Maritime Transport - Report 1: Review of the Measurement of External Costs of Transportation in Theory and Practice

In the last years public concerns regarding the environmental impacts of maritime transport have been increasing. This is due to the fact that, despite the better environmental performance of this mode of transport with respect to other modes, its overall impacts will be out weighted by the expected increase in the volume of ship movements. In order to define effective measures to internalise the external costs of maritime transport it is necessary to assess these costs and find adequate methodologies to evaluate them. Besides external costs estimation, it is important to understand the degree of internalization of such costs, so as to give some insights on how to apply policy instruments that should be informed by efficiency and equity principles. This report summarizes the state of the art in evaluation of transport externalities. Different transport modes have been considered through a comprehensive review of theoretical and empirical studies, by carrying out both EU funded research and national studies. the analytical approach adopted to assess environmental costs (with particular reference to those relating to air emissions) in order to be applicable to maritime transport have to be adjusted to consider the following aspects. 1. The existing literature on climate change external costs focus on shadow price of CO2. However, in maritime transport other GHGs, such as NOx, are relevant. As a consequence, a shadow price for NOx needs to be defined; 2.Health effects of ship emissions depend on exposure to pollutants. Of course this occurs only for activities at ports, whilst health effects of other activities (like cruising) could turn to be negligible to the absence of exposure. Dose response function should consider this aspect.JRC.H.4-Transport and air qualit

Traps of multi-level governance. Lessons from the implementation of the Water Framework Directive in Italy

During recent decades, different patterns of multi-level governance (MLG) have spread across Europe as a consequence of Europeanisation of public policies, which have increasingly adopted decentralized and participatory procedures conceived as a tool of more effective and accountable policy-making. It appears, however, that the implementation of operational designs based on MLG may be rather problematic and it does not necessarily bring to the expected performance improvements. Referring to the case of the EU Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC), which conceives the creation of new multi-level institutional settings as a key tool for enacting a new holistic approach to water management and protection, this article explores the difficulties that the implementation of such settings has brought in Italy, despite some favorable pre-conditions existing in the country. Evidence is provided that along with institutional and agency variables, the implementation effectiveness of MLG arrangements promoted by the EU can be challenged by their inherent characteristics

Regulatory Constructivism: Application of Q Methodology in Italy and China

Conventional view holds that beliefs play an important role in the development of regulations but there is little evidence to support this claim. We use Comparative Q Methodology to systematically map out and compare the beliefs of public officers in China and Italy, two countries with contrasting sets of institutions but have both adopted similar ideas about integrated water resource management. We find some similarities and differences in the beliefs of public officers in both countries. In particular, we find that in both countries beliefs on the regulation of water utilities are diverse and fragmented on issues such as ownership structure of water utilities, how water infrastructure development should be funded, and how tariffs should be regulated. Our findings have two implications for theory, methods and practice. First, the Q methodology is a useful tool for systematically mapping out the beliefs of regulators and managers. Second, systematically mapping out beliefs will help facilitate the development of an alternative regime of regulation such as negotiated rule making. This alternative regime can provide substantial benefits such as more efficient rule making, more cost effective enforcement and compliance, and more equitable in terms of balancing the interests of stakeholders

Impacts of European drought events: insights from an international database of text-based reports

Drought is a natural hazard that can cause a wide range of impacts affecting the environment, society, and the economy. Providing an impact assessment and reducing vulnerability to these impacts for regions beyond the local scale, spanning political and sectoral boundaries, requires systematic and detailed data regarding impacts. This study presents an assessment of the diversity of drought impacts across Europe based on the European Drought Impact report Inventory (EDII), a unique research database that has collected close to 5000 impact reports from 33 European countries. The reported drought impacts were classified into major impact categories, each of which had a number of subtypes. The distribution of these categories and types was then analyzed over time, by country, across Europe and for particular drought events. The results show that impacts on agriculture and public water supply dominate the collection of drought impact reports for most countries and for all major drought events since the 1970s, while the number and relative fractions of reported impacts in other sectors can vary regionally and from event to event. The analysis also shows that reported impacts have increased over time as more media and website information has become available and environmental awareness has increased. Even though the distribution of impact categories is relatively consistent across Europe, the details of the reports show some differences. They confirm severe impacts in southern regions (particularly on agriculture and public water supply) and sector-specific impacts in central and northern regions (e.g., on forestry or energy production). The protocol developed thus enabled a new and more comprehensive view on drought impacts across Europe. Related studies have already developed statistical techniques to evaluate the link between drought indices and the categorized impacts using EDII data. The EDII is a living database and is a promising source for further research on drought impacts, vulnerabilities, and risks across Europe. A key result is the extensive variety of impacts found across Europe and its documentation. This insight can therefore inform drought policy planning at national to international levels

On Combining Stated Preferences and Revealed Preferences Approaches to Evaluate Environmental Resources Having a Recreational Use

This work aims at analysing the value of recreational water uses for the Idro Lake (Lombardy, Northern Italy), which has been experiencing dramatic fluctuations in its levels in recent years, due to excessive productive withdrawal that affected recreational uses. It estimates the economic benefits deriving from recreational uses, by considering the current recreational demand and the hypothetical one obtained by considering an “improved quality” scenario. Through an on-site survey, we built a panel dataset. Following Whitehead et al. (2000) and Hanley et al. (2003) we get welfare estimates by combining SP and RP responses. The present CS is estimated in €134 per individual, whilst the increase in CS is estimated in €173 per individual. These figures can be confronted with the economic value of competitive uses and with the clean up costs, respectively, to infer some policy indications

Using Analytic Narratives in Policy Analysis: An Explanation of the Implementation of the Water Reform in Italy (1994-2002)

Various critiques have been made of the analytic narrative, which is a methodological approach that combines historically oriented research with rational choice models. This paper discusses strengths and limitations of the approach and provides some suggestions for its inclusion in the repertoire of methodological tools at disposal for comparative policy studies. The argument is supported by evidence provided by the case study of the implementation of the water reform in Italy in the period 1994-2002. The case study shows how the interplay of game theoretic modeling and historical analysis results in the formulation of tentative hypotheses for explaining variation in the observed trajectory of policy reform implementation across time and space

The Determinants of Residential Water Demand Empirical Evidence for a Panel of Italian Municipalities

We present empirical evidence on the determinants of residential water demand for one Italian region, Emilia-Romagna, by using municipal panel data. The estimated water demand price elasticity is negative, showing values between -0.99 and -1.33, never significantly different from one, if we consider different specifications without and with additional socio-economic factors. Income results associated to a positive elasticity, though lower than one. The role of other socio-economic territory-specific determinants is less relevant, with the exception of altitude. The relative high value of price elasticity is deemed consistent with the higher level of Regional water prices compared to the national average