Integrated economic-ecological analysis and evaluation of management strategies on nutrient abatement in the Rhine basin

Management of river basins involves the making of informed choices about the desired levels of economic activities and ecosystem functioning in the catchment. Information on the economic and ecological effects of measures as well as their spatial distribution is therefore needed. This paper proposes the following instruments to support decision-making in river basins: (1) the linking of models and indicators to describe the economic and ecological effects of management actions and their spatial distribution and (2) an extended evaluation framework that aims to evaluate management actions on three objectives for sustainable river management. These are cost-effectiveness, spatial equity, and environmental quality. This paper illustrates the potential of these instruments for river basin management by a case-study on nutrient management in the Rhine basin. In this case-study four nutrient abatement strategies are formulated, based on policies of the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine and the North Sea Commission. These strategies are analysed and evaluated on their contribution to the three management objectives. Results show that none of these strategies score highest on cost-effectiveness, spatial equity and environmental quality simultaneously. It appears that cost-effectiveness is in conflict with environmental quality, whereas spatial equity and cost-effectiveness show quite close correspondence. This means that a trade-off has to be made between costs and spatial equity on the one hand, and environmental standards on the other hand. This paper offers a framework to make these trade-offs more explicit and provides quantitative information on cause-effect relationships, economic and environmental effects and the spatial distribution of these effects for various management strategies. This information can be particularly useful in the development of compromises required to establish international agreement and co-operation.     

Labour challenges and mercury management at gold mills in Zimbabwe: Examining production processes and proposals for change

The use of mercury in small-scale gold mining has been a growing concern in many parts of Africa. However, although the negative effects of mercury pollution are increasingly reported, little has been written about how labour relationships and gold production challenges in mining communities affect mercury management practices. This article provides an integrative analysis of small-scale gold extraction processes, labour challenges, and mercury use at gold mills in Zimbabwe, focusing on a gold rush area in Mashonaland West Province. It examines practices employed by miners who have limited economic capacities to upgrade technologies, and how the complex relationships between miners, mill owners and government regulators affect environmental performance. The study draws attention to how poor environmental management practices relate to labour inequities, low gold recovery as well as the informal gold trade dynamics amid the country's economic crisis. Results of a United Nations-supported stakeholder consultation process are discussed, with proposals for improving labour conditions and reducing environmental risk. The article highlights why the government should develop and support local programs to assist miners, as well as the decisive roles mill owners could take in ensuring improved standards on their sites.     

SELECTION AND SUSTAINABILITY OF LAND AND WATER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS1

ABSTRACT: Most spatial decision support systems for natural resource planning and management are limited by their scenario-based (non-behavioral), deterministic (non-stochastic) structure. A spatial decision support system is developed that uses a multiple attribute decision-making model to explain how a property manager selects a land and water resource management system (LWRMS) based on its multiple, stochastic economic and environmental attributes. The decision support system assesses sustainable resource management at the property and watershed scales and identifies the most cost-effective policy for enhancing sustainable resource management. Economic attributes are determined with an economic model and environmental attributes are simulated with an environmental model. Input parameters for both models are generated with a geographic information system. The decision support system is used to rank five LWRMS for a sample of 20 farmers in Missouri's Goodwater Creek watershed and for two hypothetical watershed alliance groups. Results indicate that the average farmer and the two alliance groups would rank the five LWRMS in the same manner. From the viewpoint of the watershed alliance, the most preferred LWRMS for the average farmer in the watershed is sustainable.     

Environmental economic,political and ethical integration in a common decision-making framework

This article develops a decision-making framework for environmental management that integrates technical, economic, political and legal, and ethical decision levels. It attempts to show how these decision levels can be ordained, integrated and interconnected and postulates a hierarchic concentric sphere system that proposes an environmental management model for long-term solutions. This model can be used as a check list for environmental management decision-making and also as a guide for environmental conflict resolution where environmental problems necessitate several levels of decision making. It integrates various environmental ethical positions and evaluates political decisions into a comprehensive, broadly applicable multidisciplinary approach. The objective of this decision-making model is to interconnect into a simplified sequence different levels of environmental management processes in order to account for sustainability, efficacy, efficiency and the acceptability of environmental management processes in the long term. This is done by observing when an environmental problem needs to be solved within a certain sphere of solutions and when it requires wider frameworks, how these can be established and how this process proves that solidarity is the widest and most reasonable sphere.     

Collaborative Implementation for Ecological Restoration on US Public Lands: Implications for Legal Context,Accountability, and Adaptive Management

The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP), established in 2009, encourages collaborative landscape scale ecosystem restoration efforts on United States Forest Service (USFS) lands. Although the USFS employees have experience engaging in collaborative planning, CFLRP requires collaboration in implementation, a domain where little prior experience can be drawn on for guidance. The purpose of this research is to identify the ways in which CFLRP’s collaborative participants and agency personnel conceptualize how stakeholders can contribute to implementation on landscape scale restoration projects, and to build theory on dynamics of collaborative implementation in environmental management. This research uses a grounded theory methodology to explore collaborative implementation from the perspectives and experiences of participants in landscapes selected as part of the CFLRP in 2010. Interviewees characterized collaborative implementation as encompassing three different types of activities: prioritization, enhancing treatments, and multiparty monitoring. The paper describes examples of activities in each of these categories and then identifies ways in which collaborative implementation in the context of CFLRP (1) is both hindered and enabled by overlapping legal mandates about agency collaboration, (2) creates opportunities for expanded accountability through informal and relational means, and, (3) creates feedback loops at multiple temporal and spatial scales through which monitoring information, prioritization, and implementation actions shape restoration work both within and across projects throughout the landscape creating more robust opportunities for adaptive management.     

Environmental Condition Assessment of US Military Installations Using GIS Based Spatial Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis

Environment functions in various aspects including soil and water conservation, biodiversity and habitats, and landscape aesthetics. Comprehensive assessment of environmental condition is thus a great challenge. The issues include how to assess individual environmental components such as landscape aesthetics and integrate them into an indicator that can comprehensively quantify environmental condition. In this study, a geographic information systems based spatial multi-criteria decision analysis was used to integrate environmental variables and create the indicator. This approach was applied to Fort Riley Military installation in which land condition and its dynamics due to military training activities were assessed. The indicator was derived by integrating soil erosion, water quality, landscape fragmentation, landscape aesthetics, and noise based on the weights from the experts by assessing and ranking the environmental variables in terms of their importance. The results showed that landscape level indicator well quantified the overall environmental condition and its dynamics, while the indicator at level of patch that is defined as a homogeneous area that is different from its surroundings detailed the spatiotemporal variability of environmental condition. The environmental condition was mostly determined by soil erosion, then landscape fragmentation, water quality, landscape aesthetics, and noise. Overall, environmental condition at both landscape and patch levels greatly varied depending on the degree of ground and canopy disturbance and their spatial patterns due to military training activities and being related to slope. It was also determined the environment itself could be recovered quickly once military training was halt or reduced. Thus, this study provided an effective tool for the army land managers to monitor environmental dynamics and plan military training activities. Its limitation lies at that the obtained values of the indicator vary and are subjective to the experts' knowledge and experience. Thus, further advancing this approach is needed by developing a scientific method to derive the weights of environmental variables.     

Crisis in environmental management of the Soviet Union

The prevailing system of environmental management strongly depends on the economic and political structures of a country and is influenced by the current condition of them. Environmental degradation in the Soviet Union has been caused mainly by the political and economic misconceptions listed in this article. With the transformation of its state order to the model of Western democracies, the Soviet Union is experiencing a deep economic crisis of restructuring, reflected in a parallel crisis in its system of environmental management, which is manifest in the form of rapid transformation. This is characterized by the contradiction of the state’s old administrative institutions, which still exist, with the efforts to use market mechanisms of environmental control. Such methods include various fees and payments for the use of natural resources or for pollution and creation of specialized regional funds and banks to finance environmental programs. All these occur in the context of the strengthening of regional sovereignty, the introduction of self-accounting for economic units, the adoption of comprehensive legal enactments, and the setting up of an efficient administrative system of their enforcement. Public activism, as one of the principal actors in this structure, also has undergone quick maturation. Nevertheless the future development of the new Soviet system of environmental control remains uncertain because of the present unpredictability of the overall situation in the short run.     

THE (POLITICAL) SCIENCE OF WATERSHED MANAGEMENT IN THE ECOSYSTEM AGE1

ABSTRACT: Ecosystem management has become an important unifying theme for environmental policy in the past decade. Whereas the science of ecosystem dynamics suggests that it will remain difficult to define ecosystem borders and all of the natural and anthropogenic effects that influence them, the politics of ecosystem management require that a national ecosystem delineation standard be adopted. Moreover, a political framework for ecosystem management decision making must be designed in such a way as to complement the hierarchical, interrelated nature of ecosystems generally. This paper advocates that a watershed-based ecosystem delineation standard is the most politically suitable because it will be easily understood by the public and watersheds have a long history as a medium of environmental policy. The paper then proposes that the political framework for watershed-based ecosystem management must depend heavily on state and local autonomy, subject to federally prescribed standards and goals. The Coastal Zone Management Act provides a model for how a national ecosystem management policy can work within state and local watershed cultures and economies.     

Coastal issues for oceanic islands: implications for human futures

Compared to continental areas, most islands have exceptionally long coastlines relative to their total land area. For this reason, islands are uncommonly vulnerable to problems associated with coasts. The future of the human inhabitants of many island states depends intrinsically on the sustainable management of their coasts, a challenge which grows more pressing as island populations increase and the associated demands on island coastlines change and grow. These issues are presented and discussed in this article. The mechanics of the sustainable management of island coasts is itself an important issue. At the national or local level, management is plagued by problems of insufficient and/or imprecise data and understanding that may lead to inappropriate solutions that even exacerbate the problems they are intended to solve. At an inter-governmental or international level, problems associated with the understanding of island environments need to be resolved before optimal management strategies can be developed. This article presents a brief explanation of the nature of coastal vulnerability on oceanic islands, followed by a discussion of several key problems associated with their sustainable development and the role of human and non-human factors in recent environmental change. It discusses the future of oceanic island coasts in the face of both internal and external threats to their sustainable management. It concludes with a blueprint for their survival.     

试论我国环境税制的完善

在商品经济高度发达的今天,环保事业也逐步走向市场。越来越多的国家开始重视运用经济手段来解决环境危机问题,环境税就是其中倍受青睐的一种手段。我国目前虽已意识到环境税的重要性,但环境税仍是极其薄弱的环节。本文试从分析我国环境税的现状着手,参考国外的先进经验,对完善我国环境税制提出几点建议。     

Small island developing states and sustainable development of ocean resources

Because of their economic and environmental vulnerability, small island developing states (SIDS) have peculiar developmental problems that severely affect their ability to implement the measures necessary for attaining sustainable development as recommended in UNCED's Agenda 21. Although this has been recognised by the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), and although there has been international acceptance of a SIDS Programme of Action (POA), SIDS have not been the focus of adequate attention by international and donor agencies. As a result, progress toward implementing the POA has been disappointing. This study examines the question of how sustainable management and development of ocean resources can contribute significantly to the achievement of the objectives of the SIDS POA.     

Integrating Local and Scientific Knowledge: An Example in Fisheries Science

Attempting to predict the spatial dynamics fish stocks, as required for management, is an ominous task given our incomplete understanding of biological and ecological mechanisms underpinning behavioral responses of fish. Large gaps still exist in our basic scientific knowledge. Nonetheless, the knowledge of fishers and fishery managers is not incorporated into our scientific analyses, even though such information is rich in observation since knowledge of fish behavior and distribution is a prerequisite for their profession. Combining such observations with more conventional scientific studies and theoretical interpretations provides a means by which we may bridge some gaps in our knowledge. Presented here is an example of how both local and scientific knowledge can be integrated in a heuristic model. The model, CLUPEX, is developed in the framework of a fuzzy logic expert system and uses linguistic statements written in natural language to capture and combine knowledge sources in the form of IF … THEN rules. The rules are inferred from interviews with experts and fishery professionals including fishers, fishery managers, scientists, and First Nations people. The knowledge base, comprised of the set of rules, is flexible in the sense that it can easily be modified to add additional information or change current information. Using input pertaining to biotic and abiotic environmental conditions, CLUPEX uses the rules to provide quantitative and qualitative predictions on the structure, dynamics and mesoscale distribution of shoals of migratory adult herring during different life stages of their annual life cycle.     

Upscaling of Environmental Information: Support of Land-Use Management Decisions by Spatio-Temporal Regionalization Approaches

This article presents several case studies in southwest Germany, which aimed to support land use management decisions by a process-oriented statistical upscaling of point-related environmental monitoring data to the landscape scale. When techniques of data subsetting were used in a sensible way and corresponding to the appropriate scale for the evaluation envisaged, multiple linear regression offered a data mining technique which was able to spatially predict relatively complex environmental patterns with parsimonious, interpretable and accurate models, whereby different evaluation scales were best represented by different DTM resolutions. Scenario models based upon the regression formulas were a valuable tool for visualizing management options and evaluating management impacts (tree species selection) on soil functions (carbon storage), which qualifies the presented methodology as a useful aid in decision making. Such upscaling techniques may be used for forecasting long-term effects of ecosystem management, but they provided no information on temporal dynamics. Therefore, time trends of point information on soil solution data were scaled by linking them to soil chemical data which was available in higher spatial resolution, using both statistical and process-oriented methods.     

Closing the open sea: Development of fishery management in four Icelandic fisheries

The article outlines the development of Iceland's fishery rights and the extension of its territorial waters between the 1950s and the mid‐1970s, whereby Iceland gained exclusive control and use of the marine resources of the waters within 12, later 50, and ultimately 200 nautical miles around the island. The article concentrates on four of Iceland's main fisheries: shrimp, herring, capelin and cod. These four fisheries are discussed separately and in depth, presenting the beginnings and growth of the industry and detailing the development of management practices and the corresponding legislation and regulatory measures. Iceland's initial concern was to gain control over the marine resources surrounding the island, but once this was achieved, the focus of attention shifted to managing first the economic and soon also the ecological aspects of its tremendous resource. Informed mainly by indigenous expertise, Iceland's concern was to limit overfishing, manage its fisheries sustainably both from the economic and ecological points of view, and find the best ways to distribute the revenues from the marine harvest. The article looks at each of the four fisheries to clarify how the individual transferable quota (ITQ) system came into being, how initial quota holdings were allotted, and analyses the circumstances under which the ITQ system became the management tool of choice. For each fishery, the process of regulatory evolution was quite unique. At the same time, there is a common pattern to all the fisheries, which may be summarized as follows. Firstly, serious attempts to reform management practices only got underway when the fishery had collapsed or was close to collapse. Secondly, stakeholders invariably started the process of regulation by limiting access to the fishery. Thirdly, a variety of rules were implemented to allocate rights to participate in the fishery to additional entrants once membership had been closed. Finally, prior to the invention of the ITQ system, prices were used to manage fisheries in Iceland. It may be concluded that the management of fisheries by ITQs may be a historical accident, rather than the end point of a logical evolution.     

Indigenous Studies Speaks to Environmental Management

This article describes the increasing connections between the fields of Indigenous studies and environmental management and examines some of the ways that an Indigenous studies perspective can guide thinking about environmental management. Indigenous groups have been involved in the management of environmental and natural resources on their lands since time immemorial. Indigenous groups have also become increasingly involved in Western practices of environmental management with the advent of co-management institutions, subsistence boards, traditional ecological knowledge forums, and environmental issues affecting Indigenous resources. Thus, it is an important time for scholarship that explores how Indigenous groups are both shaping and being affected by processes of environmental management. This article summarizes key findings and themes from eight papers situated at the intersection of these two fields of study and identify means by which environmental managers can better accommodate Indigenous rights and perspectives. It is the authors’ hope that increased dialog between Indigenous studies and environmental management can contribute to the building of sustainable and socially just environmental management practices.     

A System Dynamics Model for the Environmental Management of the Sepetiba Bay Watershed, Brazil

In the recent past, the Sepetiba Bay watershed, located in the Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil has experienced rapid industrial development and population growth, as well as an increase in water pollution and environmental degradation. To analyze the complex interrelationships among the agents affecting the Sepetibza Bay environment, a system dynamics model was developed. The model builds on extensive studies conducted for the watershed, and simulates different hypotheses of economic growth and of demographic expansion. Thus, it can be used as a decision support tool for the identification of investment priorities and policy analyses under various scenarios. In order to provide a comprehensive approach to the environmental management of the Sepetiba Bay watershed, the model had to consider only the most relevant aspects of the behavior and the key interactions among agents operating in the watershed. In this article, the model’s structure is presented together with some of its main results.     

An alternative role for economic instruments: Sustainable finance for environmental management

Economic instruments, such as effluent fees and tradable discharge permits (TDP), have often been suggested by economists as efficient or cost-effective means to control pollution. In recent years such instruments have received increasing attention due to their growing political acceptability. Still, their use in practice has been tentative. The interest in possible application of such instruments has led to a set of studies regarding their practical potential. These studies indicate that economic instruments require substantial government involvement, entailing high administration cost; require restrictions so as to prevent significant deterioration in receptor areas; and have ambivalent effects on innovation adoption. Consequently, the efficiency gains from such instruments may be smaller than potential gains identified in earlier studies. In addition, the distributional impacts of such instruments and their possible adverse effect on market contestability reduce their attractiveness in some cases. These findings raise the question: what is the desired role of economic instruments in addressing environmental concerns? In recent years the demand for environmental services has increased dramatically. Current legislation and studies indicate that desired environmental expenditures are likely to increase. At the same time environmental programs face increasing competition from other programs for a declining pool of general revenues. One outcome of these processes has been the search for alternative sources of funds for environmental programs. Furthermore, as the competition for general revenue funds increases, the allocation of such funds for environmental programs becomes less predictable. This may endanger many long-term environmental programs that require stable funding. This article suggests that economic instruments may prove one source of dedicated funds for many environmental goals. Consequently, studies of environmental-program financing as well as studies of economic instruments may well explore the possible role of economic instruments as financing tools. Some examples of the potential of such tools for estuary cleanup programs are discussed.     

Cross-achievements between policies for drinking water protection

Environmental dynamics have important spatial dimensions, which calls for a spatial approach in policy analyses. Further to this, assessing agri-environmental policies involves analyses of individual measures as well as their combined effects on farmer behaviour and the environment. The integration of an economic behavioural model in a spatial framework has enabled analyses of a geographically targeted subsidy scheme for drinking water protection in combination with a uniform tax on commercial nitrogen fertilizer. Results show that policy measures for reducing nitrogen use can have combined effects (cross-achievements), thereby affecting each other's cost-effectiveness. Cross-achievements between a nitrogen fertilizer tax and a subsidy scheme based on elicitation are shown not to be additive, making partial analyses of policy measures more uncertain.     

Sustainability, substance flow management and time. Part I Temporal analysis of substance flows

Flows of chemical substances need to be managed in a sustainable way. Sustainable development as a whole and the sustainable management of substance flows in particular are both time issues. These include the importance of the dynamics of substance flows and the way these interconnect with the use of resources, the avoidance of environmental pollution, and their effects on health and food production. Another prerequisite for the proper management of substance flows is justice within and between generations. This requires a systematic approach and a systematic analysis of the issues as well as of the actions to be taken. One tool for such a systematic approach is temporal analysis. It brings the temporal aspects of the substances themselves and of their intended use, as well as factors affecting the stakeholders, such as decision makers, producers and consumers, into focus. In the past, timing factors were rarely taken into account. Knowledge of the temporal dynamics of substance flows and their resultant outcomes, as well as of their interaction with ecological, economic and social systems, is a basic requirement for successful substance flow management. The need to include temporal aspects into substance flow management and how to do so is outlined here. Included are not only politicians but also practitioners and scientists who must explicitly take into account adequate time scales, points in time, breaks and other forms of time in planning and acting.     

Municipal officers on implementing the EU water framework directive in Sweden regarding agricultural nutrient flows

The article analyses the perceptions at municipal level of potentials and problems in implementing integrated catchment management of water resources as proposed in the EU Water Framework Directive, expressed in views on how to reduce nutrient leakage from agricultural production. Heads of environmental authorities, spatial planners and environmental officers are among the professionals that will be key actors when implementing the WFD at the local level. Using a process of active focus group interviews, officials from municipal environmental offices studied, reflected upon and discussed the suggested plan concerning their part of implementing WFD. The municipal officers stressed certain conditions that have to be met to implement WFD in a sustainable manner. The most important conditions are clear environmental goals and management plans with support in legislation, which would put the necessary pressure upon local politicians to prioritize the WFD and take action. The respondents perceived the WFD would offer a changed approach in work routines with farmers towards partnerships for sustainable water resource management.