3,721 research outputs found
Surveying views on Payments for Ecosystem Services: implications for environmental management and research
The concept of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) is globally of increasing interest. However, little is known about the views and expectations of professionals and practitioners expected to enable or implement this concept. Since these individuals design, select, shape and deliver environmental management, their views and expectations are critical to understanding how PES may play out in practice. Using the first survey on this topic, in the UK this research discusses the implications for future research and environmental management.
Responses indicate a range of views about PES and its potential effects. Most expect to see greater use of PES in future; and are cautiously positive about the environmental, social and economic consequences of doing so. Many hope PES may overcome existing challenges facing environmental management, subject to conditions or changes. The research also revealed tensions related to broader challenges in environmental governance â e.g. calls for standardisation may conflict with requests for adaptability. Meanwhile, other expectations â e.g. improved engagement with groups currently uninterested in the environment â indicate priorities that may be better addressed with other instruments. Varied views are likely in most countries and must be assessed to better understand the prospects and potential of PES
Quantifying relational values â why not?
© 2018 Elsevier B.V. Relational values have recently emerged as a novel concept for research on human-environment relationships, seeking to understand ethical principles that may foster environmental stewardship, coupled with a recognition of nature's contributions to people. At present, most empirical research on relational values uses qualitative methods. Here we review some of the reasons that may have contributed to the lack of quantitative research, besides noting that a lot of existing quantitative empirical research on human-environment relationships already deals with relational values, even if it does not use that terminology. We suggest that incorporating quantitative approaches into the methodological toolkit of relational values research has a number of benefits: First, it contributes to the empirical evidence base testing hypotheses and assumptions emerging from qualitative and conceptual work. Second, it may help identifying core relational values shared across cultures, and this way improve communication and cooperation across different cultures. Third, it may improve the political legitimacy of environmental decision-making via statistically representative measurements of public views. Complementing qualitative with quantitative approaches for relational values research is also in the spirit of integrated valuation and value pluralism
Value landscapes and their impact on public water policy preferences
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd A growing body of research suggests that people's values may be important predictors of their preferences regarding water governance and policy. However, this assertion is rarely tested empirically. The present study summarises the results of a large-scale quantitative study on the link between public water policy preferences and people's values, based on data from a representative sample of the general population collected in a household survey in the Upper Paraguay River Basin, Mato Grosso, Brazil (n = 1067). Structural equation modelling is applied to represent the clusters of values, or âvalue landscapesâ that shape attitudes and water policy preferences, in this case, for or against the construction of the highly controversial Paraguay-ParanĂĄ Waterway across the Pantanal wetland. Results demonstrate that opponents of the waterway share a value landscape composed of closely related self-transcendence values, democratic governance-related values, and ecological and cultural water values, whereas supporters hold self-enhancement values, economic governance-related values, and economic water values. Beyond this individual case study and beyond water governance, our findings may explain the protracted nature of, and seeming impossibility to resolve, environmental conservation vs. economic development conflicts more broadly.Scottish Government Hydro Nation Scholars Programm
Human Scale Energy Services: Untangling a âgolden threadâ
Prioritising human well-being while avoiding further damage to the planet is a key challenge in the era of climate change. This paper examines the role of energy as an intermediary between climate change and socio-economic outcomes, with the ultimate goal of identifying ways of decoupling human well-being from energy use. Building on Max-Neefâs âHuman Scale Developmentâ framework and conceptualisation of human needs, we propose a novel community-level participatory approach to identify connections between energy services on the one hand and human need satisfaction on the other. This approach then enables communities to collectively consider and propose alternative ways to provide energy services. We compare the outcomes and reflect on the process of two exploratory workshops, undertaken in an urban and a rural area in MedellĂn (Colombia). Our results indicate that these communities view energy services as satisfiers of human needs, with significant differences between the communities. Furthermore, our approach enables the communities to broaden the solution space of energy service provisioning possibilities, thus constituting a promising alternative to the top-down technocratic perspectives currently prevalent in research and policy. We argue that this type of bottom-up approach is necessary to address the complex sustainability challenge of living well within environmental limits
The Value Base of Water Governance: A Multi-Disciplinary Perspective
© 2016 Elsevier B.V. Some scholars promote water governance as a normative concept to improve water resources management globally, while others conceive of it as an analytical term to describe the processes, systems and institutions around the management of water resources and water supply. Critics often highlight how specific water governance scenarios fail to deliver socially desirable outcomes, such as social justice or environmental sustainability. While water governance is often perceived as a technical matter, its conceptual and practical components are in fact based on multiple values that, nonetheless, often remain implicit. The present paper seeks to uncover this value base and discusses existing research on values from multiple perspectives, using material from economics, philosophy, psychology, and other social sciences. In different disciplines, values can be understood as fundamental guiding principles, governance-related values or as values assigned to water resources. Together, they shape complex relationships with water governance, which from an analytical perspective is understood as a combination of policy, politics, and polity. Introducing a new conceptual framework, this study seeks to provide a theoretical foundation for empirical research on water governance processes and conflicts.Scottish Government Hydro Nation Scholars Programm
Applying a âValue Landscapes Approachâ to Conflicts in Water Governance: The Case of the Paraguay-ParanĂĄ Waterway
© 2017 Elsevier B.V. Values have been identified as important factors to estimate preferences within water governance and to assess the political legitimacy of water governance in a given time and location. The present study applies an interdisciplinary âvalue landscapes approachâ to water governance in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, using conflicts around the construction of the Paraguay-ParanĂĄ Waterway as a case study. Using material from interviews with major stakeholders in the region, the results demonstrate that supporters of the waterway hold similar âvalue landscapesâ around economic values of water, efficiency, order, and economic development, while opponents' âvalue landscapesâ centre on cultural and non-economic values of water, social justice, solidarity, conservation and tradition. This suggests that persistent conflicts around the Paraguay-ParanĂĄ Waterway are only an expression of much deeper value conflicts that are also relevant to other water governance issues. Moreover, values expressed through the planned construction of the Paraguay-ParanĂĄ Waterway disproportionately reflect values of powerful stakeholder groups such as the agribusiness sector, which significantly undermines its political legitimacy.Scottish Government Hydro Nation Scholars Programm
Uncovering the evidence base of the awareness-behaviour-water quality pathway: an interdisciplinary review of diffuse agricultural water pollution
Revisiting the Determinants of Pro-Environmental Behaviour to Inform Land Management Policy: A Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Model Application
Environmental policies in the realm of land management are increasingly focussing on inducing behavioural change to improve environmental management outcomes. This is based, implicitly or explicitly, on theories that suggest that pro-environmental behaviour can be understood, predicted and altered based on certain factors (referred to as determinants of pro-environmental behaviour). However, studies examining the determinants of pro-environmental behaviour have found mixed evidence. It is therefore important that we revisit these theories to assess if the evidence supports their postulations so that a more robust knowledge base can be established to inform land management policies. In this study, we do this using meta-analytic structural equation modelling (MASEM) to explore whether the evidence on determinants of pro-environmental behaviour supports the postulations of some predominantly applied theories of behaviour and/or behaviour change. The study analyses research in four environmental policy areas to identify implications for land management. Evidence from these related environmental areas is expected to provide insights relevant to the land management literature and to allow us to identify the extent to which lessons on pro-environmental behaviour from these other areas can be transferred to the land management context. Our findings suggest a strong evidence base for the Theories of Planned Behaviour and Reasoned Action, Attitude-Behaviour-Context Model, and the Persuasion Theory, but a weak evidence base for the Value-Belief-Norm Theory and the Norm Activation Model. We also found that type of environmental policy area moderates the relationship between different variables. This has key policy implications since, while lessons can be learnt from other environmental policy areas, land management policies aimed at influencing behaviours will need to be tailored to the specific context rather than simply âimportedâ from other fields. Such context-specific policies may encourage pro-environmental behaviours, and potentially contribute towards improving environmental management outcomes
Distinct ubiquitin binding modes exhibited by SH3 domains: Molecular determinants and functional implications
SH3 domains constitute a new type of ubiquitin-binding domains. We previously showed that the third SH3 domain (SH3-C) of CD2AP binds ubiquitin in an alternative orientation. We have determined the structure of the complex between first CD2AP SH3 domain and ubiquitin and performed a structural and mutational analysis to decipher the determinants of the SH3-C binding mode to ubiquitin. We found that the Phe-to-Tyr mutation in CD2AP and in the homologous CIN85 SH3-C domain does not abrogate ubiquitin binding, in contrast to previous hypothesis and our findings for the first two CD2AP SH3 domains. The similar alternative binding mode of the SH3-C domains of these related adaptor proteins is characterised by a higher affinity to C-terminal extended ubiquitin molecules. We conclude that CD2AP/CIN85 SH3-C domain interaction with ubiquitin constitutes a new ubiquitin-binding mode involved in a different cellular function and thus changes the previously established mechanism of EGF-dependent CD2AP/CIN85 mono-ubiquitination. © 2013 Ortega Roldan et al
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