An Indicator for the Economic Performance and Ecological Sustainability of Nations

This document proposes a new indicator to assess countries’ sustainability. The indicator synthetises measures of economic and ecological efficiency. In other words, we assess the ability of countries to use resources to produce the maximum possible amounts of goods and services while keeping production activities’ impact on the environment as low as possible. The measure of ecological efficiency is the ecological reserve/deficit (ERD), which is based on the concept of ecological footprint. The new indicator is computed using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model, a well-known non-parametric technique that delivers measures of productive efficiency by comparing outputs to inputs used in production. We modify the standard DEA model in two ways. Firstly, we allow for negative input and output data. Secondly, to increase DEA discriminating power of countries, we compute anti-efficiency measures. This allows us to obtain a ranking of countries based on the best and worst performances. Results show that the new efficiency indicator is valid and that high ERD positively influences the ranking of countries. Introducing anti-efficiency provides more plausible results and a more accurate ranking, for example high-polluting countries like China previously economically efficient are now ranked as low efficient when sustainability is taken into account.

     

Resource Use Rates and Efficiency as Indicators of Regional Sustainability: an Examination of Five Countries

We examine trends from 1970 to the mid 1990's of some variables related to development and sustainability for Costa Rica, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands and the United States: first, by calculating energy and agricultural efficiencies over time, second, by examining the environmental impacts of economic activities, and third, by estimating ecological footprints. We find that many "optimistic" arguments about sustainability have been misleading, and that there is little or no indication that we are becoming any more sustainable or even efficient. Total quality-corrected energy consumption has increased for all five countries and the renewable energy portion is decreasing. The efficiency of turning energy into both agricultural production and GDP has declined for all countries except for the US. In general, there is a remarkable linearity between resource use and economic and agricultural production over all countries and all years, suggesting severe biophysical constraints to sustainable objectives. On the other hand, per capita ecological footprints have decreased somewhat in Costa Rica, Mexico, and the United States, while national ecological footprints have tended to remain constant except for Korea. While there has been a reduction of specific pollutants in the United States, some of this has been achieved by exporting heavy manufacturing industries. We conclude that continued population and economic growth in each country is likely to make the achievement of any kind of sustainability increasingly unlikely. Sustainability, if that is desirable, requires a very different approach than what we have undertaken to date.     

Emergy Analysis of Human Carrying Capacity and Regional Sustainability: an Example Using the State of Maine

The human carrying capacity for a region at a specified standard of living depends on the economic and environmental resources of the region and the exchange of resources across regional boundaries. The length of time that a human population living at a given standard can be sustained depends on the rates of use and renewal of the resource base. All environmental, economic, and social resources are produced as a result of energy transformations; therefore, the energy required for their production can be specified and evaluated in common terms by converting their energy values into emergy. Emergy is defined as the available energy of one kind, previously used up directly and indirectly to make a product or service. Its unit is the emjoule. Emergy values and indices are used to evaluate the resource base for Maine, a politically defined region, and to estimate its human carrying capacity at the 1980 standard of living and for possible future resource bases. Emergy indices for Maine are compared with similar indices for Florida, Texas, and the United States to demonstrate variations in human carrying capacity and sustainability among different regions. The 1980 standard of living for Maine, Florida, Texas, and the Nation as measured by emergy use per person fell within a relatively narrow range of 3.4E16 to 4.3E16 solar emjoules y-1. The human carrying capacity for a region is considered within a pulsing paradigm for sustainability and within the constraints provided by a renewable resource base. For example, in the short-term the developed human carrying capacity for Maine is largely determined by the fuel emergy inflow relative to renewable emergy resources. If purchased emergy inflows relative to Maine's renewable emergy increase to the average ratio for a developed country around 1980, the population living in Maine at 1980 standards could increase to 2.9 million or 2.6 times Maine's 1980 population. In contrast, the human carrying capacity based on Maine's renewable resources alone was 0.37 million people at the 1980 standard of living or 33% of the 1980 population.     

Adaptive Management, Monitoring, and the Ecological Sustainability of a Thermal-Polluted Water Ecosystem: A Case in Sw Spain

The construction of the Almaraz nuclear power plant in Spain in the 1970s posed interesting environmental problems concerning the construction of a cooling reservoir (Arrocampo reservoir) to cool the steam condensers and the consequent heating of the reservoirs water. The socio-political context forced decision makers to set up a project for the monitoring and management of the environmental impacts derived from the construction and operation of the power plant. Numerous scientific and technical specialists collaborated with the representatives of social groups towards two goals: the improvement of the biodiversity and of the efficiency of the cooling system. These goals involved the monitoring and managing of the system with respect to different biological aspects, mainly limnology, ichthyology, avian fauna and vegetation. The management plan yielded numerous results. The control of the water eutrophy is one of the most important due to its repercussion on the rest of the ecosystem, especially the fish fauna. The development of the shore vegetation slowly increased the patchwork nature of the reservoir, leading to a greater diversity of the avian species. This paper describes the monitoring and management of the Arrocampo ecosystem, the condition before and after the construction of the reservoir and the results obtained concerning some biological communities.     

Migration of Birds as an Indicator of Broad-Scale Environmental Condition

The general profile of the pollution of drinking water, originating from groundwater, by nitrates, chloride and arsenic, in the Prefecture of Thessaloniki, was studied in this project. Samples (tap water) were collected from 52 areas-villages of the Prefecture, during a period of 6 months. The analytical results were related to certain points on the map of the area, thus producing coloured representations of the Prefecture, according to the concentration of the corresponding pollutant. The statistical analysis of the data led to some conclusions concerning the causes of pollution and the relation of the concentrations to certain physico-chemical parameters. Nitrate concentration of samples collected from two specific regions were especially high, sometimes above the highest permitted level. A limited number of samples (13.5%) contained arsenic concentrations above the imminent EC drinking water limit (10 ppb). The majority of the tap water samples, collected from areas along the seashore contained increased concentrations of chloride ions, which is a clear indication of seawater intrusion into the related aquifers.     

Development and Validation of Ecological Indicators: an ORD Approach

The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development (ORD) is continuing research efforts initiated by the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program on ecological indicator development. An ORD Ecological Indicators Working Group has been formed with activities in three primary areas. (1) Guidelines and procedures are being developed to evaluate indicators for use in monitoring programs. Indicators will be evaluated on conceptual soundness, implementation, response variability, and interpretation/utility. The evaluation guidelines will be applied in peer review to endorse technically acceptable indicators and will provide research direction for improvements. (2) An ORD strategy for research in ecological indicators is being developed by the Working Group in collaboration with Division research scientists. The strategy will serve to prioritize research based on the greatest importance and uncertainty and identify goals for indicator development in both intramural and extramural programs. The research strategy includes application of the evaluation guidelines to identify relevant research questions. (3) Interactions with indicator client and user groups (states, program offices and regions) are actively being sought for successful development and implementation of indicators. Client indicator priorities are formally included in the research strategy and user feedback on indicators will help to identify relevant research questions. Consultations with users will serve to assist in evaluating, implementing, and interpreting indicators in monitoring programs.     

Modeling of Ecological Footprint and Climate Change Impacts on Food Security of the Hill Tracts of Chittagong in Bangladesh

This paper presents an integrated and dynamic model for the management of the uplands of the Hill Tracts of Chittagong to predict food security and environmental loading for gradual transition of shifting agriculture land into horticulture crops and teak plantation, and crop land into tobacco cultivation. Food security status for gradual transmission of shifting agriculture land into horticulture crops and teak plantation, and crop land into tobacco cultivation is the best option for food security, but this causes the highest environmental loading resulting from tobacco cultivation. Considering both food security and environmental degradation in terms of ecological footprint, the best option is gradual transition of shifting agriculture land into horticulture crops which provides moderate increase in the food security with a relatively lower environmental degradation in terms of ecological footprint. Crop growth model InfoCrop was used to predict the climate change impacts on rice and maize production in the uplands of the Hill Tracts of Chittagong. Climate change impacts on the yields of rice and maize of three treatments of temperature, carbon dioxide and rainfall change (+0 °C, +0 ppm and +0 % rainfall), (+2 °C, +50 ppm and 20 % rainfall) and (+2 °C, +100 ppm and 30 % rainfall) were assessed. The yield of rice decreases for treatment 2, but it increases for treatment 3. The yield of maize increases for treatments 2 and 3 since maize is a C₄ plant. There is almost no change in food security at upazila (sub-district) level for the historical climate change scenario, but there is small change in the food security at upazila levels for IPCC climate change scenario.     

Cadmium Contamination in Wild Birds as an Indicator of Environmental Pollution

Cadmium (Cd) is an environmental pollutant that has serioustoxicity in humans and animals and causes Itai-Itai disease.However, there is little available information on itscontamination in wildlife as an indicator of environmentalpollution. The Cd contents in the kidney and liver of 85 wildbirds from 9 different prefectures in Japan were investigated.The ranges of the Cd contents in the kidney and liver in allbirds were ND-174.4 and ND-21.2 g g^-1 dry wt.,respectively. The mean Cd contents were higher in theoil-contaminated birds than those in the non-contaminated ones.Furthermore, a strong correlation was obtained only between theCd contents in the kidney and those in the liver of theoil-contaminated seabirds and not in the other non-contaminatedones. These results suggest that wild birds reflect the levelof environmental contamination which should be monitored.     

土壤/沉积物生态风险评价方法技术研究进展

在我国,生态风险评价受到越来越多的重视,而有关方法的探讨还很欠缺.本文详细介绍了灾害商法、酸性挥发性硫化物、生物-土壤/沉积物-累计-因数法、风险评估编码、潜在生态风险指数法等生态风险评价的方法和技术,并讨论了生态风险评价模型.