Assessing the social impacts of extensive resource use activities

Extensive forms of resource use are rarely subject to detailed environmental and social assessment. This paper outlines a potential methodology for assessment of the social impacts of extensive resource use activities based on the Pressure-State-Impact-Response (PSIR) model of integrated indicator development. It then tests this methodology through a case study of changed water flow regimes in Central Queensland's Fitzroy River catchment. While resource degradation associated with interruptions to flow was expected to force all resource users to face higher costs and greater uncertainty, negative social impacts were particularly concentrated among vulnerable groups and downstream industries. Extension of the PSIR framework and methodology proved useful in linking social and biophysical research and would thus appear to offer some potential as a model for incorporating social concerns within natural resource decision making.     

Transaction costs and community-based natural resource management in Nepal

Transaction costs in community-based resource management are incurred by households attempting to enforce property right rules over common resources similar to those inherent in private property rights. Despite their importance, transaction costs of community-based management of common pool resources (CPRs) are often not incorporated into the economic analysis of participatory resource management. This paper examines the transaction costs incurred by forest users in community forestry (CF) based on a survey of 309 households belonging to eight different forest user groups (FUGs) in the mid hills of Nepal. The analysis reveals that the average 'poor' household incurred Nepalese rupees (NRS) 1265 in transaction costs annually, while wealthier 'rich' households incurred an average of NRS 2312 per year. Although richer households bear higher proportions of such costs, transaction costs for CF management as a percentage of resource appropriation costs are higher for poorer households (26%) than those of middle-wealth (24%) or rich households (14%). There are also village differences in the level of transaction costs. The results show that transaction costs are a major component of resource management costs and vary according to socio-economic status of resource users and characteristics of the community.     

THEORY AND REALITY IN ALLOCATING FEDERAL RESOURCES TO WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT1

ABSTRACT: Federal spending on water resource development projects exceeds $10 billion annually. This paper examines the economic theory and practice on which the Federal water resource development plans are based. Existing theoretical and applied problems result in overinvestment. These include 1) no standard of value for the tradeoff of environmental objectives with economic objectives; 2) benefits based on “willingness to pay,” but beneficiaries pay only a fraction of a project's costs; 3) beneficiaries “shop around” among program purposes in order to reduce their commitments; and 4) benefit/cost (B/C) analyses are based on a discount rate, which is consistently below the Federal borrowing rate. Furthermore, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) frequently finds that the agency regulations are inadequate and result in inconsistent and questionable benefit computations. The President has proposed a series of water policy reforms, to reduce some of the apparent overinvestment in water resource development, but fundmental corrective action rests with the members of Congress.     

Passive and active adaptive management: approaches and an example

Adaptive management is a framework for resource conservation that promotes iterative learning-based decision making. Yet there remains considerable confusion about what adaptive management entails, and how to actually make resource decisions adaptively. A key but somewhat ambiguous distinction in adaptive management is between active and passive forms of adaptive decision making. The objective of this paper is to illustrate some approaches to active and passive adaptive management with a simple example involving the drawdown of water impoundments on a wildlife refuge. The approaches are illustrated for the drawdown example, and contrasted in terms of objectives, costs, and potential learning rates. Some key challenges to the actual practice of AM are discussed, and tradeoffs between implementation costs and long-term benefits are highlighted.     

Does taxation alter exploration? : The effect of uncertainty and risk

The effect of resource rent taxation on mineral exploration is a controversial issue on which very little research has been carried out. Simple numerical examples are used in this paper to demonstrate that a ‘pure’ resource rent tax, or Brown Tax, can reduce the extent of exploration of a ‘promising’ deposit by a risk averse explorer, but encourage exploration of ‘unpromising’ deposits. This counter-intuitive result is explained in terms of the effect of the tax and of exploration on the costs of risk and uncertainty.     

Water injustices and potential remedies in indigenous rural contexts: A water justice analysis

This paper examines Indigenous water rights in rural and remote Australia and how water justice seems to be elusive in many of these spaces. The purpose of this literature review is to link water justice theory and practices to the way different water cultures are valued in Australia while simultaneously critiquing the water justice movement. This paper situates the notion of water justice as a specific kind of environmental justice to cater for the unique qualities that define this resource. In doing so, this paper draws on Schlosberg’s (2004) conception of environmental justice with its trivalent approach that describes the following three ‘circles of concern’: recognition of difference, plurality of participation, and finally equitable distribution of resources and costs and benefits. This framework provides that if the first two ‘circles of concern’ are not in existence in a natural resource management process, then inequitable distribution of that resource is a likely outcome. This paper presents two areas where water injustices exist in the context of Indigenous rural and remote Australia. The first relates to how Indigenous rights to water have been inadequately recognized and the second presents empirical data on water supply and sanitation in rural and remote Indigenous communities that demonstrates ongoing dilemmas around securing this basic human right. The undervaluing of cultural differences relating to water is argued to be antecedent to the injustice manifest in poor water supply and sanitation provision for Indigenous rural contexts. This paper does not attempt to survey the body of ethnographic work on society-water relations in rural and remote Indigenous Australian contexts but reviews the gaps in current mainstream acknowledgement of Indigenous water cultures. In exploring water justice in rural and remote Indigenous Australia, this paper offers a novel approach to a dilemma more frequently analysed solely as a health development issue.     

The hotelling valuation of natural resources: some further results

This paper tests the Hotelling Valuation Principle (HVP) for natural resources using data from oil and gas ‘pure plays’ such as royalty trusts and master limited partnerships. The results support the HVP which specifies that the value of any mineral reserve may be predicted by the market price of the resource, net of extraction costs. Regression results also indicate that a Box-Cox transformation of variables provide a better means of estimating the functional relationship between the value of an exhaustible natural resource and its market price.     

Efficient management of marine resources in conflict: An empirical study of marine sand mining, Korea

This article develops a dynamic model of efficient use of exhaustible marine sand resources in the context of marine mining externalities. The classical Hotelling extraction model is applied to sand mining in Ongjin, Korea and extended to include the estimated marginal external costs that mining imposes on marine fisheries. The socially efficient sand extraction plan is compared with the extraction paths suggested by scientific research. If marginal environmental costs are correctly estimated, the developed efficient extraction plan considering the resource rent may increase the social welfare and reduce the conflicts among the marine sand resource users. The empirical results are interpreted with an emphasis on guidelines for coastal resource management policy.     

The health and visibility cost of air pollution: a comparison of estimation methods

Air pollution from motor vehicles, electricity-generating plants, industry, and other sources can harm human health, injure crops and forests, damage building materials, and impair visibility. Economists sometimes analyze the social cost of these impacts, in order to illuminate tradeoffs, compare alternatives, and promote efficient use of scarce resource. In this paper, we compare estimates of the health and visibility costs of air pollution derived from a meta-hedonic price analysis, with an estimate of health costs derived from a damage-function analysis and an estimate of the visibility cost derived from contingent valuation. We find that the meta-hedonic price analysis produces an estimate of the health cost that lies at the low end of the range of damage-function estimates. This is consistent with hypotheses that on the one hand, hedonic price analysis does not capture all of the health costs of air pollution (because individuals may not be fully informed about all of the health effects), and that on the other hand, the value of mortality used in the high-end damage function estimates is too high. The analysis of the visibility cost of air pollution derived from a meta-hedonic price analysis produces an estimate that is essentially identical to an independent estimate based on contingent valuation. This close agreement lends some credence to the estimates. We then apply the meta hedonic-price model to estimate the visibility cost per kilogram of motor vehicle emissions.     

Innovative models of power generation: the captive-collective experience of consumer participation in power development in India

While the need for power increases, and costs of generation are on the rise, developing nations face the particular challenge of developing power systems despite a lack of national and local government funds. In this paper, it is suggested that consumer participation, technical innovation, and managerial flexibility may provide the answers, and the Andhra Pradesh Gas Power Corporation Limited in India is offered as a model venture which successfully responds to the region's power and resource specifications. Through the formation of a 'captive-collective' and 'capital-cooperative' plant, a joint venture of the Andhra Pradesh State Electricity Board and some bulk industrial consumers, the respective needs of all parties were met with great success. Such large-scale power projects, set up and managed by consumers with the technical assistance of State Electricity Boards, can substantially reduce costs for consumers while engaging in technologies that reduce environmental pollution and resource degradation. Consumer participation is highlighted as the key element for positive power development, and it is argued that the success of projects such as the one undertaken in Andhra Pradesh illustrate the possibility and necessity for consumer-initiated and consumer-managed power ventures.     

Ecosystem Management on Public Lands: An Application of Optimal Externality to Timber Production

While there are increasing numbers of non-consumptive forest uses on public lands, some silvicultural management systems provide little flexibility for the realization of non-commodity values. Traditional economic decision-making tools, such as net present value, are often applied in a manner which inadequately accounts for the full value of the resource. As a result, sub-optimal management practices are often implemented. By applying a marginal analysis of the optimal externality of different silvicultural systems, it is possible to identify the optimal timber management strategy in terms of the total costs of the timber harvest under alternative uses. Although difficulties arise in valuing non-consumptive uses, contingent valuation with averting costs estimates can establish a lower bound on society's willingness to pay for foregone timber harvesting. Low impact harvest operations and “new forestry” techniques, such as selection harvest cuts, are helpful in reducing the external costs of timber cutting. Therefore, the implementation of such systems may actually increase the socially optimal area of public lands to be harvested under a multiple-use designation.     

Mine infrastructure financing and the subsidy debate

This paper examines the problems Inherent in identifying and measuring infrastructure-related subsidies associated with 'greenfield' natural resource projects. The findings suggest that even if external benefits and costs are ignored, and a market-oriented estimation process is adopted, substantial problems still face policy analysts attempting to measure the extent to which such projects have been subsidized. This conclusion is demonstrated through a detailed examination of the Canadian-based North East British Columbia coal project.     

Chinese resource security policies and the restructuring of the Asia-Pacific iron ore market

This paper reviews the restructuring of the Asia-Pacific iron ore market in the wake of the rise of the Chinese steel industry. Prior to the 2000s, this market was characterised by two key features—high firm-level concentration on both the producer and consumer sides, and price determination through annually negotiated benchmark pricing between Australian mining and Japanese steel firms. However, owing to rapid growth in the Chinese steel industry and its emergence as the region's principal iron ore consumer, the Asia-Pacific iron ore market has been dramatically restructured during the last decade. This process has been accelerated since 2005 by Chinese governmental resource security policies, which have sought to address current record high iron ore prices through the use of foreign investment to sponsor new market entrants and the formation of an import cartel amongst the Chinese steel firms. This paper evaluates how these policies have driven restructuring in the Asia-Pacific iron ore market, through an analysis of the growth of China's steel industry, Chinese resource security policies aimed at lowering iron ore import costs, and their effects upon the regional market's ownership structure and price determination mechanisms. It argues that while Chinese investment and cartelisation policies have catalysed significant changes to the ownership and pricing structures of the Asia-Pacific iron ore market, they have carried only mixed benefits for the Chinese steel industry's resource security.     

ESTIMATING THE PUBLIC'S VALUES FOR INSTREAM FLOW: ECONOMIC TECHNIQUES AND DOLLAR VALUES1

ABSTRACT: Sound water resource management requires comparison of benefits and costs. Many of the perceived benefits of water relate to providing instream flow for recreation and endangered fish. These uses have value but no prices to guide resource allocation. Techniques to estimate the dollar values of environmental benefits are presented and illustrated with several case studies. The results of the case studies show that emphasis on minimum instream flow allocates far less than the economically optimum amount of water to instream uses. Studies in Idaho demonstrated that optimum flows that balance benefits and costs can be ten times greater than minimum flows. The economic benefits of preserving public trust resources outweighed the replacement cost of water and power by a factor of fifty in California. While it is important to incorporate public preferences in water resource management, these economic survey techniques provide water managers with information not just on preference but how much the public is willing to pay for as well. This facilitates comparison of the public costs and benefits of instream flows.     

Valuing environmental damage remediation and liability using value estimates for ecosystem services

The European Environmental Liability Directive aims to ensure that damaged habitats are restored where possible, but allows for complementary remediation with replacement habitat where restoration is not possible within a reasonable time. It also allows for compensatory remediation of the resource based on an assessment of environmental values in cases where there are interim social losses. This paper concurs with the argument that physical remediation without consideration of social values can fail to be equivalent to the resource that has been lost. Using, as a case study, a river in Ireland, it demonstrates that estimating social value can be challenging in practice, noting also differences between the value of environmental gains and losses. The paper argues that estimates of final ecosystem service values, including wastewater treatment costs, can provide a measure of social value and makes a case for the systematic collection of these data to inform decision-making.     

不确定条件下矿产资源的最优开采

通过一个连续时间的随机动态规划模型,探讨了市场需求、资源存量的不确定性以及勘探活动对矿产资源价格和开采速度的影响,并给出了随机条件下Hotelling法则的表达形式.模型结果显示:不确定性对资源价格变化速度的影响主要取决于开采成本,如果相对于资源存量来说开采成本是不变的或者开采的规模成本是不变的,则不确定性对资源价格的变化速度没有影响.反之,如果开采的规模成本是递增的,则不确定性会加速资源价格的变化.此外,不确定性的存在将加快资源的开采速度.至于勘探活动,它一方面降低了地质条件的不确定性,另一方面增加了资源的存量,所以勘探活动降低了资源价格和开采速度的变化率,减少了不确定性对资源开采的影响.     

A Systems Approach to Materials Flow in Sustainable Cities: A Case Study of Paper

This study develops a modelling framework within which the effects of technology choice and policy on the sustainability of cities may be assessed. A life cycle accounting system for environmental impacts is combined with systems analysis, to represent the flows of resources into cities, the wastes and pollution generated and the technological choices available in an urban environment. The approach is demonstrated through a case study of the demand for paper and management of wastepaper. The case study questions the applicability for paper of the accepted 'hierarchy' of waste management techniques; incineration imposes lower environmental costs than recycling, and consequently lower total costs under some circumstances.     

CLEAN WATER ACT REAUTHORIZATION: HOW FAR HAVE WE COME?1

ABSTRACT: This paper first presents a brief review of an earlier effort to estimate the benefits associated with achieving the Clean Water Act objectives. It then discusses what would be involved in doing a retrospective benefit-cost analysis of the Clean Water Act and some information on changes in several measures of water quality over the past 20 years. The paper concludes with a summary of a recent effort to estimate the realized benefits associated with the Clean Water Act and some implications for policy. (KEY TERMS: benefits; benefit-cost analysis; costs; recreation; water pollution; water quality.)     

海南特区农村剩余劳动力资源的开发与利用

本文论述了海南特区农村剩余劳动力资源的现状及其影响劳动力资源开发利用的主要因素，提出了海南特区农村剩余劳动力资源开发与利用的途径。     

Integrated Resource Management: Moving from Rhetoric to Practice in Australian Agriculture

/ Implementing the concept of sustainability through integrated approaches to natural resource management poses enormous challenges for both the rural communities and government agencies concerned. This paper reviews the underlying rhetoric of sustainable agricultural systems and the integrated resource management paradigm and identifies some of the challenges being experienced in translating this rhetoric into practice. A relatively recently implemented community-based integrated catchment management (ICM) process in a rural community in northeast Australia is examined in terms of some of the lessons learned that may be relevant to other similar integrated resource management (IRM) processes. It reveals a pragmatic, opportunistic, and evolving implementation process based on adaptive learning rather than a more traditional "rational" planning approach. Some essential characteristics of a community-based IRM process are identified, including fostering communication; providing a structure that fosters cooperation and facilities coordination among community, industry, and government agencies; the integration of IRM principles into local government planning schemes; and an emergent strategic approach to IRM program implementation. We conclude by identifying some essential characteristics of an IRM process that can assist a community to adapt to, and manage change for, sustainable resource use.