Kenneth J. Bagstad, Ph.D.
Ken Bagstad is a Research Economist working with the USGS’ Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center in Denver. He uses GIS and modeling to quantify, map, and value ecosystem service flows across the United States and internationally.
Ken co-leads work to develop natural capital accounts in the United States at national and regional scales and use this information to support resource management for federal government agencies. Ken has also co-led the development of content for the Artificial Intelligence for Environment & Sustainability (ARIES) project, which has developed software tools to deliver more timely and accurate information for environmental decision making. Through his work on ARIES, Ken has a long-standing interest in the use of artificial intelligence, particularly semantics and machine reasoning, to make scientific data and models interoperable and reusable by both people and computers.
From 2015-2016 Ken was seconded to the World Bank's Wealth Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES) Program as a Senior Environmental Specialist. He coordinated the development of ecosystem accounts and their application to national economic accounts in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Rwanda, and assisted with their development elsewhere. For the last several years he has co-taught an ecosystem services modeling course in Spain, and in 2015 he worked in Japan as a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science research fellow.
Professional Experience
Research Economist, USGS GECSC, 2013-present
Senior Environmental Specialist, Seconded to the Word Bank, 2015-2016
Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellow, USGS, 2011-2013
Education and Certifications
Ph.D. (Natural Resources, certificate in ecological economics), University of Vermont
M.S. (Plant Biology, concentration in ecology), Arizona State University
B.A. (Botany and Environmental Studies), Ohio Wesleyan University
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 13
Data Release for The sensitivity of ecosystem service models to choices of input data and spatial resolution
Although ecosystem service (ES) modeling has progressed rapidly in the last 10-15 years, comparative studies on data and model selection effects have become more common only recently. Such studies have drawn mixed conclusions about whether different data and model choices yield divergent results. In this study we apply inter- and intra-model comparisons to address these questions at national and p
Filter Total Items: 78
The global environmental agenda urgently needs a semantic web of knowledge
Progress in key social-ecological challenges of the global environmental agenda (e.g., climate change, biodiversity conservation, Sustainable Development Goals) is hampered by a lack of integration and synthesis of existing scientific evidence. Facing a fast-increasing volume of data, information remains compartmentalized to pre-defined scales and fields, rarely building its way up to collective k
Authors
Stefano Balbi, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Ainhoa Magrach, Maria Jose Sanz, Naikoa Aguilar-Amuchastegui, Carlo Guipponi, Ferdinando Villa
Estimating the pelagic ocean’s benefits to humanity can enhance ocean governance
The human footprint on the global ocean is ever-increasing, particularly with new ways to grow food in the ocean, new technologies in marine energy production as a way to resolve climate change, and transport and commerce expanding across the ocean. Yet, human activities in the ocean have long been managed using a sectoral approach (e.g., fisheries, biodiversity protection, energy production, ship
Authors
Lida Teneva, Aaron L. Strong, Vera Agostini, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Evangelina G Drakou, Zachary H. Ancona, Kristina Gjerde, Andrew C Hume, Nicholas Jickling
Lessons learned from development of natural capital accounts in the United States and European Union
The United States and European Union (EU) face common challenges in managing natural capital and balancing conservation and resource use with consumption of other forms of capital. This paper synthesizes findings from 11 individual application papers from a special issue of Ecosystem Services on natural capital accounting (NCA) and their application to the public and private sectors in the EU and
Authors
Kenneth J. Bagstad, Jane Carter Ingram, Carl D. Shapiro, Alessandra La Notte, Joachim Maes, Sara Vallecillo, Clyde F. Casey, Pierre D. Glynn, Mehdi Heris, Justin A. Johnson, Chris Lauer, John Matuszak, Kirsten L. L. Oleson, Stephen M. Posner, Charles Rhodes, Brian Voigt
Editorial special issue natural capital accounting: The content, the context, and the framework
No abstract available.
Authors
Alessandra La Notte, Sara Vallecillo, Joachim Maes, Carl D. Shapiro, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Jane Carter Ingram, Pierre D. Glynn
Book review: "Replacing GDP by 2030: Towards a common language for the well-being and sustainability community" by Rutger Hoekstra
No abstract available.
Authors
Mairi-Jane Fox, Kenneth J. Bagstad
Book review: Replacing GDP by 2030: Towards a common language for the well-being and sustainability community, Rutger Hoekstra, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2019)
Critiques of gross domestic product (GDP) as the economy's primary measuring stick have emanated from the feminist and ecological economics communities for decades (Kubiszewski et al., 2013) and have grown to include mainstream economists (Stiglitz, Sen, and Fitousi, 2009) and national accountants (Coyle, 2015). To the casual observer, such critiques seem to be growing almost as quickly as the num
Authors
Kenneth J. Bagstad, Mairi-Jane Fox
Piloting urban ecosystem accounting for the United States
In this study, we develop urban ecosystem accounts in the U.S., using the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EEA) framework. Most ecosystem accounts focus on regional and national scales, which are appropriate for many ecosystem services. However, ecosystems provide substantial services in cities, improving quality of life and contributing to resili
Authors
Mehdi Heris, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Charles Rhodes, Austin Troy, Ariane Middel, Kristina G. Hopkins, John Matuszak
Accounting for land in the United States: Integrating physical land cover, land use, and monetary valuation
Land plays a critical role in both economic and environmental accounting. As an asset, it occupies a unique position at the intersection of the System of National Accounts (SNA), the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Central Framework (SEEA-CF), and (as a spatial unit) SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA-EEA), making land a natural starting point for developing natural capital a
Authors
Scott A. Wentland, Zachary H. Ancona, Kenneth J. Bagstad, James W. Boyd, Julie L. Hass, Marina Gindelsky, Jeremy G. Moulton
Integrating physical and economic data into experimental water accounts for the United States: Lessons and opportunities
Water management increasingly involves tradeoffs, making its accounting highly relevant in our interconnected world. Physical and economic data about water in many nations are becoming more widely integrated through application of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounts for Water (SEEA-Water), which enables the tracking of linkages between water and the economy. We present the first national
Authors
Kenneth J. Bagstad, Zachary H. Ancona, Julie L. Hass, Pierre D. Glynn, Scott Wentland, Michael Vardon, John P. Fay
Linking land and sea through an ecological-economic model of coral reef recreation
Coastal zones are popular recreational areas that substantially contribute to social welfare. Managers can use information about specific environmental features that people value, and how these might change under different management scenarios, to spatially target actions to areas of high current or potential value. We explored how snorkelers’ experience would be affected by separate and combined
Authors
Kirsten L. L. Oleson, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Carlo Fezzi, Megan Barnes, Mary Donovan, Kim A. Falinski, Kelvin Gorospe, Hla Htun, Joey Lecky, Ferdinando Villa, Tamara Wong
A rasterized building footprint dataset for the United States
Microsoft released a U.S.-wide vector building dataset in 2018. Although the vector building layers provide relatively accurate geometries, their use in large-extent geospatial analysis comes at a high computational cost. We used High-Performance Computing (HPC) to develop an algorithm that calculates six summary values for each cell in a raster representation of each U.S. state, excluding Alaska
Authors
Mehdi Pourpeikari Heris, Nathan Leon Foks, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Austin Troy, Zachary H. Ancona
Economic, land use, and ecosystem services impacts of Rwanda's Green Growth Strategy: An application of the IEEM+ESM platform
We develop and link the Integrated Economic-Environmental Modeling (IEEM) Platform to ecosystem services modeling (ESM). The IEEM+ESM Platform is an innovative decision-making framework for exploring complex public policy goals and elucidating synergies and trade-offs between alternative policy portfolios. The IEEM+ESM approach is powerful in its ability to shed light on (i) change in land use and
Authors
Onil Banerjee, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Martin Cicowiecz, Sebastian Dudek, Mark Horridge, Janaki Alavalapati, Michel K. Masozera, Emmanuel Rukundo, Evariste Rutebuka
Non-USGS Publications**
Bagstad, K.J. and R. Shammin. 2012. Can the Genuine Progress Indicator better inform sustainable regional progress? - A case study for Northeast Ohio. Ecological Indicators 18:330-341.
Johnson, G.W., K.J. Bagstad, R. Snapp, and F. Villa. 2012. Service Path Attribution Networks (SPANs): A network flow approach to ecosystem service assessment. International Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Information Systems 3(2):54-71.
Johnson, G.W., R.R. Snapp, F. Villa, and K.J. Bagstad. 2012. Modelling ecosystem service flows under uncertainty with stochastic SPAN. Pp. 1021-1028 in: R. Seppelt, A.A. Voinov, S. Lange, and D. Bankamp, eds., Proceedings of the 2012 International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software. ISBN: 978-88-9035-742-8.
Villa, F., K.J. Bagstad, G. Johnson, and B. Voigt. 2011. Scientific instruments for climate change adaptation: Estimating and optimizing the efficiency of ecosystem services provision. Economia Agraria y Recursos Naturales 11(1):83-98.
Batker, D., de la Torre, I., Costanza, R., Swedeen, P., Day, J., Boumans, R., and Bagstad, K.J. 2010. Gaining ground: Wetlands, hurricanes, and the economy: The value of restoring the Mississippi River Delta. Environmental Law Reporter 40 ELR 11106-11110.
Daniels, A.E., Bagstad, K.J., Esposito, V., Moulaert, A., and Manuel Rodriguez, C. 2010. Understanding the impacts of Costa Rica’s PES: Are we asking the right questions?: Ecological Economics 69(11):2116-2126.
Stromberg, J.C., K.J. Bagstad, and E. Makings. 2009. Floristic Diversity. In: Ecology and conservation of the San Pedro River. J.C. Stromberg and B. Tellman, eds. University of Arizona Press: Tucson.
Bagstad, K.J. and M. Ceroni. 2008. The Genuine Progress Indicator: A new measure of economic development for the Northern Forest. Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies 15(1):21-29.
Bagstad, K.J. and M. Ceroni. 2007. Opportunities and challenges in applying the GPI/ISEW at local scales. International Journal of Environment, Workplace, and Employment 3(2):132-153.
Bagstad, K.J., K. Stapleton, and J.R. D’Agostino. 2007. Taxes, subsidies, and insurance as drivers of United States coastal development. Ecological Economics 63:285-298.
Bagstad, K.J. 2006. Valuing ecosystem services in the Chicago region. Chicago Wilderness Journal 4(2):18-26.
Bagstad, K.J., S.J. Lite, and J.C. Stromberg. 2006. Vegetation and hydro-geomorphology of riparian patch types of a dryland river. Western North American Naturalist 66:23-44.
Bagstad, K.J., J.C. Stromberg, and S.J. Lite. 2005. Response of herbaceous riparian plant functional groups to flooding of the San Pedro River, Arizona. Wetlands 25(1):210-223.
Lite, S.J., K.J. Bagstad, and J.C. Stromberg. 2005. Riparian plant richness and abundance across gradients of water stress and flood disturbance, San Pedro River, Arizona, USA. Journal of Arid Environments 63(4):785-813.
Stromberg, J.C., K.J. Bagstad, E. Makings, S.J. Lite, and J. Leenhouts. 2005. Effect of decline in stream flow duration on channel vegetation of a semi-arid region river (San Pedro River, Arizona). River Research & Application 21(8):925-938.
Roberts, B.R., H.F. Decker, K.J. Bagstad, and K.A. Peterson. 2001. Bio-solid residues as soilless media for growing wildflower sod. HortTechnology 11(2):194-199.
Bagstad, K.J. and D.M. Johnson. 1999. Taxonomy of Xylopia barbata (Annonaceae) and related species from the Amazon/Orinoco region. Contributions of the University of Michigan Herbarium 22:21-29.
Bagstad, K.J., F. Villa, D. Batker, J. Harrison-Cox, B. Voigt, and G. Johnson. 2014. From theoretical to actual ecosystem services: Accounting for beneficiaries and spatial flows in ecosystem service assessments. Ecology and Society 19(2):64.
Batker, D., I. de la Torre, R. Costanza, J.W. Day, P. Swedeen, R. Boumans, and K.J. Bagstad. 2014. The threats to the value of ecosystem goods and services of the Mississippi Delta. Pp. 155-173 in: Perspectives on the restoration of the Mississippi Delta: The once and future delta. J. Day, G.P. Kemp, A. Freeman, and D.P. Muth, eds. Springer: New York.
**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: 13
Data Release for The sensitivity of ecosystem service models to choices of input data and spatial resolution
Although ecosystem service (ES) modeling has progressed rapidly in the last 10-15 years, comparative studies on data and model selection effects have become more common only recently. Such studies have drawn mixed conclusions about whether different data and model choices yield divergent results. In this study we apply inter- and intra-model comparisons to address these questions at national and p
Filter Total Items: 78
The global environmental agenda urgently needs a semantic web of knowledge
Progress in key social-ecological challenges of the global environmental agenda (e.g., climate change, biodiversity conservation, Sustainable Development Goals) is hampered by a lack of integration and synthesis of existing scientific evidence. Facing a fast-increasing volume of data, information remains compartmentalized to pre-defined scales and fields, rarely building its way up to collective k
Authors
Stefano Balbi, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Ainhoa Magrach, Maria Jose Sanz, Naikoa Aguilar-Amuchastegui, Carlo Guipponi, Ferdinando Villa
Estimating the pelagic ocean’s benefits to humanity can enhance ocean governance
The human footprint on the global ocean is ever-increasing, particularly with new ways to grow food in the ocean, new technologies in marine energy production as a way to resolve climate change, and transport and commerce expanding across the ocean. Yet, human activities in the ocean have long been managed using a sectoral approach (e.g., fisheries, biodiversity protection, energy production, ship
Authors
Lida Teneva, Aaron L. Strong, Vera Agostini, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Evangelina G Drakou, Zachary H. Ancona, Kristina Gjerde, Andrew C Hume, Nicholas Jickling
Lessons learned from development of natural capital accounts in the United States and European Union
The United States and European Union (EU) face common challenges in managing natural capital and balancing conservation and resource use with consumption of other forms of capital. This paper synthesizes findings from 11 individual application papers from a special issue of Ecosystem Services on natural capital accounting (NCA) and their application to the public and private sectors in the EU and
Authors
Kenneth J. Bagstad, Jane Carter Ingram, Carl D. Shapiro, Alessandra La Notte, Joachim Maes, Sara Vallecillo, Clyde F. Casey, Pierre D. Glynn, Mehdi Heris, Justin A. Johnson, Chris Lauer, John Matuszak, Kirsten L. L. Oleson, Stephen M. Posner, Charles Rhodes, Brian Voigt
Editorial special issue natural capital accounting: The content, the context, and the framework
No abstract available.
Authors
Alessandra La Notte, Sara Vallecillo, Joachim Maes, Carl D. Shapiro, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Jane Carter Ingram, Pierre D. Glynn
Book review: "Replacing GDP by 2030: Towards a common language for the well-being and sustainability community" by Rutger Hoekstra
No abstract available.
Authors
Mairi-Jane Fox, Kenneth J. Bagstad
Book review: Replacing GDP by 2030: Towards a common language for the well-being and sustainability community, Rutger Hoekstra, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2019)
Critiques of gross domestic product (GDP) as the economy's primary measuring stick have emanated from the feminist and ecological economics communities for decades (Kubiszewski et al., 2013) and have grown to include mainstream economists (Stiglitz, Sen, and Fitousi, 2009) and national accountants (Coyle, 2015). To the casual observer, such critiques seem to be growing almost as quickly as the num
Authors
Kenneth J. Bagstad, Mairi-Jane Fox
Piloting urban ecosystem accounting for the United States
In this study, we develop urban ecosystem accounts in the U.S., using the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EEA) framework. Most ecosystem accounts focus on regional and national scales, which are appropriate for many ecosystem services. However, ecosystems provide substantial services in cities, improving quality of life and contributing to resili
Authors
Mehdi Heris, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Charles Rhodes, Austin Troy, Ariane Middel, Kristina G. Hopkins, John Matuszak
Accounting for land in the United States: Integrating physical land cover, land use, and monetary valuation
Land plays a critical role in both economic and environmental accounting. As an asset, it occupies a unique position at the intersection of the System of National Accounts (SNA), the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Central Framework (SEEA-CF), and (as a spatial unit) SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA-EEA), making land a natural starting point for developing natural capital a
Authors
Scott A. Wentland, Zachary H. Ancona, Kenneth J. Bagstad, James W. Boyd, Julie L. Hass, Marina Gindelsky, Jeremy G. Moulton
Integrating physical and economic data into experimental water accounts for the United States: Lessons and opportunities
Water management increasingly involves tradeoffs, making its accounting highly relevant in our interconnected world. Physical and economic data about water in many nations are becoming more widely integrated through application of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounts for Water (SEEA-Water), which enables the tracking of linkages between water and the economy. We present the first national
Authors
Kenneth J. Bagstad, Zachary H. Ancona, Julie L. Hass, Pierre D. Glynn, Scott Wentland, Michael Vardon, John P. Fay
Linking land and sea through an ecological-economic model of coral reef recreation
Coastal zones are popular recreational areas that substantially contribute to social welfare. Managers can use information about specific environmental features that people value, and how these might change under different management scenarios, to spatially target actions to areas of high current or potential value. We explored how snorkelers’ experience would be affected by separate and combined
Authors
Kirsten L. L. Oleson, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Carlo Fezzi, Megan Barnes, Mary Donovan, Kim A. Falinski, Kelvin Gorospe, Hla Htun, Joey Lecky, Ferdinando Villa, Tamara Wong
A rasterized building footprint dataset for the United States
Microsoft released a U.S.-wide vector building dataset in 2018. Although the vector building layers provide relatively accurate geometries, their use in large-extent geospatial analysis comes at a high computational cost. We used High-Performance Computing (HPC) to develop an algorithm that calculates six summary values for each cell in a raster representation of each U.S. state, excluding Alaska
Authors
Mehdi Pourpeikari Heris, Nathan Leon Foks, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Austin Troy, Zachary H. Ancona
Economic, land use, and ecosystem services impacts of Rwanda's Green Growth Strategy: An application of the IEEM+ESM platform
We develop and link the Integrated Economic-Environmental Modeling (IEEM) Platform to ecosystem services modeling (ESM). The IEEM+ESM Platform is an innovative decision-making framework for exploring complex public policy goals and elucidating synergies and trade-offs between alternative policy portfolios. The IEEM+ESM approach is powerful in its ability to shed light on (i) change in land use and
Authors
Onil Banerjee, Kenneth J. Bagstad, Martin Cicowiecz, Sebastian Dudek, Mark Horridge, Janaki Alavalapati, Michel K. Masozera, Emmanuel Rukundo, Evariste Rutebuka
Non-USGS Publications**
Bagstad, K.J. and R. Shammin. 2012. Can the Genuine Progress Indicator better inform sustainable regional progress? - A case study for Northeast Ohio. Ecological Indicators 18:330-341.
Johnson, G.W., K.J. Bagstad, R. Snapp, and F. Villa. 2012. Service Path Attribution Networks (SPANs): A network flow approach to ecosystem service assessment. International Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Information Systems 3(2):54-71.
Johnson, G.W., R.R. Snapp, F. Villa, and K.J. Bagstad. 2012. Modelling ecosystem service flows under uncertainty with stochastic SPAN. Pp. 1021-1028 in: R. Seppelt, A.A. Voinov, S. Lange, and D. Bankamp, eds., Proceedings of the 2012 International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software. ISBN: 978-88-9035-742-8.
Villa, F., K.J. Bagstad, G. Johnson, and B. Voigt. 2011. Scientific instruments for climate change adaptation: Estimating and optimizing the efficiency of ecosystem services provision. Economia Agraria y Recursos Naturales 11(1):83-98.
Batker, D., de la Torre, I., Costanza, R., Swedeen, P., Day, J., Boumans, R., and Bagstad, K.J. 2010. Gaining ground: Wetlands, hurricanes, and the economy: The value of restoring the Mississippi River Delta. Environmental Law Reporter 40 ELR 11106-11110.
Daniels, A.E., Bagstad, K.J., Esposito, V., Moulaert, A., and Manuel Rodriguez, C. 2010. Understanding the impacts of Costa Rica’s PES: Are we asking the right questions?: Ecological Economics 69(11):2116-2126.
Stromberg, J.C., K.J. Bagstad, and E. Makings. 2009. Floristic Diversity. In: Ecology and conservation of the San Pedro River. J.C. Stromberg and B. Tellman, eds. University of Arizona Press: Tucson.
Bagstad, K.J. and M. Ceroni. 2008. The Genuine Progress Indicator: A new measure of economic development for the Northern Forest. Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies 15(1):21-29.
Bagstad, K.J. and M. Ceroni. 2007. Opportunities and challenges in applying the GPI/ISEW at local scales. International Journal of Environment, Workplace, and Employment 3(2):132-153.
Bagstad, K.J., K. Stapleton, and J.R. D’Agostino. 2007. Taxes, subsidies, and insurance as drivers of United States coastal development. Ecological Economics 63:285-298.
Bagstad, K.J. 2006. Valuing ecosystem services in the Chicago region. Chicago Wilderness Journal 4(2):18-26.
Bagstad, K.J., S.J. Lite, and J.C. Stromberg. 2006. Vegetation and hydro-geomorphology of riparian patch types of a dryland river. Western North American Naturalist 66:23-44.
Bagstad, K.J., J.C. Stromberg, and S.J. Lite. 2005. Response of herbaceous riparian plant functional groups to flooding of the San Pedro River, Arizona. Wetlands 25(1):210-223.
Lite, S.J., K.J. Bagstad, and J.C. Stromberg. 2005. Riparian plant richness and abundance across gradients of water stress and flood disturbance, San Pedro River, Arizona, USA. Journal of Arid Environments 63(4):785-813.
Stromberg, J.C., K.J. Bagstad, E. Makings, S.J. Lite, and J. Leenhouts. 2005. Effect of decline in stream flow duration on channel vegetation of a semi-arid region river (San Pedro River, Arizona). River Research & Application 21(8):925-938.
Roberts, B.R., H.F. Decker, K.J. Bagstad, and K.A. Peterson. 2001. Bio-solid residues as soilless media for growing wildflower sod. HortTechnology 11(2):194-199.
Bagstad, K.J. and D.M. Johnson. 1999. Taxonomy of Xylopia barbata (Annonaceae) and related species from the Amazon/Orinoco region. Contributions of the University of Michigan Herbarium 22:21-29.
Bagstad, K.J., F. Villa, D. Batker, J. Harrison-Cox, B. Voigt, and G. Johnson. 2014. From theoretical to actual ecosystem services: Accounting for beneficiaries and spatial flows in ecosystem service assessments. Ecology and Society 19(2):64.
Batker, D., I. de la Torre, R. Costanza, J.W. Day, P. Swedeen, R. Boumans, and K.J. Bagstad. 2014. The threats to the value of ecosystem goods and services of the Mississippi Delta. Pp. 155-173 in: Perspectives on the restoration of the Mississippi Delta: The once and future delta. J. Day, G.P. Kemp, A. Freeman, and D.P. Muth, eds. Springer: New York.
**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.