Estimated dryland restoration treatment costs

Abstract

Ecological restoration—the process of assisting in the rehabilitation of a system that has been degraded or destroyed—can be used to address changing landscapes as our understanding of ecosystems and how to manage them improves (Gann et al. 2019). As a result, numerous research papers and guidebooks have been published to provide science-based recommendations for designing and deploying restoration projects, particularly in dryland systems. Despite these advances, many of these resources lack a range of cost estimates for restoration treatments (but refer to Kimball et al. 2015, Copeland et al. 2018, and Meldrum et al. 2025 for broad overviews). Restoration costs can vary widely based on treatment type, location deployed, level of degradation, and specific goals (e.g., Birch et al. 2010). Cost estimates could be used to inform development of site-specific management plans that are logistically and financially feasible. Here, we provide an overview of the estimated range of costs that could be associated with several manual dryland restoration treatments that aim to increase seeding success and soil health. We applied these treatments via RestoreNet—a collaborative network led by the U.S. Geological Survey that tests restoration treatments in collaboration with land managers, landowners, and rightsholders across the southwestern United States (Havrilla et al. 2020). Using actual material costs and labor requirements of RestoreNet partner treatments conducted at a small experimental scale (80 one-metersquared plots at five sites), we scaled up these estimates to a larger management-relevant scale (estimated cost and time per acre; Table 1, Fig. 1). These scaled projections may overestimate labor costs, as costs per acre tend to decline as spatial scale increases (Meldrum et al. 2025). We provide options that could potentially reduce treatment costs by using more cost-effective materials and mechanizing manual treatments to reduce labor costs (e.g., using bulk materials or heavy machinery instead of applying treatments by hand, described under each treatment below and summarized in Table 1). Estimated costs are in 2024–2026 U.S. dollars (based on estimated market rates in Arizona or the United States) and labor costs are calculated at an hourly wage of $15.15 per hour (Arizona minimum wage; Department of Labor 2026), which is slightly lower than Arizona hourly wages for farmworkers or greenhouse laborers. However, costs may change over time with changing market rates.