Property rights play a pivotal role in the distribution of ecosystem services among beneficiaries

Figures & data

Figure 1. Conceptual framework demonstrating how various property rights influence the flow and management of ecosystem services. Right bundles combine to form property right regimes. The flow of ecosystem service from a property to beneficiaries is determined by the set of rights they hold (blue arrows). Populations enact governance mechanisms to set property rights via policy (e.g. zoning) that determine the rights and duties of property owners or managers (yellow arrows). This paper primarily focuses on how rights affect different populations’ ability to obtain ecosystem services groups (blue arrows).

Figure 2. Location of the Adirondack Park in New York State, USA. The park contains a variety of natural resources and is an important landscape for the provisioning of multiple ecosystem services. Land cover data sourced from USGS (2019).

Table 1. Spatial attributes collected for each property within the Adirondack Park, and how they were classified. Further information on how these attributes were classified, including look up tables, can be found in the supplementary material

Spatial dataset Attribute	Description			Reference
a. Property Type Classification Code	Assigned to each property by the New York Department of Taxation and Finance that describe the primary use of each property for taxation purposes:			Department of Taxation and Finance (2019).
	Agricultural properties Residential properties Vacant land Commercial properties Recreation and entertainment properties		Community services properties Industrial properties Public service properties Wild, forested, conservation lands and public parks
b. Owner type	Type of owner:			See Table S1 in the Appendix for data sources.
	State or Federal Government Local Government		Private
c. Easement holder	The person or organisation that is the holder of an easement property (if applicable)			National Conservation Easement Database (2017).
d. Land use	The primary land use/ land cover of the property. Calculated based on the Property type classification code:			Department of Taxation and Finance (2019). See Table S3 in the Supplementary material for further information.
	Forest Industrial Commercial Recreation and entertainment Services		Residential Agriculture Vacant Easement Other
e. Rules	Rules or conditions associated with the property that affect how the property can be used. Calculated based on the Property type classification code:			Department of Taxation and Finance (2019). See Table S4 in the Supplementary material for further information.
	Nature conservation Saleable products/business Indoor wellbeing services	Outdoor wellbeing services Residential Other
f. Property rights regime	The property rights regime allocated to a property. Calculated based on the Land use, Rules and owner attributes assigned to the property: Agriculture: Primarily used for agriculture Commercial, industry, services: Provide services, materials and products (other than agricultural) Easement (other): Easements not primarily used for timber harvesting or recreation Easement (timber and recreation): easements used primarily for timber harvesting and recreation Forest preserve: Government owned properties used for the protection of wilderness Other (private): privately owned properties with no information available on land use or rules (Land use = ‘other’ and Rules = ‘other’). Other (public): Government-owned properties with no information available on land use or rules (Land use = ‘other’ and Rules = ‘other’). Private outdoor recreation: Privately owned and used primarily for outdoor activities by the public, either for a fee or for free. Public outdoor recreation: Publicly owned and used primarily for outdoor activities by the public, for a fee or for free. Residential: Used primarily for housing (non-commercial). Unknown: properties that were not classified due to lack of information.			See Table S5 in the Supplementary material for further information.

Table 2. Information coded from the literature to determine, for each property rights regime, which of the five property rights each beneficiary (owner, manager, authorised user, and general public) have for each ecosystem service

	Ecosystem services
	Drinking water	Timber	Recreational fishing
Access rights	Yes: Can enter the property. Conditional: Can enter a property, with restrictions (e.g. frequency). No: Cannot enter a property.	Yes: Can enter the property. Conditional: Can enter a property, with restrictions (e.g. frequency). No: Cannot enter a property	Yes: Can enter the property. Conditional: Can enter a property, with restrictions (e.g. frequency). No: Cannot enter a property
Withdraw rights	Yes: Can extract water from a surface waterbody for drinking water. Conditional: Can extract water from a surface waterbody for drinking, with restrictions (e.g. amount that can be withdrawn). No: Cannot extract water from a surface waterbody for drinking water.	Yes: Can cut down trees for timber. Conditional: Can cut down trees for timber, with restrictions (e.g. limit on the number of trees that can be harvested). No: Cannot cut down trees for timber.	Yes: Can recreationally fish. Conditional: Can recreationally fish on a property, with restrictions (e.g. the amount of fish that can be caught) No: Cannot recreationally fish.
Management rights	Yes: Can manage surface waterbodies for drinking water (e.g. installing pipes and pumps). Conditional: Can manage surface waterbodies for drinking water, with restrictions (e.g. restrictions on when pumps or pipes can be installed, and where). No: Cannot manage surface waterbodies for drinking water.	Yes: Can manage trees that can provide timber (e.g. can choose the harvesting regime). Conditional: Can manage trees that can provide timber, with restrictions (e.g. only partially able to choose the harvesting regime). No: Cannot manage trees that can provide timber.	Yes: Can manage recreational fishing on a property (e.g. stocking fish, restrict fishing in areas). Conditional: Can manage recreational fishing, with restrictions (e.g. can prevent fishing in areas, but cannot stock fish). No: Cannot manage recreational fishing.
Exclusion rights	Yes: Can control who can access the property. Conditional: Can control who can access the property with restrictions (such as can control when people enter the property, but not who can enter the property). No: Cannot control who can access the property.	Yes: Can control who can access the property. Conditional: Can control who can access the property with restrictions (such as can control when people enter the property, but not who can enter the property). No: Cannot control who can access the property.	Yes: Can control who can access the property. Conditional: Can control who can access the property with restrictions (such as can control when people enter the property, but not who can enter the property). No: Cannot control who can access the property.
Alienation rights	Yes: Can sell, lease, or transfer any or all of the above rights for a property. Conditional: Can sell, lease, or transfer any or all of the above rights for a property, with restrictions (e.g. can sell or lease only some management rights). No: Cannot sell, lease, or transfer any of the above rights for a property	Yes: Can sell, lease, or transfer any or all of the above rights for a property. Conditional: Can sell, lease, or transfer any or all of the above rights for a property, with restrictions (e.g. can sell or lease only some management rights). No: Cannot sell, lease, or transfer any of the above rights for a property	Yes: Can sell, lease, or transfer any or all of the above rights for a property. Conditional: Can sell, lease, or transfer any or all of the above rights for a property, with restrictions (e.g. can sell or lease only some management rights). No: Cannot sell, lease, or transfer any of the above rights for a property

Figure 3. Property rights allocated to each beneficiary for each ecosystem service, on each property rights regime within the Adirondack Park. Green indicates that the beneficiary can exercise that right freely. Yellow indicates that a beneficiary has that right but there are some restrictions attached to it. Red indicates a beneficiary does not have that property right. Property rights regimes in bold denote publicly owned properties (easements are regarded as privately owned here, but are often regarded as a hybrid between public and privately owned). Further descriptions for each of these rights are provided in Tables S5-7 in the Supplementary material. Note that two property rights regimes (‘Other (private)’ and ‘Other (Public)’) were not included in this analysis due to lack of data.

Figure 4. The property rights regime categories for the Adirondack Park, showing (a) the location of each property rights regime, and (b) the proportion of area and total properties within the Adirondack Park within each property rights regime category.

Figure 5. The location of properties where each beneficiary group have the right to withdrawal each ecosystem service within the Adirondack Park based on the property rights regimes in place, and the estimate number of people who can benefit from each services on each land parcels, based on the estimate number of people within each beneficiary group. The estimate of beneficiaries calculated for drinking water and timber do not include the number of authorised users.

Figure 6. The property types that contain shoreline of waterbodies that are shared by multiple properties showing (a) the location of each property type, and (b) the proportion of each shared water resource’s border that has a common border with each property type.

[USGS] United States Geological Survey. 2019. NLCD 2016 Land cover (CONUS). USA: United States Geological Survey. https://www.mrlc.gov/data.

 Google Scholar

Department of Taxation and Finance. (2019). Property type classification codes – assessors’ manual. New York (NY): New York State Governmenthttps://www.tax.ny.gov/research/property/assess/manuals/prclas.htm.

 Google Scholar

National Conservation Easement Database. 2017. U.S. National Conservation Easement Database dataset. National Conservation Easement Database. https://www.conservationeasement.us/downloads/.

 Google Scholar