TABLE 1

Descriptive Statistics of Dataset of Participating Easements

	2007 State	2007 County	2008 State	2008 County	2009 State	2009 County
Number of qualified easements	19	39	13	29	12	6
Total budget ($)	4,800,000	3,000,000	5,800,000	5,000,000	2,670,000	1,000,000
Total cost of easements ($)	7,598,129	10,687,214	11,188,254	15,081,173	6,644,841	645,686
Budget/Total cost of easements (%)	63	28	52	33	40	155
Average appraised value of easement by MALPF ($)	399,902	—	860,635	—	553,737	—
Average appraised value of easement by county ($)	304,306	274,031	748,782	520,040	304,485	129,137
Difference of average value^{^a} ($)	95,596	—	111,853	—	249,252	—
% of cost difference^{^b}	31	—	15	—	82	—
Coefficient of variation of appraised value by MALPF^{^c}	0.72	—	0.62	—	0.73	—
Coefficient of variation of appraised value by county	0.71	1.05	0.69	1.95	0.64	0.38
Maximum acres	156	269	228	187.5	133.6	49.1
Minimum acres	8	4	37.9	17.9	20.8	25.5
Average acres	62	63	111.7	51.9	60.8	40.4
Average easement cost per acre ($)	6,450	4,350	7,705	10,020	9,108	2,117
Maximum LESA	71	76	86.4	91.8	95	67.3
Minimum LESA	35	31	61.2	41.4	64.7	62
Average LESA	55	52	71	54.5	76	62.9
Total conservation benefit of easements	66,469	130,077	105,402	83,672	58,883	15,267
Total number of easements 2007–2009	118
Total conservation benefits 2007–2009	459,770
Total cost of easement 2007–2009 ($)	51,845,297
Average cost per conservation benefit 2007–2009 ($)	112.76
Average cost per acre 2007–2009 ($)	6,715.98

Note: LESA, Land Evaluation and Site Assessment score; MALPF, Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation.
↵^a This is the difference in average cost appraised by MALPF and by the county programs.
↵^b The percent of cost difference is calculated as 100% × Difference of average cost/Average appraised cost by the county.
↵^c The coefficient of variation (CV) is calculated as the ratio of the standard deviation of the sample over the average of the sample. Distributions with CV< 1 are considered low variance, while those with CV> 1 are considered high variance.