Mainstreaming of climate extreme risk into fiscal and budgetary planning: application of stochastic debt and disaster fund analysis in Austria

While ageing-related costs are perceived as the major drivers of fiscal pressure in the EU, concerns over climate-related public expenditures have received comparatively little attention in securing the EU’s long-term fiscal sustainability. Using the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) scenarios as bridging concept for linking the assessment of public cost of demography- and climate-related expenditures, this study proposes a climate risk mainstreaming methodology. We apply a stochastic debt model and assess the potential flood risk in Austria to the public debt and the national disaster fund. Our results indicate that public debt under no fiscal consolidation is estimated to increase from the current level of 84.5% relative to GDP in 2015 to 92.1% in 2030, with macroeconomic variability adding further risk to the country’s baseline public debt trajectory. The study finds that the estimated public contingent liability due to expected flood risk is small relative to the size of economy. The existing earmarked disaster risk reduction (DRR) funding will likely reduce the risk of frequent-and-low impact floods, yet the current budgetary arrangement may be insufficient to deal with rising risk of extreme floods in the future. This prompts the need for further discussions regarding potential reforms of the disaster fund. As many EU member states are in the early stages of designing climate change policy strategies, the proposed method can support the mainstreaming of climate-related concerns into longer-term fiscal and budgetary planning.

     

Effects of Topographic Heterogeneity on Coarse Resolution Grid-Based Runoff Simulation—Assessment for Three River Basins in Peninsular Malaysia

This paper investigates the effects of topographic heterogeneity on the runoff response simulated by a 0.05 degree (approximately 5.5 km) spatial resolution distributed hydrological model for the Pahang, Kelantan, and Muda river basins (25,600, 11,900, and 4010 km², respectively) in Peninsular Malaysia. Daily simulations were carried out and assessed against observed streamflow for the period 1999–2004. Topographic structure was characterized by means of subgrid terrain slope to guide the decomposition of hydrological parameters over the model grid. The results show improved simulation skill for all three basins compared to a traditional runoff production parameterization scheme that does not take into account the subgrid topographic variability. However, other factors related to morphological heterogeneity and variability in physical terrain conditions should be considered in future work in order to characterize the hydrological heterogeneity. The present methodology may be of potential for further development of large-scale, coarse resolution grid-based hydrological models without adding structural model complexity and without affecting parameter parsimony.     

Effects of experience with access regimes on stewardship behaviors of small-scale fishers

Governance regimes that assign exclusive access to support collective action are increasingly promoted to manage common-pool resources under the premise that they foster environmental stewardship. However, experimental evidence linked to existing policies that support this premise is lacking. Overlapping access policies in small-scale fisheries provide a unique opportunity to test the effects of access regimes on users’ stewardship behaviors. We performed a lab-in-the-field experiment to assess how fishers’ previous experience with access regimes relates to compliance and peer enforcement (n = 120). Fishers’ compliance and peer-enforcement decisions were compared in a common-pool-resource game. Treatments differed in framing to represent exclusive access and pseudo-open access regimes, both of which fishers face in real life. To contrast behavior in the game with real-life observations, we compared fishers’ associations that have shown relatively high and low management performance under exclusive access policies. Compliance and peer enforcement were higher under the exclusive access treatment than under the pseudo-open access treatment only for fishers’ associations with high management performance in real life. Behaviors in the game reflected differences between associations in real life. Our results support previous research on ocean governance by experimentally assessing the role of access regimes in determining users’ stewardship and suggest potential mechanisms for stewardship internalization.     

Design trade-offs in rights-based management of small-scale fisheries

Small-scale fisheries collectively have a large ecological footprint and are key sources of food security, especially in developing countries. Many of the data-intensive approaches to fishery management are infeasible in these fisheries, but a strategy that has emerged to overcome these challenges is the establishment of territorial user rights for fisheries (TURFs). In this approach, exclusive fishing zones are established for groups of stakeholders, which eliminates the race to fish with other groups. A key challenge, however, is setting the size of TURFs—too large and the number of stakeholders sharing them impedes collective action, and too small and the movement of target fish species in and out of the TURFs effectively removes the community's exclusive access. We assessed the size of 137 TURFs from across the globe relative to this design challenge by applying theoretical models that predict their performance. We estimated that roughly two-thirds of these TURFs were sized ideally to overcome the challenges posed by resource movement and fisher group size. However, for most of the remaining TURFs, all possible sizes were either too small to overcome the resource-movement challenge or too large to overcome the collective action challenge. Our results suggest these fisheries, which target mobile species in densely populated regions, may need additional interventions to be successful.     

Complementarity,impatience, and the resilience of natural-resource-dependent economies

We study how society's preferences affect the resilience of economies that depend on more than one type of natural resource. In particular, we analyze whether the degree of complementarity of natural resources in consumer preferences may give rise to multiple steady states and path dependence even when resources are managed optimally. We find that, for a given social discount rate, society tends to be less willing to buffer exogenous shocks if resource good are complements in consumption than if they are substitutes. The stronger the complementarity between the various types of natural resources, the less resilient the economy is, and even more so the higher is the social discount rate.     

Probabilistic cost‐benefit analysis of disaster risk management in a development context

Limited studies have shown that disaster risk management (DRM) can be cost‐efficient in a development context. Cost–benefit analysis (CBA) is an evaluation tool to analyse economic efficiency. This research introduces quantitative, stochastic CBA frameworks and applies them in case studies of flood and drought risk reduction in India and Pakistan, while also incorporating projected climate change impacts. DRM interventions are shown to be economically efficient, with integrated approaches more cost‐effective and robust than singular interventions. The paper highlights that CBA can be a useful tool if certain issues are considered properly, including: complexities in estimating risk; data dependency of results; negative effects of interventions; and distributional aspects. The design and process of CBA must take into account specific objectives, available information, resources, and the perceptions and needs of stakeholders as transparently as possible. Intervention design and uncertainties should be qualified through dialogue, indicating that process is as important as numerical results.     

(Persistent) Organic pollutants in Germany: results from a pilot study within the 2015 moss survey

Background

Since 1990, every 5 years, moss sampling is conducted within the European moss monitoring programme to assess the atmospheric deposition of airborne pollutants. Besides many other countries, Germany takes regularly part at these evaluations. Within the European moss monitoring 2015, more than 400 moss samples across Germany were taken according to a harmonized methodology for the assessment heavy metal and nitrogen input. In a pilot programme, eight of these sites were chosen for additional investigations on a broad range of organic contaminants to evaluate their accumulation in moss and thereby their presence in atmospheric deposition in Germany. Target compound classes comprised polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), polychlorinated dibenzodioxins and –furans (PCDD/F), dioxin-like and non-dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (dl-PCB, ndl-PCB), polyfluorinated alkyl substances, classical flame retardants as well as emerging chlorinated and brominated flame retardants. In total, 120 target compounds were analysed. For some analytes, comparisons of accumulation in moss and tree leave samples were possible.

Results

Except for certain flame retardants, PFAS, and ndl-PCB, substances of all other compound classes could be quantified in moss samples of all sites. Concentrations were highest for PAH (40–268 ng g^?1) followed by emerging flame retardants (0.5–7.7 ng g^?1), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE; 0.3–3.7 ng g^?1), hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD; 0.3–1.2 ng g^?1), dl-PCB (0.04–0.4 ng g^?1) and PCDD/F (0.008–0.06 ng g^?1).

Conclusions

Results show the widespread atmospheric distribution and deposition of organic contaminants across Germany as well as the suitability of moss as bioaccumulation monitor for most of these compound classes. Compared to nearby tree leaf samples, accumulation potential of moss appeared to be higher for pollutants of high octanol–air partition coefficient (K_OA) and octanol–water partition coefficient (K_OW).

     

Modelling spatial patterns of correlations between concentrations of heavy metals in mosses and atmospheric deposition in 2010 across Europe

Background

This paper aims to investigate the correlations between the concentrations of nine heavy metals in moss and atmospheric deposition within ecological land classes covering Europe. Additionally, it is examined to what extent the statistical relations are affected by the land use around the moss sampling sites. Based on moss data collected in 2010/2011 throughout Europe and data on total atmospheric deposition modelled by two chemical transport models (EMEP MSC-E, LOTOS-EUROS), correlation coefficients between concentrations of heavy metals in moss and in modelled atmospheric deposition were specified for spatial subsamples defined by ecological land classes of Europe (ELCE) as a spatial reference system. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and logistic regression (LR) were then used to separate moss sampling sites regarding their contribution to the strength of correlation considering the areal percentage of urban, agricultural and forestry land use around the sampling location. After verification LDA models by LR, LDA models were used to transform spatial information on the land use to maps of potential correlation levels, applicable for future network planning in the European Moss Survey.

Results

Correlations between concentrations of heavy metals in moss and in modelled atmospheric deposition were found to be specific for elements and ELCE units. Land use around the sampling sites mainly influences the correlation level. Small radiuses around the sampling sites examined (5 km) are more relevant for Cd, Cu, Ni, and Zn, while the areal percentage of urban and agricultural land use within large radiuses (75–100 km) is more relevant for As, Cr, Hg, Pb, and V. Most valid LDA models pattern with error rates of <?40% were found for As, Cr, Cu, Hg, Pb, and V. Land use-dependent predictions of spatial patterns split up Europe into investigation areas revealing potentially high (=?above-average) or low (=?below-average) correlation coefficients.

Conclusions

LDA is an eligible method identifying and ranking boundary conditions of correlations between atmospheric deposition and respective concentrations of heavy metals in moss and related mapping considering the influence of the land use around moss sampling sites.