On February 6, 2014, at 4:45 pm in Keck Classroom, Pettengill, Lynne Y. Lewis, Elmer W. Campbell ’27 Professor, will present “Who Gives a Dam? When Environmental Economics and Economic Hydrology Collide” marking her appointment as Elmer W. Campbell Professor of Economics. Prof. Lewis is a natural resource economist with a focus on water resources.

Her work has covered topics including valuation of ecosystem services, water quality trading, water allocation and the impacts of climate change. Currently, she is part of an interdisciplinary research team funded by an NSF grant focused on valuing the potential benefits from dam removals and river restoration. Part of this new research involves estimating distance decay in willingness to pay for river restoration and building a bioeconomic model connecting freshwater systems to the inshore cod fishery. This work is joint with colleagues at Bowdoin and the University of Southern Maine. She is also beginning new research examining economic resilience and capacity building in the face of rapid glacier melt.

Lewis also co-authors the popular Environmental and Nature Resource Economics textbook with Tom Tietenberg.