Flood risk management: What are the main drivers of prevention?

4 p.In a changing and unstable climate, climatic flood risk will increase: more intense and more extreme events would be more frequent. Higher climatic risk will turn into higher socio-economic risk, unless we implement appropriate adaption measures to prevent the risk. * Spatial hydro-economic approaches are widely used to estimate the risk and is a strong basis to elicit flood damage drivers to target prevention policy. Then, locally identified risks must give rise to prevention measures adapted to the local socio-economic, environmental and hydrological reality. * Flood warning alone cannot prevent the risk. Emergency and divulgation plans should enter in the equation of risk prevention in the institutional set of measures. * Infrastructural measures of defense have been an historical answer to manage the risk. In a changing climate their efficiency to alone protect goods and lifes has been questioned. Environmental measures are designed to recover natural dynamic of rivers. They can provide the flexibility required to adapt to uncertain environments. * Flood risk adaptation measures must involve both the private and public sectors to reduce vulnerability and exposure. With a higher climatic risk, financial insurance might become costlier. Self protection measures, designed to reduce the probability of suffering damages due to the flood can be promoted and supported by the institutional sector via diagnostic of vulnerability of the private sector

Exploitation of soil biota ecosystem services in agriculture: a bioeconomic approach

24 p.This paper analyzes the interactions between soil biota and agricultural practices in the exploitation of soil ecosystem services. A theoretical bioeconomic model stylized this set of interactions and combined a production function approach with optimal control theory. In the model, a farmer decides his optimal use of external input and land use given that (i) land uses modify soil biota composition, (ii) the external input reduces soil biota population. The results show how the combination of ecological interactions, farmer\\\'s expectations on the evolution of the stock of soil biota and the technology of production determines the optimal decisions. The interpretation of the results helps to understand why and under which circumstances a sustainable or a non-sustainable use of soil ecosystem services may be optimal for farmers. A particular emphasis given to the role of property rights and time preferences in the use of soil biota services reveals the ambiguity of their role on the conservation of soil ecosystem services generated by soil biota

Information, Experience, and Willingness to Mitigate Mental Health Consequences From Flooding Through Collective Defence

Demand for reducing mental health impacts from flooding through collective flood defence is elicited using a contingent valuation method with a sequential hypothetical scenario, which accounts for human resilience and experience. A two-step model fits the survey data: it combines a binary sample selection rule to distinguish protesters and participants with a Tobit model to accommodate true zero responses among participants. Results show that non-symptoms-specific information on mental health risk may bias the willingness to pay downward. Risk-averse individuals who have taken self-insurance protection measures are willing to pay for additional protection through collective defence. Feelings, such as worries and anxiety related to flooding, drive the demand, which supports the risk-as-feelings hypothesis for mental health protection from flooding. Inexperience rather than experience of flooding is found to increase demand, which indicates that individual mental resilience to flooding may increase after an event as posited by the inoculation hypothesis. © 2022. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.This paper is supported by María de Maetzu excellence accreditation 2018–2022 (Ref. MDM‐2017‐0714), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/; and by the Basque Government through the BERC 2022–2025 program

Determinants of travel mode choice in Europe: Results from a survey on routine mobility

Understanding the differences in travel behaviour across different countries underlined by trip and individual characteristics are paramount to develop effective policies to nudge a shift towards sustainable mobility. In this study we present a descriptive analysis of the results of a mobility household survey, collecting information on citizen travel behaviour, travel mode choices and the factors influencing them. The study involves five European countries: Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland and Spain. Results describe how travel mode choice fluctuates with users’ heterogeneity and that different mobility transition policies receive different support from citizens. Instruments implying a direct financial cost are much less accepted than technology- and infrastructure-based policies. Support to policies such as road expansion is also observed. The transition in mobility should then have to deal with households’ beliefs to make them revise their travel behaviours. But the mobility transition is also closely linked to the city development and the distribution of workplace and grocery shopping in the cit

Factors affecting energy-efficiency investment in the hotel industry: survey results from Spain

Increasing energy efficiency is a major way of saving energy and thus reducing energy expenses. However, adoption of energy efficiency is generally low, as demonstrated by the energy efficiency gap. To understand that gap, this paper analyses the factors that affect how the energy efficiency attribute is rated in investment in heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in the hotel industry in Spain. A survey conducted on two hundred owners of hotels, hostels and holiday cottages (referred to jointly here for the sake of convenience as the hotel industry ) shows that the value placed on energy efficiency is influenced not just by climate conditions, environmental concern and type of hotel but also by other attributes of the HVAC system such as brand reliability, price and performance. The hotel industry may also be identifying EE as a proxy for quality rather than savings. Designing the right energy-efficiency policy entails accounting for potential responses by agents, and this analysis helps identify those drivers to which they may or may not respond. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. part of Springer Nature.This study was undertaken as a part of the CONSumer Energy Efficiency Decision making (CONSEED) project, an EU-funded H2020 research project under grant agreement number 723741. This research is also supported by the Spanish State Research Agency through María de Maeztu Excellence Unit accreditation 2018-2022 (Ref. MDM-2017- 0714) and the Basque Government BERC programme. Financial support from the Government of Spain and the European Regional Development Fund through grants RTI2018-093692-B-I00, RTC2019- 007315-3 and RED2018-102794-T is gratefully acknowledged

The contribution of carsharing to low carbon mobility: Complementarity and substitution with other modes

This paper analyses both the attributes of carsharing transport modes (station-based and free-floating) and their relationship with other transport modes. Users' and stakeholders’ perspectives are synthesized from in-depth interviews in Spain. The elicitation of the comparative advantages of the two carsharing modes with respect to public transport and private vehicles helps identifying factors such as availability of parking, road pricing and convenience that drive the complementary and substitution property of carsharing with other transport modes. Interviews show the limited complementarity of carsharing with public transport, as well as the limited substitutability with private vehicles. Potential policy instruments to make carsharing coexist with public transport are discussed.The authors acknowledge support from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovations programme under grant agreement N?727524, Project: ?Enabling the Energy Union through understanding the drivers of individual and collective energy choices, in Europe?. This research is also supported by the Spanish State Research Agency through Mar?a de Maeztu Excellence Unit accreditation 2018?2022 (Ref. MDM-2017-0714); and by the Basque Government through the BERC 2018?2021 program. Alberto Ansuategi gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (grant RTI2018-093352-B-100) and the UPV/EHU (grant GIC18/29). Ibon Galarraga also wishes to acknowledge the financial support from the Government of Spain and the European Regional Development Fund through grant RTI2018-093692-B-I00

Domination masculine et représentations sexuées des acteurs du champ politique : une approche par les lapsus d’adresse

À partir d’une analyse des lapsus d’adresse commis par les acteurs du champ politique, l’objectif de notre article est de montrer que la confusion entre champ politique et masculinité qui caractérise les représentations de ces acteurs s’est atténuée depuis les lois sur la parité. Notre article vise également à montrer qu’elles restent marquées par la domination masculine.This article proposes an analysis of mistitlings committed by political field actors. It aims at showing that the confusion between the political field and masculinity which characterizes the representations of these actors has decreased since gender parity laws. But our article also aims to prove that their representations remain marked by masculine domination.A partir de un análisis de los lapsus cometidos por agentes del campo político y que implican errores de la denominación, el objetivo de nuestro artículo es mostrar que la confusión entre el campo político y masculinidad que caracteriza las representaciones de estos agentes, se ha atenuado desde las leyes sobre la paridad. Nuestro artículo también pretende mostrar que siguen marcados por la dominación masculina

Consumers’ preferences regarding energy efficiency: a qualitative analysis based on the household and services sectors in Spain

Informational failures frequently lead consumers to make non-optimal energy-efficient purchasing decisions. Energy efficiency labels seek to influence consumer behaviour at the point of sale by reducing informational failures regarding energy efficiency. However, several informational and behavioural factors contribute to the energy efficiency gap and could render label-oriented policies useless. The purchasing decision model of Allcott and Greenstone (The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 26, 3 28, 2012) is used here to explore the different factors that influence purchasing decisions and understand (i) the importance of energy consumption compared to other attributes; (ii) how consumers weight energy savings and (iii) what other benefits and costs influence the purchase of energy-efficient goods. The analysis reported here is based on qualitative research methods and is conducted in the household and service sectors (the accommodation sector and private service companies), for appliances, heating and cooling systems and cars in Spain. Results show that (i) there is still an informational gap regarding energy labels and (ii) bounded rationality and end-user behaviour are important limiting factors for the purchase of energy-efficient goods in Spain. © 2020, The Author(s).This work was undertaken as a part of the CONSumer Energy Efficiency Decision making (CONSEED) project, an EU-funded H2020 research project under grant agreement number 723741. This research is also supported by the Spanish State Research Agency through María de Maeztu Excellence Unit accreditation 2018-2022 (Ref. MDM-2017-0714). Amaia de Ayala would like to thank the financial support of Fundación Ramón Areces under the project entitled “La toma de decisiones de los hogares en eficiencia energética: determinantes y diseño de políticas”