The Pitfalls of Sustainability Policies: Insights into Plural Sustainabilities

A lot can be learned from the numerous pitfalls of sustainable development implementation: they outline how collective representation, short term interests and balance of power can undermine sustainability. For instance, the usefulness of global institutions in dealing with sustainable development is questionable as most are skewed toward the interests and perceptions of developed countries. The notion of sustainable development itself induces a profound cleavage between academic authors and the actors of its implementation, some of whom confuse it with sustainable growth (which favors spatial equity), whilst the others with environment management (which favors intergenerational equity). This polarization is a real problem, since originally, "Our Common Future" report promotes an inclusive approach, able to cope with both equities simultaneously. Finally, if there are obligations toward future generations, there are also obligations toward the current generation. The key issue for effective sustainability policies should be making them acceptable to everyone by including the expectations of local societies and communities. As a matter of consequence, universal solutions do not exist. They would not meet the specificities of local circumstances. The traditional prescriptive sustainable development model should give way to flexible plural sustainabilities. Singular, top-down, global-to-local approaches to sustainable development should be substituted for multiple sustainabilities

Defining Sustainability in Nebraska’s Republican River Basin: The LB 1057 Task Force

This symposium presents an opportunity to discuss agricultural sustainability. But we have little practical understanding of what agricultural sustainability really means. This is a common problem with sustainability efforts. This Article provides one example of this problem. But it also provides a story of how an effort at defining sustainability served as a catalyst for a group of stakeholders that wanted to make improvements in water management. Understood in this way, sustainability discussions can serve to overcome historic barriers to progress that so often arise with resource management problems, especially in the agricultural sector

An Integrated Ecological-Social Simulation Model of Farmer Decisions and Cropping System Performance in the Rolling Pampas (Argentina)

Changes in agricultural systems are a multi-causal process involving climate change, globalization and technological change. These complex interactions regulate the landscape transformation process by imposing land use and cover change (LUCC) dynamics. In order to better understand and forecast the LUCC process we developed a spatially explicit agent-based model in the form of a Cellular Automata: the AgroDEVS model. The model was designed to project viable LUCC dynamics along with their associated economic and environmental changes. AgroDEVS is structured with behavioral rules and functions representing a) crop yields, b) weather conditions, c) economic profits, d) farmer preferences, e) adoption of technology levels and f) natural resource consumption based on embodied energy accounting. Using data from a typical location of the Pampa region (Argentina) for the period 1988-2015, simulation exercises showed that economic goals were achieved, on average, each 6 out of 10 years, but environmental thresholds were only achieved in 1.9 out of 10 years. In a set of 50-years simulations, LUCC patterns converge quickly towards the most profitable crop sequences, with no noticeable trade-off between economic and environmental conditions.Fil: Pessah, Sebastián. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; ArgentinaFil: Ferraro, Diego Omar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; ArgentinaFil: Blanco, Daniela. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Computación; ArgentinaFil: Castro, Rodrigo Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias de la Computación. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias de la Computación; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Computación; Argentin

Exergy-based Index for the assessment of building sustainability

ABSTRACT Exergy-based Index for the assessment of building sustainability Ahmed El shenawy, Ph.D. Concordia University, 2013 The declining state of the environment, combined with the increasing scarcity of natural resources and economic recession, presents us with the need to discover building practices that are capable of producing sustainable buildings. Building promoters are racing to certify the sustainability of their projects, aware that building sustainability assessment will delineate the features of current and future building practice. A sustainable building implies that resource depletion and waste emissions are considered during its whole life cycle. This research project proposes a new methodology and Exergy-based Index to assess building sustainability and to assist decision makers comparing building alternatives, since the wrong decisions can lead to serious consequences and even precipitate crises. The proposed methodology uses the SBTool that has been utilized for defining the criteria for analysing and ranking the environmental performance of buildings. Over the past decade, significant efforts have been made in developing Sustainable Building (SB) assessment tools that allow all stakeholders/actors to be aware of the consequences of various choices and to assess building performance. These SB tools, approaches, rating systems, indices and methods of assessment have already been utilized in the market (e.g., Multi-Criteria Assessment (MCA) methods, such as LEED and SBTool, Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) systems, like ATHENA, and the Single Index (SI) approach (Ecological footprint)). However, are existing SB assessment tools actually capable of considering the regional issues? Is it possible to use them to assess all types of buildings? Are they objective, easy to customize? Is it easy to interpret their final assessment results and are those results transparent to the end users? Despite the usefulness of the current assessment methods in contributing towards a more sustainable building industry, some of the limitations and critiques of these assessment methods indicate that the tools should evolve toward a genuinely generic and scientifically global SB assessment tool. After discussing and summarizing the limitations of the existing definitions, indices and rating systems for building sustainability assessment, a definition of a sustainable building in terms of thermodynamics is proposed, mainly based on the exergy concept. This proposal is supported by a general mathematical calculation for the exergy-based index of building sustainability. The index uses the comparison between the available solar exergy (considered to be the only renewable energy source) and the exergy lost due to a building’s construction and operation to measure the a building’s sustainability. Moreover, the selection and transfer of data from the SBTool, and the assumptions and additional calculations required for the assessment of the exergy-based index of sustainability are presented and quantified. A rating scale is also presented along with the index of building sustainability. Finally, case studies of residential and commercial buildings are used to demonstrate the framework’s reliability. The contribution of the proposed Exergy-based index is evaluated by comparing its similarities and differences with a selection of the available building assessment tools and methods

Can we break the addiction to fossil energy? : Proceedings of the 7th Biennial International Workshop Advances in Energy Studies

Sponsored by Obra Social "la Caixa", Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and LIPHE4 Scientific Association, Generalitat de Catalunya.From 1998 onwards, every other two years, the Biennial International Workshop "Advances in Energy Studies" (BIWAES) gathers experts in what can be called energy analysis to present and discuss advances, innovations and visions in energy and energy-related environmental and socioeconomic issues and models. Renowned energy experts and ecologists, such as H.T. Odum, James Kay, Charles Hall, Tim Allen, Vaclav Smil, Robert Herendeen, Jan Szargut, Joseph Tainter and Robert Ulanowicz among others, have discussed at the BIWAES the importance of energy in our society and ecosystems and the ways to better analyze and model their complex relationships. Previous editions of BIWAES have focused on energy flows in ecology and economy; analysis of the supply side; the ecological consequences of energy sources exploitation; and the role of renewable energy sources and new energy carriers. The present Book of Proceedings refers to the seventh Edition, which took place in the month of October 2010 in Barcelona and addressed society's addiction to fossil energy

Emergetic evaluation of cattle rearing in a montado farm

O Montado, em Portugal, é um complexo sistema silvopastoril de uso da terra, tipicamente Mediterrânico, com diversos estratos de vegetação, incluindo sobreiro e azinheira em várias densidades, onde é frequente a criação de gado. Esta actividade pecuária beneficia das pastagens no sob-coberto, de algumas espécies arbustivas e também das bolotas que caem do coberto arbóreo, contribuindo para evitar a invasão da pastagem por matos. No entanto, dependendo da sua gestão, este gado pode comprometer a regeneração do sistema. Nos últimos 20 anos, os subsídios no âmbito da Política Agrícola Comum da União Europeia têm promovido a criação de gado bovino em detrimento de outras espécies e raças mais leves, bem como a intensificação desta produção. Esta intensificação pode impossibilitar a regeneração natural das árvores ameaçando o equilíbrio do Montado. Por esta razão é necessária uma avaliação focada na criação de gado bovino e nos seus impactos sobre o sistema. O objectivo deste estudo foi obter uma melhor compreensão do funcionamento de uma exploração silvopastoril num sistema de Montado, através da aplicação do Método de Avaliação Emergética e do cálculo de índices emergéticos. Pretende-se assim compreender a melhor forma de o gerir, bem como conceber estratégias que maximizem o fluxo de emergia na exploração. Uma comparação deste método com a avaliação económica permitiu perceber em que aspectos esta pode ser complementada pelo método da avaliação emergética. O método da avaliação emergética permite a avaliação de sistemas multifuncionais complexos à escala de uma exploração individual, fornecendo informação extra em relação à avaliação económica como a renovabilidade dos inputs do sistema, ou a quantidade de fluxos livres da natureza que é valorada por preços de mercado. Este método permite a integração das emternalidades e das externalidades à contabilização económica, transformando uma avaliação tendencialmente separada do seu sistema mais vasto, numa avaliação de um sistema em conexão com aqueles mais vastos nos quais se integra; Abstract: The Montado, in Portugal, is a complex silvo-pastoral system of land use, typically Mediterranean, with different strata of vegetation, including cork and holm oaks in various densities, and where cattle rearing is common. This stockfarm benefits from the herbaceous layer under the trees, as well as from some species in the shrub layer, and also from the acorns faling down from the tree cover, while contributing to prevent the invasion of pastures by shrubs. Nevertheless, depending on its management, livestock can affect the system regeneration. Over the past 20 years, subsidies of the European Union's common agricultural policy have promoted the cattle rearing at expense of other lighter species and breeds, as well as its intensification. This intensification may impair the natural regeneration of trees threatening the balance of the Montado. Therefore an assessment focused on cattle and their impact on the system is required. The purpose of this study was to obtain a better understanding of the functioning of a silvo-pastoral farm in a Montado system, by applying the emergy evaluation method and through the calculation of emergy indices. It is intended to understand the best way to manage and design strategies that maximize the emergy flow on the farm. A comparison of this method with the economic evaluation allowed to realize in what aspects it can be complemented by the emergy evaluation method. The emergy evaluation method alows the assessment of complex multi-functional systems at the scale of an individual farm, providing extra information in relation to economic avaluation as the renewability of the inputs to a system and the amount of free flows of nature that is valued by market prices. This method allows the integration of the emternalities and the externalities to the economic accounting, transforming an evaluation tended separated from its wider system, in an evaluation of a system in connection with the larger ones on which it is incorporated

Linking forests to faucets: Investigating alternative approaches for securing long-term funding for watershed restoration in New Mexico.

Due to a mix of inter-related human and natural factors, such as climate change, drought, beetle damage, 20th century fire suppression policy and associated hazardous fuels build-up, and the expansive growth of the Wildland-Urban Interface, many montane forests in New Mexico and elsewhere in the western United States have become increasingly susceptible to high-severity wildfires. Critical sources for public drinking water systems often originate in montane forests, where wildland fires can alter hydrologic systems and degrade watersheds, while creating significant runoff, debris, and water quality impacts downstream. As the impact of high severity wildfires expands significantly beyond the proximal burn area, the scale of institutional arrangements does not match, and old rules for forest management and wildfire risk mitigation often fail. Recent efforts in New Mexico have sought to bring together stakeholders to address forest management and watershed restoration at new regional scales. A critical issue is the creation of sustainable, long-term funding mechanisms to support expanded restoration efforts to mitigate wildfire risk. Borrowing from the work of institutional scholar and Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom, I apply a theoretical framework for looking at interconnected social-ecological systems, the development of these policy problems, and the efforts to address them, in order to highlight institutional variables that are important for connecting forest health and downstream water uses. I observe that using payment for ecosystem services models as a guide, rather than a panacea, has developed arrangements that are tailored to their purpose and deviate from the traditional payment for ecosystem services arrangements

Rethinking Transboundary Ground Water Resources Management: A Local Approach along the Mexico-U.S. Border

Despite more than forty years of promises to the contrary, neither Mexico nor the United States have shown any inclination to pursue a border-wide pact to coordinate management of the border region’s transboundary ground water resources. As a result, these critical resources – which serve as the sole or primary source of fresh water for most border communities on both sides – are being overexploited and polluted, leaving the local population with little recourse. Imminently unsustainable, the situation portends a grim future for the region. In the absence of national governmental interests and involvement on either side of the frontier, this article advocates an alternative approach, one that sidesteps the respective federal authorities. It proposes that subnational entities at the regional and local level pursue cooperation in the form of locally-specific, cross-border arrangements. These may take the form of informal memorandum of understanding, or more structured contracts for goods or services. Under the unique circumstances of the Mexico-U.S. border, such arrangements are likely more achievable and apt to create viable cross-border pacts that would be respected by the local communities. Moreover, they are more likely to achieve a sustainable and water-secure future for the border, its communities, and the natural environment