Summary1. Home-field advantage (HFA) is a commonly used sports analogy, which has seen recent growth within the ecosystem ecology literature. It is most often invoked in litter transplant studies, where local adaptation (HFA) explains higher decomposition rates of leaf litter on 'home' soil communities. 2. In exploring the mechanisms driving functional differences among soil decomposer communities, a consistent quantitative framework is lacking. 3. We review methods for calculating HFA, propose a consolidated regression approach and demonstrate why HFA must be calculated along with a new 'ability' metric if we are to test definitively the competing hypotheses that soil decomposer communities are functionally equivalent versus dissimilar. We demonstrate that qualitative interpretations of HFA differ when the ability of a decomposer community is calculated simultaneously with HFA. For example, communities may differ in their ability to degrade litter in the absence of HFA, or apparent HFA may instead be caused by differing abilities, changing our ecological interpretation of the factors generating functional differences among decomposer communities. 4. Synthesis: We propose a single, statistical approach to help evaluate how and why soil decomposer communities differ in functional abilities. Our approach should help formalize mechanistic interpretations of why soil community composition commonly influences litter decomposition rates.

Since the 1972 U.S. Clean Water Act, government and industry have invested over $1 trillion to abate water pollution, or $100 per person-year. Over half of U.S. stream and river miles, however, still violate pollution standards. We use the most comprehensive set of files ever compiled on water pollution and its determinants, including 50 million pollution readings from 170,000 monitoring sites, to study water pollution's trends, causes, and welfare consequences. We have three main findings. First, water pollution concentrations have fallen substantially since 1972, though were declining at faster rates before then. Second, the Clean Water Act's grants to municipal wastewater treatment plants caused some of these declines. Third, the grants' estimated effects on housing values are generally smaller than the grants' costs.

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US investment to decrease pollution in rivers, lakes, and other surface waters has exceeded $1.9 trillion since 1960, and has also exceeded the cost of most other US environmental initiatives. These investments come both from the 1972 Clean Water Act and the largely voluntary efforts to control pollution from agriculture and urban runoff. This paper reviews the methods and conclusions of about 20 recent evaluations of these policies. Surprisingly, most analyses estimate that these policies’ benefits are much smaller than their costs; the benefit–cost ratio from the median study is 0.37. However, existing evidence is limited and undercounts many types of benefits. We conclude that it is unclear whether many of these regulations truly fail a benefit–cost test or whether existing evidence understates their net benefits; we also describe specific questions that when answered would help eliminate this uncertainty.

Food, energy, and water (FEW) systems play a fundamental role in determining societal health and economic well-being. However, current and expected changes in climate, population, and land use place these systems under considerable stress. To improve policies that target these challenges, this review highlights the need for integrating biophysical and economic models of the FEW nexus. We discuss advancements in modeling individual components that comprise this system and outline fundamental research needs for these individual areas as well as for model integration. Though great strides have been made in individual and integrated modeling, we nevertheless find a considerable need for improved integration of economic decision-making with biophysical models. We also highlight a need for improved model validation.