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Nicole Buecker

Nicole Buecker
Economic Analyst

Nicole Buecker

Economic Analyst

Ms. Nicole Buecker is an environmental economist and spatial analyst with a particular focus on the management of forests, fisheries, and coastal resources. She specializes in GIS, and she is experienced in recreation demand modeling, econometrics, and human use interactions with ecosystem functions. Ms. Buecker applies her skills in natural resource damage assessment and marine spatial planning to inform planning, policy, and regulatory decision-making.

Ms. Buecker works across multiple dimensions of climate change resilience and adaptation, including wave and tidal energy resource assessment on the Pacific coast, the identification of site constraints and opportunities for renewa...

Ms. Nicole Buecker is an environmental economist and spatial analyst with a particular focus on the management of forests, fisheries, and coastal resources. She specializes in GIS, and she is experienced in recreation demand modeling, econometrics, and human use interactions with ecosystem functions. Ms. Buecker applies her skills in natural resource damage assessment and marine spatial planning to inform planning, policy, and regulatory decision-making.

Ms. Buecker works across multiple dimensions of climate change resilience and adaptation, including wave and tidal energy resource assessment on the Pacific coast, the identification of site constraints and opportunities for renewable energy developments, the assessment of carbon capture opportunities for venture capital investments, and the analysis of funding and financing options for implementation of coastal resilience policies, including managed retreat.

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Renewable Energy

Wave and Tidal Energy Viability Assessment, California Assessed opportunities and constraints on the emergent wave and tidal energy industry along the coast of California. Analyzed statewide and regional energy use, policy, geography, and wave and tidal energy dynamics for a resulting report for the California Energy Commission.
Carbon Capture Investment, Washington and British Columbia Considered the feasibility of a multimillion-dollar carbon capture business and subsequent investment. Performed competitive analyses, business plan and risk evaluations, and policy analyses of domestic and international energy and environmental topics. Incorporated advanced statistical methods into the business and risk assessment in novel ways. Verbally presented a recommendation along with a comprehensive written report.

Coastal Resilience

Citywide Climate Adaptation Planning, Half Moon Bay, California Assisted in prioritizing various adaptation strategies using multicriteria decision analysis techniques. Considered impact, viability, equity, and cost, among other factors, to develop weighted, consistent, and transparent recommendations for policymakers and decision-makers.
Managed Retreat Feasibility and Strategy Report, Hawaii Alongside various specialist contributors, evaluated the viability of various funding and financing mechanisms, both preestablished and novel, for the successful implementation of a beach management program in Hawaii. The final report, published by the Office of Planning and Sustainable Development, was the first of its kind in the state and will serve as a major steppingstone toward future development planning.

Environmental Economics

Surf Recreation Valuation, Santa Cruz World Surf Reserve, California Assisted with the computational analysis of survey respondents regarding their visitation to and enjoyment of the Santa Cruz World Surf Reserve using GIS and specialist statistical packages in R. Results were applied to a travel-cost model to estimate the recreators’ monetary value of the resource.
Academic Research on Fisheries Permit Structures, Washington Investigated the comparative impacts of individual transferrable quota, limited entry, and open access permit formats on market entry costs in the short and long term. This theoretical work was to inform policy that implements these various permit structures. Applied economic frameworks, such as discounting, marginal decision-making, game-theory, and opportunity cost.
Academic Research on Recreational Infrastructure, Washington Wrote a white paper in close collaboration with the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust to elucidate the relationships between classic macroeconomic indicators and recreational land acquisition in the Central Cascades region of Washington State. The white paper contains approximately 64,000 data points gathered from private and public sources, such as the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and Zillow. The paper was written to be accessible to both advanced and new audiences, and its data were used to produce graphs, GIS maps, causal statistical analyses, and a detailed discussion of results, bias, and limitations.

Natural Resource Damage Assessment

Natural Resource Damage Litigation Support Services, Confidential Sites, Northeast United States Assisting in the defense of several statewide claims for damages to natural resources from historical releases of semivolatile organic compounds with potential injury to ecological services and human uses of resources.
Natural Resource Damage Litigation Support Services, Confidential Sites, Mid-Atlantic United States Assisting in the defense of several statewide claims for damages to natural resources from historical releases of semivolatile organic compounds with potential injury to ecological services and human uses of resources.
Natural Resource Damage Litigation Support Services, Confidential Sites, Midwestern United States Assisting in the defense of several statewide claims for damages to natural resources from historical releases of semivolatile organic compounds with potential injury to ecological services and human uses of resources.
Natural Resource Damage Litigation Support Services, Confidential Sites, Pacific Coast United States Assisting in the defense of several statewide claims for damages to natural resources from historical releases of semivolatile organic compounds with potential injury to ecological services and human uses of resources.

Risk Assessment

Carbon Capture Investment, Washington and British Columbia Considered the feasibility of a multimillion-dollar carbon capture business and subsequent investment. Performed competitive analyses, business plan and risk evaluations, and policy analyses of domestic and international energy and environmental topics. Incorporated advanced statistical methods into the business and risk assessment in novel ways. Verbally presented a recommendation along with a comprehensive written report.

Statistical Modeling

Academic Research on Recreational Infrastructure, Washington Wrote a white paper in close collaboration with the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust to elucidate the relationships between classic macroeconomic indicators and recreational land acquisition in the Central Cascades region of Washington State. The white paper contains approximately 64,000 data points gathered from private and public sources, such as the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and Zillow. The paper was written to be accessible to both advanced and new audiences, and its data were used to produce graphs, GIS maps, causal statistical analyses, and a detailed discussion of results, bias, and limitations.
Carbon Capture Investment, Washington and British Columbia Considered the feasibility of a multimillion-dollar carbon capture business and subsequent investment. Performed competitive analyses, business plan and risk evaluations, and policy analyses of domestic and international energy and environmental topics. Incorporated advanced statistical methods into the business and risk assessment in novel ways. Verbally presented a recommendation along with a comprehensive written report.

GIS Analysis

Academic Research on Recreational Infrastructure, Washington Wrote a white paper in close collaboration with the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust to elucidate the relationships between classic macroeconomic indicators and recreational land acquisition in the Central Cascades region of Washington State. The white paper contains approximately 64,000 data points gathered from private and public sources, such as the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and Zillow. The paper was written to be accessible to both advanced and new audiences, and its data were used to produce graphs, GIS maps, causal statistical analyses, and a detailed discussion of results, bias, and limitations.

Fisheries

Academic Research on Fisheries Permit Structures, Washington Investigated the comparative impacts of individual transferrable quota, limited entry, and open access permit formats on market entry costs in the short and long term. This theoretical work was to inform policy that implements these various permit structures. Applied economic frameworks, such as discounting, marginal decision-making, game-theory, and opportunity cost.
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