Development and the Upland Resource Base: Economic and Policy Context, and Lessons from a Philippine Watershed

Economic growth and environmental damage are associated, but the relationship is neither linear nor even monotonic. The nature of the growth-environment link depends on the changing composition of production and consumption and on growth-related changes in techniques and environmental policies. The definition and enforcement of property rights over natural resources and environmental quality is another important element. Moreover, environmental and economic policies interact: in effect, every economic policy that affects resource allocation is a de facto environmental measure. In increasingly commercialized and decentralized economies, the responsibility for environmental management and the design and implementation of environmental policy are shifting from central government to communities and local administrations. This is especially true of Asia's uplands, where market-driven pressures for agricultural expansion and intensification collide with an increasingly urgent need to manage the natural resource base and minimize local and external environmental damages associated with growth. This paper provides a brief survey of these issues as a way of introducing the papers in this special issue of the Philippine Journal of Development on the local management of agricultural and natural resources and the environment. It concludes with some remarks on the experience of the SANREM-CRSP/Southeat Asia, a research and outreach project aimed at enabling better resource and environmental management decisions by upland communities in the Philippines, and the sponsor of these papers.natural resources and environment, environmental management, uplands, economy-environment linkage

Valuation of Forest Resources in Watershed Areas: Selected Applications in Makiling Forest Reserve

The valuation of resources found in the watershed area is important in assessing the impacts of changes in the watershed. While the change will have positive impacts which are short-term in nature, there are long-term environmental damages associated with economic benefits. This paper gives a rational judgment on the soundness of such changes through cost and benefit analysis. The watershed approach is utilized to capture the effects that are relevant in the analysis.forestry sector, watershed, uplands

Water in Metro Cebu: The Case for Policy and Institutional Reforms

Over the past decade, Metro Cebu has been rapidly moving toward growth and industrialization contributing as much as 70 percent to Visayas’ industrial output. However, associated with this progress are the concerns of various sectors about the quality of water services. Only 23 percent of the total households and a very small portion of industrial and commercial sectors are serviced by the Metro Cebu Water District. Hence, the large majority of households, industrial and commercial firms have to rely on private wells and private water vendors. This paper examines the policy and institutional factors that may be preventing the efficient, equitable and sustainable Metro Cebu’s water resource management. It also provides policy areas through which policy and institutional reforms can be implemented.water sector, water allocation, governance

Valuation of Forest Resources in Watershed Areas: Selected Applications in Makiling Forest Reserve

The valuation of resources found in the watershed area is important in assessing the impacts of changes in the watershed. While the change will have positive impacts which are short-term in nature, there are long-term environmental damages associated with economic benefits. This paper gives a rational judgment on the soundness of such changes through cost and benefit analysis. The watershed approach is utilized to capture the effects that are relevant in the analysis.forestry sector, watershed, uplands

Nitrate elimination by denitrification in hardwood forest soils of the Upper Rhine floodplain – correlation with redox potential and organic matter

Denitrification in floodplains is a major issue for river- and groundwater quality. In the Upper Rhine valley, floodplain forests are about to be restored to serve as flood retention areas (polders). Besides flood attenuation in downstream areas, improvement of water quality became recently a major goal for polder construction. Redox potential monitoring was suggested as a means to support assessment of nitrogen elimination in future floodplains by denitrification during controlled flooding. To elucidate the relationship between redox potential and denitrification, experiments with floodplain soils and in situ measurements were done. Floodplain soil of two depth profiles from a hardwood forest of the Upper Rhine valley was incubated anaerobically with continuous nitrate supply. Reduction of nitrate was followed and compared with redox potential and organic matter content. The redox potential under denitrifying conditions ranged from 10 to 300 mV. Redox potential values decreased with increasing nitrate reduction rates and increasing organic matter content. Furthermore, a narrow correlation between organicmatter and nitrate reduction was observed. Experiments were intended to help interpreting redox potentials generated under in situ conditions as exemplified by in situ observations for the year 1999. Results obtained by experiments and in situ observations showed that monitoring of redox potential could support management of the flooding regime to optimize nitrogen retention by denitrification in future flood retention areas

Florida Geological Survey

The Florida Geological Survey (FGS) homepage provides data, research materials and interpretations on aquifer systems, geologic frameworks, landforms, energy and non-energy mineral resources, and geologic hazards which which can be used to address issues of conservation and protection, sustainable development, human health protection, and implementation of successful environmental regulatory programs. Educational materials for earth science and the pre-historic development of the state are also provided. These include topics such as sinkholes, data and maps, rock and mineral identification, minerals, hydrogeology, and fossils. Educational levels: General public

A GIS-based methodological framework to identify superficial water sources and their corresponding conduction paths for gravity-driven irrigation systems in developing countries

The limited availability of fresh water is a major constraint to agricultural productivity and livelihood security in many developing countries. Within the coming decades, smallholder farmers in drought-prone areas are expected to be increasingly confronted with local water scarcity problems, but their access to technological knowledge and financial resources to cope with these problems is often limited. In this article, we present a methodological framework that allows for identifying, in a short period of time, suitable and superficial water sources, and cost-effective water transportation routes for the provisioning of gravity-driven irrigation systems. As an implementation of the framework, we present the automated and extensible geospatial toolset named “AGRI’’, and elaborate a case study in Western Honduras, where the methodology and toolset were applied to provide assistance to field technicians in the process of identifying water intake sites and transportation routes. The case study results show that 28 % of the water intake sites previously identified by technicians (without the support of AGRI) were found to be not feasible for gravity-driven irrigation. On the other hand, for the feasible water intake sites, AGRI was able to provide viable and shorter water transportation routes to farms in 70 % of the cases. Furthermore, AGRI was able to provide alternative feasible water intake sites for all considered farms, with correspondingly viable water transportation routes for 74 % of them. These results demonstrate AGRI’s potential to reduce time, costs and risk of failure associated with the development of low-cost irrigation systems, which becomes increasingly needed to support the livelihoods of some of the world’s most vulnerable populations

Water Funds: Conserving Green Infrastructure

This manual is an effort by TNC to compile, analyze and synthesize its own experience, together with that of the water funds already in existence and under creation, in order to provide operational guidelines to people and organizations interested in establishing a water fund or similar mechanism. Each location has different ecological, social, economic, legal and institutional features and, therefore, each water fund will have its own characteristics, phases and projections. This manual presents general guidelines and logical steps that must be followed to boost the opportunities and benefits of a water fund and to minimize possible obstacles for its creation. It is not intended to be an in-depth look at every aspect of water funds. Although TNC participates in several other initiatives and similar approaches to watershed management, such as the water producers program in Brazil, this document will not address those initiatives and will only focus on the water funds scheme, placing greater emphasis on experiences in the Andean region

Beyond Biomass: Valuing Genetic Diversity in Natural Resource Management

Strategies for increasing production of goods from working and natural systems have raised concerns that the diversity of species on which these services depend may be eroding. This loss of natural capital threatens to homogenize global food supplies and compromise the stability of human welfare. We assess the trade off between artificial augmentation of biomass and degradation of biodiversity underlying a populations' ability to adapt to shocks. Our application involves the augmentation of wild stocks of salmon. Practices in this system have generated warnings that genetic erosion may lead to a loss of the “portfolio effect” and the value of this loss is not accounted for in decision making. We construct an integrated bioeconomic model of salmon biomass and genetic diversity. Our results show how practices that homogenize natural systems can still generate positive returns. However, the substitution of more physical capital and labor for natural capital must be maintained for gains to persist, weakens the capacity for adaptation should this investment cease, and can cause substantial loss of population wildness. We apply an emerging optimization method—approximate dynamic programming—to solve the model without simplifying restrictions imposed previously