences for the Assessment of Environmental Security: NATO Security Through Science Series, Springer Publications, p. 202-217.
Kepner, W.G., Semmens, D.J., Basset, S.D., Mouat, D.A., Goodrich, D.C., 2004, Scenario analysis for the San Pedro River, analyzing hydrological consequences for a future environment: Environmental Modeling and Assessment, v. 94, p. 115-127.
**Disclaimer: The views expressed in Non-USGS publications are those of the author and do not represent the views of the USGS, Department of the Interior, or the U.S. Government.