TITLE:
Typology of Riparian Forest Owners in Southeast Georgia, U.S.
AUTHORS:
Moon Jeong Kang, Jacek P. Siry, Susana Ferreira, Greg Colson
KEYWORDS:
Payments of Ecosystem Services, Choice Experiment, Principal Components Analysis, Cluster Analysis, Forest Sustainability
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Forestry,
Vol.16 No.4,
October
10,
2026
ABSTRACT: Riparian forests typically provide a richer portfolio of ecosystem goods and services than their non-riparian counterparts. This study identifies forest owner groups with similar motivations based on their objectives and compare these groups with their socioeconomic and forest property characteristics. It analyzes how different ownership categorizations affect landowner willingness to accept (WTA) payments for ecosystem services (PES) contracts that are designed to protect water quality and maintain sustainable provision of other ecosystem services. It adopted a market segmentation approach and combined it with a discrete choice experiment (CE) that elicited forest owners’ preferences towards alternative PES designs. The results assist in developing more effective conservation programs by allowing cost savings and identifying forest owners most likely to participate in conservation programs.