Weighting social preferences in participatory multi-criteria evaluations: a case study on sustainable natural resource management

28 p.The use of multi-criteria evaluation tools in combination with participatory approaches provides a promising framework for integrating multiple interests and perspectives in the effort to provide sustainability. However, the inclusion of diverse viewpoints requires the ""compression"" of complex issues, a process that is controversial. Ensuring the quality of the compression process is a major challenge, especially with regards to retaining the essential elements of the various perspectives. In this article, we suggest a process in which the explicit elicitation of weights (i.e., the prioritisation of criteria) within a participatory multi-criteria evaluation serves as a quality assurance mechanism to check the robustness of sustainability integrated assessment processes from a social perspective. We demonstrate this approach using a case study focused on the sustainable management of the Urdaibai Estuary in the Basque Country (Southern Europe). Drawing on the large body of literature on sophisticated mathematical models that help identify and prioritise criteria, this approach allows (1) an explicit ""social sensitivity"" analysis despite the incommensurability of values regarding individual or group priorities, and (2) participants to learn from and reflect upon diverse social preferences without forcing their consensus

The basque ecological debt: global socioecological impacts of a small open economy

4 p.Globalisation of the world economy has increased the material and en-ergy flows around the planet raising the pressure over the environment. In this context, it becomes critical to better understand the links between current consumption and production patterns and associated socio-ecological impacts at multiple scales. *The energy and material consumption in the Basque Country illustrates the resource dependency and impact of northern open industrialised economies in the Global South, where, paradoxically, resource rich countries are facing serious difficulties to get out of poverty traps. *As the resource availability and waste absorption capacity of the planet are reaching its limits, it becomes more necessary to reduce the re-source consumption and pollution of developed countries so that the basic needs of all humans can be met, without dilapidating the environ-ment and hence the possibilities of future generations. *Rich countries should also reduce their resource dependency and en-sure that their consumption and production patterns fit to environmental and social standards, not only within their territory, but also abroad, where the commodity frontiers are expanding inexorably to access new resources

Environmental justice: instrumental for conserving natural resources

4 p.Environmental justice constitutes an instrumental element for conservation. - Environmental justice is based on the principles of equity, recognition of different values and inclusive decision processes. - Social equity is the catalyst of ecological effectiveness. - Conservation measures that ignore the Social context imply higher cost and stand the risk of failure in the long term

The contribution of the commons to the persistence of mountain grazing systems under the Common Agricultural Policy

[EN] Mountain grazing systems, based since ancient times on common land, are finding it increasingly challenging to ensure their economic viability. Although marginal in productive terms, these systems are high-value natural areas that provide multiple benefits for society (e.g. biodiversity and ecosystem services). They are usually studied from an institutional or local perspective, but little is known about how mountain common land interacts with policies at a higher level, e.g. the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) in Europe. This study assesses the contribution of the commons to the persistence of mountain sheep grazing systems in Europe under the CAP. To that end, we analyse economic and land use data on 20 farms in the mountain common grazing lands of Aralar (Basque Country, northern Spain). We find that CAP payments associated with common land account for 42% of net margin while the resources extracted from common grazing lands in the summer months provide on average 30% of annual energy requirements, which equates to 22.5% of farms' net margins. We conclude that under the current CAP the common land can play a key role in securing additional resources for the small farmers who engage in low-input traditional management practices that sustain these valuable grazing systems. The way in which existing intertwined institutions adapt to the emergence of new, higher level conditions such as the CAP will determine the future of ever-changing mountain commons.The authors thank Lurgintza S. Coop, the forest guard and shepherds of Enirio-Aralar, and thank Pablo Dominguez for a tough, critical review. Financial support was provided by the Spanish Government MICINN Programme (PID2020-113395RB-C21), BC3 Maria de Maeztu Excellence Accreditation MDM-2017-0714, Juan de la Cierva (FJCI2016-30263) and Basque (IT1365-19) and BERC 2018-2021 programmes

The management of Natura 2000 Network sites: a discrete choice experiment approach

One of the main problems that public institutions face in the management of protected areas, such as the European Natura 2000 network, is how to design and implement sustainable management plans accounting both for the social cost and benefits of conserving these sites. This paper provides with an empirical application of a discrete choice experiment undertaken in a Natura 2000 site in the Basque Country (Spain) aimed at evaluating the social preferences for different land-use options. This information is then used to evaluate the social desirability of some future management plans.environmental valuation, discrete choice experiments, choice modelling, Natura 2000

Social Equity Matters in Payments for Ecosystem Services

Although conservation efforts have sometimes succeeded in meeting environmental goals at the expense of equity considerations, the changing context of conservation and a growing body of evidence increasingly suggest that equity considerations should be integrated into conservation planning and implementation. However, this approach is often perceived to be at odds with the prevailing focus on economic efficiency that characterizes many payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes. Drawing from examples across the literature, we show how the equity impacts of PES can create positive and negative feedbacks that influence ecological outcomes. We caution against equity-blind PES, which overlooks these relationships as a result of a primary and narrow focus on economic efficiency. We call for further analysis and better engagement between the social and ecological science communities to understand the relationships and trade-offs among efficiency, equity, and ecological outcomes

Institutionalizing environmental valuation into policy:lessons from 7 Indonesian agencies

Monetary valuation of the environment is increasingly embedded in policy. Despite broad claims that valuation is policy-relevant, there is widespread frustration that it has not widely improved environmental outcomes, that it obscures many other types of values, and presents unintended consequences. We argue that this is, in part, because of a tendency to overlook the mechanics of how valuation tools and data are embedded into the institutions (regulations, norms, rules, schemes) that mediate decision-making. Discussions of how valuation engages with policy are often anecdotal and rarely systematic. This manuscript responds with a structured analysis of valuation within 7 Indonesian government institutions. By analyzing the legislative provisions that deal with valuation within each agency, we explore the challenges of institutionalizing valuation into policy. We consider the difficulties of: defining what is (and isn't) valuable, specifying methods, and identifying policy objectives. We found broad gaps and inconsistencies in the aims, definitions, methods, and treatment of non-market goods and services. We identify a need for broadened thinking about the role of valuation data within everyday environmental governance, including how it is codified and operationalized. To this end, we provide a framework of the “cascade” relationship between environmental management, ecosystem goods and services, human wellbeing, and their relationship to environmental governance, which uncovers the mechanics of how valuation can inform decision-making via different institutional arrangements. We call for a critical, yet also more pragmatic and field-based interrogation, of how and why valuation is conducted by decision-makers, in order to improve our understanding of its social and environmental implications

A new accounting framework for assessing forest footprint of nations

In a tele-coupled and globalized World, understanding the links between demand for wood products and land use is becoming challenging. World''s economies are increasingly open and interconnected, and international trade flows of wood products are continuously growing. The increasing resource consumption of humanity is increasingly dependent on international trade. In this context, the study of forest products demand from a global-multi-regional perspective emerges as a critical issue to achieve the goal of sustainable consumption and production. In this paper, we introduce a novel accounting framework for assessing the forest footprint of nations. The method combines Multi-regional Input-Output techniques and detailed data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations on production, consumption and bilateral trade of primary, intermediate and final wood products, advancing with respect to existing approaches with these practical distinctions for more accurate computations. The approach tracks resource flows along the global supply chain and provides detailed information on the production, transformation, international trade, and final use of 20 forest products in 223 countries, having also much wider coverage than most previous studies. We test this framework to analyse forest footprint of nations in the year 2014, showing that 22 Million hectares (Mha) of forest were harvested for the extraction of roundwood for global demand, being 9.1 Mha to satisfy the foreign demand of wood products (42% of the total forestland harvested area). Harvested forestland is concentrated in America (32%), Asia (29%) and Europe (28%), representing Africa (7%) and Oceania (4%). More than 50% of the reported forest area harvested worldwide is located in USA (15%), China (14%); Russia (11%) and Canada (8%). In terms of forest footprint, Asia shows the highest share of the total forest footprint (44%), followed by America (25%), Europe (21%), Africa (7%) and Oceania (2%). Country-wise, half is concentrated in China (24%), USA (16%), India (5%), and Russia (5%). © 2022 The Author

A new accounting framework for assessing forest footprint of nations

n a tele-coupled and globalized World, understanding the links between demand for wood products and land use is becoming challenging. World's economies are increasingly open and interconnected, and international trade flows of wood products are continuously growing. The increasing resource consumption of humanity is increasingly dependent on international trade. In this context, the study of forest products demand from a global-multi-regional perspective emerges as a critical issue to achieve the goal of sustainable consumption and production. In this paper, we introduce a novel accounting framework for assessing the forest footprint of nations. The method combines Multi-regional Input-Output techniques and detailed data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations on production, consumption and bilateral trade of primary, intermediate and final wood products, advancing with respect to existing approaches with these practical distinctions for more accurate computations. The approach tracks resource flows along the global supply chain and provides detailed information on the production, transformation, international trade, and final use of 20 forest products in 223 countries, having also much wider coverage than most previous studies. We test this framework to analyse forest footprint of nations in the year 2014, showing that 22 Million hectares (Mha) of forest were harvested for the extraction of roundwood for global demand, being 9.1 Mha to satisfy the foreign demand of wood products (42% of the total forestland harvested area). Harvested forestland is concentrated in America (32%), Asia (29%) and Europe (28%), representing Africa (7%) and Oceania (4%). More than 50% of the reported forest area harvested worldwide is located in USA (15%), China (14%); Russia (11%) and Canada (8%). In terms of forest footprint, Asia shows the highest share of the total forest footprint (44%), followed by America (25%), Europe (21%), Africa (7%) and Oceania (2%). Country-wise, half is concentrated in China (24%), USA (16%), India (5%), and Russia (5%).This article was developed under Letter of Agreement between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO, UN-REDD Programme) and the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3). The authors thank the staff of the FAO and BC3 for their comments, discussions and suggestions on this report. We are especially grateful to Malgorzata Buszko-Briggs, Tina Vahanen and Caroline Merle (FAO Forestry Department) for their contribution to frame and coordinate the research, and to Salar Tayyib, Daniela Di Filippo, Tomasz Filipczuk (FAO Statistics Division) and Arvydas Lebedys (FAO Forestry Department) for providing datasets and for their discussions and comments on data and methodological issues. The authors also thank the support of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities, through the project MALCON, RTI 2018-099858-A-I00, the Spanish State Research Agency through María de Maeztu Excellence Unit accreditation 2018–2022 (Ref. MDM-2017-0714), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, the Basque Government BERC 2018-2021 Programme, and the EU H2020 project LOCOMOTION GA no 821105

Modelling runoff from permeable pavements: a link to the Curve Number method

[EN] Permeable Pavement (PP) models are valuable tools for studying the implementation of PPs in urban environments. However, the runoff simulated by traditional models such as the Curve Number (CN) is different from that created with PP models, as infiltration is computed differently. However, many investigations compare the runoff created by both models to extract broader conclusions without considering how the two models are related. Hence, this research explores the relation between runoff simulated by one general model, selecting the widespread CN model as a baseline, and the PP model provided in the Storm Water Management Model (SWMM). Correlation was set using the hydrograph created with the CN in a single event as a baseline and obtaining the best pavement permeability value from the PP model by calibration. The influence of storm depth, pavement slope, catchment shape, and PP type was also analysed. Calibration was conducted based on the Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient, but peak and volume performances were also studied. The results show that it is possible to link runoff hydrographs computed with the PP model to those created with the CN method, although that relation is not useful for the entire CN range. That relation is practical for CNs higher than 88 and shall be helpful for urban planners and researchers to compare several pervious/impervious scenarios in urban drainage models more robustly. One direct application is to compare the runoff computed by both models without changing the method that simulates runoff. It shall be enough to change a unique parameter that can be linked to a certain imperviousness by the CN.This research was funded by the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU grant number US22/10.Madrazo-Uribeetxebarria, E.; Garmendia Antín, M.; Almandoz-Berrondo, J.; Andrés-Doménech, I. (2023). Modelling runoff from permeable pavements: a link to the Curve Number method. Water. 15(1). https://doi.org/10.3390/w1501016015