CEO education and corporate environmental footprint

We analyze the effect of CEO education on environmental decision-making. Using a unique sample of Danish firms from 1996 to 2012, we find that CEO education significantly improves firms' energy efficiency. We seek to derive causality using health shocks: the hospitalization of highly educated CEOs induces a drop in energy efficiency, whereas the hospitalization of less educated CEOs does not have any significant effect. Exploring the mechanisms at play, we show that our results are largely driven by advanced education in business degrees. Moreover, we show that CEO education is associated with greater environmental awareness: highly educated CEOs exhibit greater concerns for climate change, as measured by a survey of social preferences, and drive more environmentally efficient cars. Taken together, our findings suggest that education shapes managerial styles giving rise to greater sustainability in corporate actions.     

Temporal trends in agricultural water use and the relationships to hydroclimatic factors in the High Plains aquifer region

The High Plains aquifer (HPA) is the primary water source for agricultural irrigation in the US Great Plains. The water levels in many locations of the aquifer have declined steadily over the past several decades because the rate of water withdrawals exceeds recharge, which has been a serious concern to the water resources management in the region. We evaluated temporal trends and variations in agricultural water use and hydroclimatic variables including precipitation, air temperature, reference evapotranspiration, runoff, groundwater level, and terrestrial water storage across the HPA region for different periods from 1985 to 2020 at the grid, county, or region scale. The results showed that water withdrawals decreased from 21.3 km³/year in 1985 to 18.2 km³/year in 2015, while irrigated croplands increased from 71,928 km² in 1985 to 78,464 km² in 2015 in the entire HPA. The hydroclimatic time-series showed wetting trends in most of the northern HPA, but drying and warming trends in the southern region from 1985 to 2020. The groundwater level time-series indicated flat trends in the north, but significant declining in the central and southern HPA. Trends in irrigation water withdrawals and irrigation area across the HPA were controlled by the advancement of irrigation systems and technologies and the management of sustainable water use, but also were affected by dynamical changes in the hydroclimatic conditions.     

Systematic review of conservation interventions to promote voluntary behavior change

Understanding human behavior is vital to developing interventions that effectively lead to proenvironmental behavior change, whether the focus is at the individual or societal level. However, interventions in many fields have historically lacked robust forms of evaluation, which makes it hard to be confident that these conservation interventions have successfully helped protect the environment. We conducted a systematic review to assess how effective nonpecuniary and nonregulatory interventions have been in changing environmental behavior. We applied the Office of Health Assessment and Translation systematic review methodology. We started with more than 300,000 papers and reports returned by our search terms and after critical appraisal of quality identified 128 individual studies that merited inclusion in the review. We classified interventions by thematic area, type of intervention, the number of times audiences were exposed to interventions, and the length of time interventions ran. Most studies reported a positive effect (n = 96). The next most common outcome was no effect (n = 28). Few studies reported negative (n = 1) or mixed (n = 3) effects. Education, prompts, and feedback interventions resulted in positive behavior change. Combining multiple interventions was the most effective. Neither exposure duration nor frequency affected the likelihood of desired behavioral change. Comparatively few studies tested the effects of voluntary interventions on non-Western populations (n = 17) or measured actual ecological outcome behavior (n = 1). Similarly, few studies examined conservation devices (e.g., energy-efficient stoves) (n = 9) and demonstrations (e.g., modeling the desired behavior) (n = 5). There is a clear need to both improve the quality of the impact evaluation conducted and the reporting standards for intervention results.     

Learning and climate feedbacks: Optimal climate insurance and fat tails

We study the effect of potentially severe climate change on optimal climate change policy, accounting for learning and uncertainty in the climate system. In particular, we test how fat upper tailed uncertainty over the temperature change from a doubling of greenhouse gases (the climate sensitivity), affects economic growth and emissions policy. In addition, we examine whether and how fast uncertainties could be diminished through Bayesian learning. Our results indicate that while overall learning is slow, the mass of the fat tail diminishes quickly, since observations near the mean provide evidence against fat tails. We denote as “tail learning” the case where the planner rejects high values of the climate sensitivity with high confidence, even though significant uncertainty remains. Fat tailed uncertainty without learning reduces current emissions by 38% relative to certainty, indicating significant climate insurance, or paying to limit emissions today to reduce the risk of very high temperature changes, is optimal. However, learning reduces climate insurance by about 50%. The optimal abatement policy is strongly influenced by the current state of knowledge, even though greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are difficult to reverse. Once the mass of the fat tail diminishes, the remaining uncertainty is largely irrelevant for optimal emissions policy.     

Using the past to contextualize anthropogenic impacts on the present and future distribution of an endemic Caribbean mammal

Island species are difficult to conserve because they face the synergy of climate change, invasive species, deforestation, and increasing human population densities in areas where land mass is shrinking. The Caribbean island of Hispaniola presents particular challenges because of geopolitical complexities that span 2 countries and hinder coordinated management of species across the island. We employed species distribution modeling to evaluate the impacts of climatic change and anthropogenic activities on the distribution of an endemic mammal of conservation concern, the Hispaniolan solenodon (Solenodon paradoxus). We aggregated occurrence points for this poorly known species for the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the present (1975–2016) based on museum collections, online biodiversity databases, and new field surveys. We quantified degree of overlap between periods and scenarios with Schoener's D. Through a conservation paleobiology lens, we found that over time humans played an increasing role in shaping the distribution of S. paradoxus, thus, providing a foundation for developing conservation strategies on appropriate spatiotemporal scales. Human population density was the single most important predictor of S. paradoxus occurrence. Densities >166 people/km² corresponded to a near-zero probability of occurrence. Models that accounted for climate but not anthropogenic variables falsely identified suitable habitat in Haiti, where on-the-ground surveys confirm habitat is unavailable. Climate-only models also significantly overestimated the potential for habitat connectivity between isolated populations. Our work highlights that alternative fates for S. paradoxus in the Anthropocene exist across the political border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti due to the fundamentally different economic and political realities of each country. Relationships in the fossil record confirm that Hispaniola's sociopolitical boundary is not biologically significant but instead represents one imposed on the island's fauna in the past 500 years by colonial activity. Our approach reveals how a paleontological perspective can contribute to concrete management insights.     

Bridging the financial gap in climate adaptation: Dutch planning and land development through a new institutional lens

Based on a case study of the Stadshaven port redevelopment in Rotterdam, this paper explores whether existing spatial planning mechanisms and processes can be used to facilitate local-level investment in climate-resilient public infrastructure and/or whether new processes and mechanisms are required to encourage investment in climate adaptation. The study reveals several key findings. First, a lack of conventional funding sources or formalised regulatory framework allowed room for experimentation with existing mechanisms and flexible strategies. Second, project planners are currently ambivalent towards introducing new mechanisms as a means to overcome implementation challenges. The case provides evidence about the role of the governance process, not simply as a means of system coordination that exists in isolation from institutional norms and values, but rather as a space for innovation, which can contribute towards reducing the financial gap associated with climate adaptation.     

Incorporating putatively neutral and adaptive genomic data into marine conservation planning

The availability of genomic data for an increasing number of species makes it possible to incorporate evolutionary processes into conservation plans. Recent studies show how genetic data can inform spatial conservation prioritization (SCP), but they focus on metrics of diversity and distinctness derived primarily from neutral genetic data sets. Identifying adaptive genetic markers can provide important information regarding the capacity for populations to adapt to environmental change. Yet, the effect of including metrics based on adaptive genomic data into SCP in comparison to more widely used neutral genetic metrics has not been explored. We used existing genomic data on a commercially exploited species, the giant California sea cucumber (Parastichopus californicus), to perform SCP for the coastal region of British Columbia (BC), Canada. Using a RAD-seq data set for 717 P. californicus individuals across 24 sampling locations, we identified putatively adaptive (i.e., candidate) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) based on genotype–environment associations with seafloor temperature. We calculated various metrics for both neutral and candidate SNPs and compared SCP outcomes with independent metrics and combinations of metrics. Priority areas varied depending on whether neutral or candidate SNPs were used and on the specific metric used. For example, targeting sites with a high frequency of warm-temperature-associated alleles to support persistence under future warming prioritized areas in the southern coastal region. In contrast, targeting sites with high expected heterozygosity at candidate loci to support persistence under future environmental uncertainty prioritized areas in the north. When combining metrics, all scenarios generated intermediate solutions, protecting sites that span latitudinal and thermal gradients. Our results demonstrate that distinguishing between neutral and adaptive markers can affect conservation solutions and emphasize the importance of defining objectives when choosing among various genomic metrics for SCP.     

Assessing the components of adaptive capacity to improve conservation and management efforts under global change

Natural‐resource managers and other conservation practitioners are under unprecedented pressure to categorize and quantify the vulnerability of natural systems based on assessment of the exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity of species to climate change. Despite the urgent need for these assessments, neither the theoretical basis of adaptive capacity nor the practical issues underlying its quantification has been articulated in a manner that is directly applicable to natural‐resource management. Both are critical for researchers, managers, and other conservation practitioners to develop reliable strategies for assessing adaptive capacity. Drawing from principles of classical and contemporary research and examples from terrestrial, marine, plant, and animal systems, we examined broadly the theory behind the concept of adaptive capacity. We then considered how interdisciplinary, trait‐ and triage‐based approaches encompassing the oft‐overlooked interactions among components of adaptive capacity can be used to identify species and populations likely to have higher (or lower) adaptive capacity. We identified the challenges and value of such endeavors and argue for a concerted interdisciplinary research approach that combines ecology, ecological genetics, and eco‐physiology to reflect the interacting components of adaptive capacity. We aimed to provide a basis for constructive discussion between natural‐resource managers and researchers, discussions urgently needed to identify research directions that will deliver answers to real‐world questions facing resource managers, other conservation practitioners, and policy makers. Directing research to both seek general patterns and identify ways to facilitate adaptive capacity of key species and populations within species, will enable conservation ecologists and resource managers to maximize returns on research and management investment and arrive at novel and dynamic management and policy decisions.     

Progress in the ecology and conservation of giant pandas

Giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) conservation is a possible success story in the making. If extinction of this iconic endangered species can be avoided, the species will become a showcase program for the Chinese government and its collaborators. We reviewed the major advancements in ecological science for the giant panda, examining how these advancements have contributed to panda conservation. Pandas’ morphological and behavioral adaptations to a diet of bamboo, which bear strong influence on movement ecology, have been well studied, providing knowledge to guide management actions ranging from reserve design to climate change mitigation. Foraging ecology has also provided essential information used in the creation of landscape models of panda habitat. Because habitat loss and fragmentation are major drivers of the panda population decline, efforts have been made to help identify core habitat areas, establish where habitat corridors are needed, and prioritize areas for protection and restoration. Thus, habitat models have provided guidance for the Chinese governments’ creation of 67 protected areas. Behavioral research has revealed a complex and efficient communication system and documented the need for protection of habitat that serves as a communication platform for bringing the sexes together for mating. Further research shows that den sites in old‐growth forests may be a limiting resource, indicating potential value in providing alternative den sites for rearing offspring. Advancements in molecular ecology have been revolutionary and have been applied to population census, determining population structure and genetic diversity, evaluating connectivity following habitat fragmentation, and understanding dispersal patterns. These advancements form a foundation for increasing the application of adaptive management approaches to move panda conservation forward more rapidly. Although the Chinese government has made great progress in setting aside protected areas, future emphasis will be improved management of pandas and their habitat.     

Climate change and soil salinity: The case of coastal Bangladesh

This paper estimates location-specific soil salinity in coastal Bangladesh for 2050. The analysis was conducted in two stages: First, changes in soil salinity for the period 2001–2009 were assessed using information recorded at 41 soil monitoring stations by the Soil Research Development Institute. Using these data, a spatial econometric model was estimated linking soil salinity with the salinity of nearby rivers, land elevation, temperature, and rainfall. Second, future soil salinity for 69 coastal sub-districts was projected from climate-induced changes in river salinity and projections of rainfall and temperature based on time trends for 20 Bangladesh Meteorological Department weather stations in the coastal region. The findings indicate that climate change poses a major soil salinization risk in coastal Bangladesh. Across 41 monitoring stations, the annual median projected change in soil salinity is 39 % by 2050. Above the median, 25 % of all stations have projected changes of 51 % or higher.