Incentive pricing and cost recovery at the basin scale

Incentive pricing programs have potential to promote economically efficient water use patterns and provide a revenue source to compensate for environmental damages. However, incentive pricing may impose disproportionate costs and aggravate poverty where high prices are levied for basic human needs. This paper presents an analysis of a two-tiered water pricing system that sets a low price for subsistence needs, while charging a price equal to marginal cost, including environmental cost, for discretionary uses. This pricing arrangement can promote efficient and sustainable water use patterns, goals set by the European Water Framework Directive, while meeting subsistence needs of poor households. Using data from the Rio Grande Basin of North America, a dynamic nonlinear program, maximizes the basin's total net economic and environmental benefits subject to several hydrological and institutional constraints. Supply costs, environmental costs, and resource costs are integrated in a model of a river basin's hydrology, economics, and institutions. Three programs are compared: (1) Law of the River, in which water allocations and prices are determined by rules governing water transfers; (2) marginal cost pricing, in which households pay the full marginal cost of supplying treated water; (3) two-tiered pricing, in which households' subsistence water needs are priced cheaply, while discretionary uses are priced at efficient levels. Compared to the Law of the River and marginal cost pricing, two-tiered pricing performs well for efficiency and adequately for sustainability and equity. Findings provide a general framework for formulating water pricing programs that promote economically and environmentally efficient water use programs while also addressing other policy goals.     

Correcting sample selection in FARS data to estimate seatbelt use

Introduction

In this paper, we show that FARS data can be a comparable alternative to observational NOPUS data in estimating seat belt use in the United States once we correct for sample selection bias.

Results

Based on assumptions of independence for seatbelt choice, we establish a lower and upper bound for seatbelt usage rates, and find that once we correct for sample selection bias, the seatbelt usage estimates from the corrected FARS emerge at least as a comparable alternative to NOPUS estimates.

Impact on Industry

This implies that researchers can use corrected FARS to complement NOPUS, thus being able to utilize the rich cross-sectional details available in FARS data to analyze various relevant research questions.     

Perceptions of climate change risks in primary resource use industries: a survey of the Canadian mining sector

A survey documenting how climate change is perceived, experienced, and responded to in the Canadian mining sector was administered to industry practitioners at the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada annual meeting. Nine key findings from the survey are discussed: (1) The Canadian mining sector is sensitive to climate-related conditions. (2) Climate change is perceived to be having a negative impact on mining operations. (3) Companies are taking action to manage the current impacts. (4) Cost and uncertainty are commonly identified barriers to adapting to current climate change. (5) Future climate change is expected to have impacts for the industry. (6) Climate change projections are perceived as threats by the majority of respondents. (7) Despite the perceived threat, companies are not currently taking action to plan for future impacts. (8) Cost and uncertainty are commonly identified barriers to adapting to future climate change impacts. (9) The mining sector is currently making efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The survey is exploratory in nature, establishing a baseline for targeted research to assess in greater detail the vulnerability of mining to climate change.     

Chemical leasing in the context of sustainable chemistry

Chemical leasing is a new and innovative approach of selling chemicals. It aims at reducing the risks emanating from hazardous substances and ensuring long-term economic success within a global system of producing and using chemicals. This paper explores how, through chemical leasing, the consumption of chemicals, energy, resources and the generation of related wastes can be reduced. It also analyses the substitution of hazardous chemicals as a tool to protect environmental, health and safety and hence ensure compliance with sustainability criteria. For this, we are proposing an evaluation methodology that seeks to provide an answer to the following research questions: (1) Does the application of chemical leasing promote sustainability in comparison to an existing chemicals production and management system? 2. If various chemical leasing project types are envisaged, which is the most promising in terms of sustainability? The proposed methodology includes a number of basic goals and sub-goals to assess the sustainability for eight different chemical leasing case studies that have been implemented both at the local and the national levels. The assessment is limited to the relative assessment of specific case studies and allows the comparisons of different projects in terms of their relative contribution to sustainable chemistry. The findings of our assessment demonstrate that chemical leasing can be regarded as promoting sustainable chemistry in five case studies with certainty. However, on the grounds of our assessment, we cannot conclude with certainty that chemical leasing has equivalent contribution to sustainable chemistry in respect of three further case studies.     

Designing conservation-development policies for the forest frontier

The conservation of forests in expanding frontier landscapes is critically important to maintain intact forest ecosystems and support forest dependent communities. To conserve frontier forests, policy approaches are needed that conserve forests and advance the well-being of local resource dependent communities. To identify such approaches, the forest conservation and development framework (FCDF) was designed to find place-based conservation-development policies that target system leverage-points influencing land-use practices. To demonstrate the utility of the FCDF, a portfolio of conservation-development policies were identified for Peru’s Manu-Tambopata Corridor (MAT) and evaluated by local land-users. Results of the MAT case study show high levels of interest in the proposed policies, but a wide variation in interest levels relative to personal circumstances and policies proposed. Barriers to implementing conservation-development policies in frontier environments were also identified, including high value land-use alternatives generating high opportunity costs for accepting PES payments (e.g., REDD+), insecure land tenure and conflicting authorizations limiting land-users policy choices, and broad demographic diversity among local land-users. Collectively, this research suggests the FCDF is a useful approach for identifying policies matched to local conditions that advance conservation and human development. This research also indicates policy design in frontier environments is most effective when adapted to local conditions, seeks to identify a mix of complementary policies, and is targeted at key system variables influencing land-use practices (i.e., system leverage-points). Importantly, the MAT case study also highlights how even in rapidly changing frontier landscapes, land-users are interested in policies that advance conservation and development goals.     

Transdisciplinary research in support of land and water management in China and Southeast Asia: evaluation of four research projects

Transdisciplinary research (TDR) aims at identifying implementable solutions to difficult sustainability problems and at fostering social learning. It requires a well-managed collaboration among multidisciplinary scientists and multisectoral stakeholders. Performing TDR is challenging, particularly for foreign researchers working in countries with different institutional and socio-cultural conditions. There is a need to synthesize and share experience among researchers as well as practitioners regarding how TDR can be conducted under specific contexts. In this paper, we aim to evaluate and synthesize our unique experience in conducting TDR projects in Asia. We applied guiding principles of TDR to conduct a formative evaluation of four consortium projects on sustainable land and water management in China, the Philippines, and Vietnam. In all projects, local political conditions restricted the set of stakeholders that could be involved in the research processes. The set of involved stakeholders was also affected by the fact that stakeholders in most cases only participate if they belong to the personal network of the project leaders. Language barriers hampered effective communication between foreign researchers and stakeholders in all projects and thus knowledge integration. The TDR approach and its specific methods were adapted to respond to the specific cultural, social, and political conditions in the research areas, also with the aim to promote trust and interest of the stakeholders throughout the project. Additionally, various measures were implemented to promote collaboration among disciplinary scientists. Based on lessons learned, we provide specific recommendations for the design and implementation of TDR projects in particular in Asia.