Heavy metals and nitrogen in mosses: spatial patterns in 2010/2011 and long-term temporal trends in Europe

Naturally-occurring mosses have been sampled across Europe to monitor the deposition of heavy metals and nitrogen from the air. This survey has been repeated at five-yearly intervals since 1990 for heavy metals and since 2005 for nitrogen. In 2010/2011, mosses were collected at ca. 4,500 sites in 25 countries for heavy metals and ca. 2,400 sites in 15 countries for nitrogen. In general, the lowest concentrations in mosses were found in northern Europe for both heavy metals and nitrogen. The highest concentrations of heavy metals were often observed in south-eastern Europe, whereas the highest concentrations of nitrogen were found in parts of western and central Europe. Europe-wide the concentration of lead (77% decline), vanadium (57%), iron (52%) and cadmium (51%) has declined the most since 1990, whereas the concentration of copper has declined the least (11% decline). Since 1995, the concentration of arsenic and mercury has declined by 26% and 23% respectively. The nitrogen concentration in mosses has hardly changed since 2005

Willingness to pay for air quality improvements in Sofia, Bulgaria

Through a survey the authors study willingness to pay for improvements in air quality in Sofia, Bulgaria. Using a stochastic payment car approach - asking respondents the likelihood that they would agree to pay a series of prices - they estimate the distribution of willingness to pay various prices. They find that people in Sofia are willing to pay up to about 4.2 percent of their income for a program to improve air quality. The income elasticity of willingness to pay for air quality improvements is about 27 percent. For comparison, they also used the referendum contingent valuation approach. Results from that approach yielded a higher estimate of willingness to pay.Economic Theory&Research,Biodiversity,Environmental Economics&Policies,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Public Health Promotion,Biodiversity,Montreal Protocol,Access to Markets,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies

Abstracts : policy research working paper series - numbers 2262-2299

This paper contains abstracts of Policy Research Working Paper series Numbers2262-2299.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Governance Indicators,Achieving Shared Growth

Natural resources conservation management and strategies in agriculture

This paper suggests a holistic framework for assessment and improvement of management strategies for conservation of natural resources in agriculture. First, it incorporates an interdisciplinary approach (combining Economics, Organization, Law, Sociology, Ecology, Technology, Behavioral and Political Sciences) and presents a modern framework for assessing environmental management and strategies in agriculture including: specification of specific “managerial needs” and spectrum of feasible governance modes (institutional environment; private, collective, market, and public modes) of natural resources conservation at different level of decision-making (individual, farm, eco-system, local, regional, national, transnational, and global); specification of critical socio-economic, natural, technological, behavioral etc. factors of managerial choice, and feasible spectrum of (private, collective, public, international) managerial strategies; assessment of efficiency of diverse management strategies in terms of their potential to protect diverse eco-rights and investments, assure socially desirable level of environmental protection and improvement, minimize overall (implementing, third-party, transaction etc.) costs, coordinate and stimulate eco-activities, meet preferences and reconcile conflicts of individuals etc. Second, it presents evolution and assesses the efficiency of diverse management forms and strategies for conservation of natural resources in Bulgarian agriculture during post-communist transformation and EU integration (institutional, market, private, and public), and evaluates the impacts of EU CAP on environmental sustainability of farms of different juridical type, size, specialization and location. Finally, it suggests recommendations for improvement of public policies, strategies and modes of intervention, and private and collective strategies and actions for effective environmental protection

Heavy Metals Contamination in Eastern Europe: Background Load from the Atmosphere

In recent years there has been an increased interest in trace metals in the atmosphere and the environmental effects of their deposition. This is to large extent because heavy metals can accumulate in the biosphere and may be toxic to living systems. On the basis of IIASA's TRACE model, the total (wet plus dry) deposition of As, Cd, Pb and Zn has been estimated for Eastern Europe. These are annual averages for rural areas, and relate to the situation in Europe in the mid-1980s. The maximum deposition value is 3.5 mg m^{-2} yr^{-1} for As, 1.5 mg m^{-2} yr^{-1} for Cd and 50 mg m^{-2} yr^{-1} for Zn. All these maxima occur in Southern Poland. The highest total deposition of Pb (15.0-20.0 mg m^{-2} yr^{-1}) has been computed for western Czechoslovakia and also for southern Poland. Deposition levels throughout most of Eastern Europe are at least one or two orders of magnitude greater than observed in remote parts of the world. The annual average concentration of metals in some rural areas are lower, but within a factor of two of drinking water guidelines. This is cause for concern because some short-term concentrations are almost assuredly much higher than the annual average. Because of long-range transport, there is a very significant transboundary exchange of heavy metals within Eastern Europe. As with acid-causing pollutants, the problem of heavy metals contamination in the region depends on the reduction of this transboundary pollution

Incentives for pollution control - regulation and public disclosure

An increasing number of regulators have adopted public disclosure programs to create incentives for pollution control. Previous empirical analyses of monitoring and enforcement issues have focused strictly on the impact of such traditional practices as monitoring (inspections) and enforcement (fines and penalties) on polluters'environmental performance. Other analyses have separately focused on the impact of public disclosure programs. But can these programs create incentives in addition to the normal incentives of fines and penalties? The authors study the impact of both traditional enforcement and information strategies in the context of a single program, to gain insights into the relative impact of traditional (fines and penalties) and emerging (public disclosure) enforcement strategies. Their results suggest that the public disclosure strategy adopted by the province of British Columbia, Canada, has a greater impact on both emission levels and compliance status than do orders, fines, and penalties traditionally imposed by the courts and the Ministry of the Environment. But their results also demonstrate that adopting stricter standards and higher penalties also significantly affected emission levels. Policymakers, take note: 1) The presence of strong, clear standards together with a significant, credible penalty system sends appropriate signals to the regulated community, which responds by lowering pollution emissions. 2) The public disclosure of environmental performance creates strong additional incentives to control pollution.Public Health Promotion,Water and Industry,Water Conservation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water and Industry,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Sanitation and Sewerage,TF030632-DANISH CTF - FY05 (DAC PART COUNTRIES GNP PER CAPITA BELOW USD 2,500/AL

An evaluation of the direct costs of abatement under the main desulphurisation technologies

This study summarizes the available information on the technical characteristics and costs of those sulphur abatement technol¬ogies in operation at present or coming into operation in the near future. Relying on disaggregated source data and using engineering cost functions and various technical and economic assumptions, the least cost curves of sulphur abatement for all the European countries have been derived and some examples are presented. Finally, a sensitivity analysis of abatement strategies and costs to some alternative assumptions about energy futures is presentedAcid rain; Desulphurization; Abatement cost

European air quality maps 2005 including uncertainty analysis

The objective of this report is (a) the updating and refinement of European air quality maps based on annual statistics of the 2005 observational data reported by EEA Member countries in 2006, and (b) the further improvement of the interpolation methodologies. The paper presents the results achieved and an uncertainty analysis of the interpolated maps and builds upon earlier reports from Horalék et al. (2005; 2007)

Socio-economic Scenarios of Agricultural Land Use Change in Central and Eastern European Countries

The study presented in this paper is part of the ACCELERATES (Assessing Climate Change Effects on Land Use and Ecosystems from Regional Analysis to The European Scale) project whose main goal is the construction of integrated predictions of future land use in Europe. The scenarios constructed in the project include estimates not only due to changes in the climate baseline, but also estimates due to possible future changes in socio-economics. The overall aim of the ACCELERATES was to assess the vulnerability of European agroecosystems based on economic and environmental considerations in term of both their sensitivity and capacity to adapt changes. The historical background, the type of economy, the policy aim and governance and importance of agriculture in the overall national economy have created large differences between Western and Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs). This paper focuses on vulnerability of the farm sector and rural economy of CEECs.ACCELERATES, climate change, agricultural land use, scenario, Land Economics/Use, Q24,