Environmental performance and spillover effects on productivity: evidence from horticultural firms

This study investigates the effect of environmental investment and related spillover effects on productivity in the agricultural sector by using a panel data of horticultural firms in Andalusia (Southern Spain). The results indicate a positive relationship between firm investment in environmental practices and productivity improvement, also showing the presence of positive environmental spillovers. In a second-stage of analysis, the incidence of environmental factors in firm specific individual technical efficiency is estimated. This analysis also shows the link between environmental knowledge diffusion and horticultural firms' performance.     

Plastics and microplastics,effects on marine coastal areas: a review

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Plastics have become strong environmental stressors of coastal marine ecosystems. Their introduction into the marine ecosystem is subjected to...     

Rethinking the native range concept

A species is not native outside its native range, but native range is not precisely defined. The invasion literature contains wide discussion of the core concepts such as naturalization, invasiveness, and ecological impact, but the concept of native range has received so little attention that a formal definition does not exist. I considered, among other impediments to a formal definition of native range, the sometimes arbitrariness of the spatial and temporal limits assigned to native range. Broad questions that remain include whether invasion theory can be used to define the native range for species without non-native ranges.     

Playing Pollution Games with Thermal Electricity Generators

This paper discusses the economic and environmental implications of a stylised electricity market with transmission grid constraints and shared temporal pollution standards that restrict the joint strategy space of the agents. These are problematic to enforce if individual monitoring is impossible or very expensive. For such situations, we propose a time-dependent (or “open-loop dynamic”), game-theoretic model capable of analysing coupled constraints equilibria, also known as generalised Nash. We compute these equilibria for thermal generators subjected to annual pollution limits and instantaneous grid restrictions for a three-node dc model with a two-period load duration curve. The model illustrates the possibility that well-meaning environmental regulation might harm consumer surplus. It also highlights the cost to efficiency of regulatory attempts to ease the burden of compliance.     

Modelling phytoclimatic versatility as a large scale indicator of adaptive capacity to climate change in forest ecosystems

CLIMPAIR is a new phytoclimatic model, correlative and niche-based, which simultaneously assesses non-linear, non-statistical and dual measurements of proximity/potentiality of a site with respect to a number of climatic ranges of species, defined by convex hulls, within a suitability space. This set of phytoclimatic distances makes it possible to evaluate the degree to which each species is suitable for that site. Considering not only the number of species compatible (expected species richness), but also all those compatible covers presenting a high level of suitability evenness and finally applying an indicator derived from Shannon's classic entropy index to the set of standardized phytoclimatic coordinates in the suitability hyperspace, we can evaluate the phytoclimatic entropy which may be considered as a means of estimating the phytoclimatic versatility of the site. A site with high phytoclimatic entropy would promise versatile future behaviour, characterized by a wide range of possibilities of adaptation to climate change, and hence versatility can be used as an index of resilience and ability of a forest ecosystem to adapt to climate change. The model has been applied to peninsular Spain for 18 forest tree species and 12 climatic variables between the current mean climate (period 1951-1999) and a future climatic scenario (period 2040-2069). The results generally point to a significant decrease in the versatility of forest tree formations in the area studied, which is not homogeneous owing to a dual altitudinal/latitudinal decoupling. The decrease in versatility is greater in Mediterranean biogeographical areas than in Euro-Siberian ones, where in some cases it actually increases. In altitudinal terms, areas at elevations of less than 1500 m tend to become less versatile than areas situated at higher elevations, where versatility increases partly as a result of enrichment of alpine conifer forests with broadleaf species.     

Immunoassay-based screening of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) in sediments: requirements for a new generation of test kits

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have been proposed for the inclusion in the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) priority list, currently under revision. Various screening methods have been employed for PCB determination in different environmental matrixes in the last decades, immunoassays being one of the most employed. A literature review reveals that the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is the most commonly applied immunoassay for PCB determination in the environment. However, its application to sediments is very limited. A suitability assessment of immunoassay-based analysis for PCB screening in sediments is presented in this work. The significance of available immunoassay-based test kits under the current environmental pollution scenario and their performance against the sensitivity and specificity requirements dictated by the WFD for PCB analysis in sediments is discussed. For example, current detection limits of available test kits for PCB determination in sediments may not be enough for compliance checking under the WFD. In addition, concentration expressed as Aroclor equivalents does not seem to be the way forward. A proposal for adapting available test kits in order to become more suitable tools for PCB screening in sediments is also presented in this study.