Social dilemmas,policy instruments,and climate adaptation measures: the case of green roofs

Green roofs contribute to both climate change adaptation and mitigation. Promoting green roofs is thus a key element in urban strategies to address climate change. How to actually promote green roofs, however, has so far proven elusive: attempts to link specific policy instruments to a more or less successful diffusion of green roofs have been few and far between. The present paper relies on institutional economics to advance the present understanding of the link between policy instruments and green roofs. It argues that different green roofs are confronted with different social dilemmas, and thus require different policy instruments. Specifically, small green roofs face a free-rider problem, which is best addressed through regulations and incentives. Large green roofs face instead a collective action problem, which is best addressed through communications and network-building. This perspective is tested empirically through a comparative analysis of 18 global cities on the forefront in the promotion of green roofs. The policy instruments observed in these cities match with the theoretical expectations laid down in the paper. Implications emerge for both policy and research.

     

Mind the Costs: Rescaling and Multi-Level Environmental Governance in Venice Lagoon

Competences over environmental matters are distributed across agencies at different scales on a national-to-local continuum. This article adopts a transaction costs economics perspective in order to explore the question whether, in the light of a particular problem, the scale at which a certain competence is attributed can be reconsidered. Specifically, it tests whether a presumption of least-cost operation concerning an agency at a given scale can hold. By doing so, it investigates whether the rescaling of certain tasks, aiming at solving a scale-related problem, is likely to produce an increase in costs for day-to-day agency operations as compared to the status quo. The article explores such a perspective for the case of Venice Lagoon. The negative aspects of the present arrangement concerning fishery management and morphological remediation are directly linked to the scale of the agencies involved. The analysis suggests that scales have been chosen correctly, at least from the point of view of the costs incurred to the agencies involved. Consequently, a rescaling of those agencies does not represent a viable option.     

Decontamination of soil containing POPs by the combined action of solid Fenton-like reagents and microwaves

The effect on halogenated aromatics of solid, non-toxic oxidants such as sodium percarbonate and the urea/hydrogen peroxide complex (Fenton-like reagents) was investigated. A microwaves-assisted, solvent-free method for soil decontamination is presented. It marks a considerable advance in the search of more efficient, environment-friendly procedures for the degradative oxidation of persistent organic pollutants. Residual pollutants in treated soil samples were determined by GC/MS analysis after solvent extraction or direct thermal desorption. Results showed that 4-chloronaphthol, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and p-nonylphenol had been degraded completely, 2,4-dibromophenol to a large extent.