Quantifying NAFTA environmental impacts: Energy and agriculture

After fifteen years, NAFTA has been subject to many evaluations from different perspectives, including environmental assessments. According to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), results of these evaluations show that, at the aggregate level, the environmental impacts of free trade are marginal (CEC 2004). The main sectors analyzed have been energy, agriculture, manufacturing and international transportation. In these sectors, the CEC concludes that results only indicate a concentration of some environmental impacts in specific regions, and the presence of peaks in certain key environmental indicators (CEC 2002). In this paper I argue that environmental impacts might seem marginal because although these were identified, several have been hardly quantified

Incorporating the insurance value of peri-urban ecosystem services into natural hazard policies and insurance products: Insights from Mexico

Understanding how to adapt to increasing risk under climate change is essential for governments wishing to mitigate harms and manage insurance and disaster assistance costs. An approach that values the public good of hazard mitigation provisioned by natural ecosystems could also incentivise government, beneficiaries and insurance companies to share responsibility and funding for targeted conservation and restoration. To illuminate this concept of the insurance value of ecosystems, it is important to map the relationship between the area(s) that benefit from and provide regulating ecosystem services and to identify what determines the level of protection. In the case of flood control regulation that benefits at-risk urban areas, upstream or inland peri-urban areas are key. We present steps to operationalise the insurance value in policy using spatial indicators of peri-urban biodiversity and vegetation and soil health for four Mexican cities. For Mexico City only, we identify at-risk areas and characterise upstream peri-urban areas and find this insurance value is already diminished. Combining spatial analysis with a damage cost function we estimate the expected damage costs of different flood events and the monetary value of enhancing this insurance value. This estimate could be compared to other policy interventions and integrated into hazard insurance

El acceso al servicio de agua y la vulnerabilidad al COVID-19: el caso de la Ciudad de México

El acceso al servicio de agua en los hogares es fundamental para enfrentar la pandemia de COVID-19, sobre todo en contextos urbanos donde el riesgo aumenta por la cercanía social. En este artículo se exploran las relaciones entre el número de contagios de COVID-19 con la marginación de los hogares y los problemas de acceso al servicio de abasto de agua potable en la Ciudad de México, resaltando los patrones de distribución espacial. Se generó una base de datos a nivel de colonia con información oficial sobre el número de contagios, número de habitantes, índice de desarrollo social y acceso deficiente del abasto de agua. Se encontró que todas estas variables tienen un efecto significativo sobre el número de casos que se registran en las colonias. En particular, el deficiente acceso al servicio de agua aumentó en al menos 17 % el número de casos de contagio de COVID-19 durante el periodo de estudio

Improving air quality in metropolitan Mexico City : an economic valuation

Mexico City has for years experienced high levels of ozone and particulate air pollution. In 1995-99 the entire population of the Mexico City metropolitan area was exposed to annual average concentrations of fine particulate pollution (particulates with a diameter of less than 10micrometers, or PM10) exceeding 50 micrograms per cubic meter, the annual average standard in both Mexico and the United States. Two million people were exposed to annual average PM10 levels of more than 75 micrograms per cubic meter. The daily maximum one-hour ozone standard was exceeded at least 300 days a year. The Mexico Air Quality Management Team documents population-weighted exposures to ozone and PM10 between 1995 and 1999, project exposures in 2010, and computes the value of four scenarios for 2010: A 10 percent reduction in PM10 and ozone. A 20 percent reduction in PM10 and ozone. Achievement of ambient air quality standards across the metropolitan area. A 68 percent reduction in ozone and a 47 percent reduction in PM10 across the metropolitan area. The authors calculate the health benefits of reducing ozone and PM10 for each scenario using dose-response functions from the peer-reviewed literature. They value cases of morbidity and premature mortality avoided using three approaches: Cost of illness and forgone earnings only (low estimate). Cost of illness, forgone earnings, and willingness to pay for avoided morbidity (central case estimate). Cost of illness, forgone earnings, willingness to pay for avoided morbidity, and willingness to pay for avoided mortality (high estimate). The results suggest that the benefits of a 10 percent reduction in ozone and PM10 in 2010 are about $760 million (in 1999 U.S. dollars) annually in the central case. The benefits of a 20 percent reduction in ozone and PM10 are about$1.49 billion annually. In each case the benefits of reducing ozone amount to about 15 percent of the total benefits. By estimating the magnitude of the benefits from air pollution control, the authors provide motivation for examining specific policies that could achieve the air pollution reductions that they value. They also provide unit values for the benefits from reductions in ambient air pollution (for example, per microgram of PM10) that could be used as inputs into a full cost-benefit analysisof air pollution control strategies.Montreal Protocol,Public Health Promotion,Global Environment Facility,Air Quality&Clean Air,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Montreal Protocol,Air Quality&Clean Air,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Global Environment Facility,Transport and Environment

Handbook of Active Ageing and Quality of Life: From Concepts to Applications

La edición de este libro estuvo a cargo de Fermina Rojo-Pérez y Gloria Fernández-Mayoralas.El documento adjunto contiene la cubierta, portada e índice del libro.This handbook presents an overview of studies on the relationship of active ageing and quality of life. It addresses the new challenges of ageing from the paradigm of positive ageing (active, healthy and successful) for a better quality of life. It provides theoretical perspectives and empirical studies, including scientific knowledge as well as practical experiences about the good ageing and the quality of later life around the world, in order to respond to the challenges of an aged population. The handbook is structured in 4 sections covering theoretical and conceptual perspectives, social policy issues and research agenda, methods, measurement instrument-scales and evaluations, and lastly application studies including domains and geographical contexts.Peer reviewe

Valor del rescate de ríos cuando se vive cerca y lejos. La Cuenca de Atoyac en Puebla, México. - Value of river restoration when living near and far. The Atoyac Basin in Puebla, Mexico

On analyzing data from a Contingent Valuation (CV) survey to restore the High Atoyac River Basin in Puebla, Mexico, we found that households obtain differentiated benefits due to their condition of closeness to or distance from the river, which are in turn often associated with conditions of vulnerability to water pollution and poverty. Our approach was to estimate Willingness to Pay (WTP) models for two population groups: those residing nearby and those living farther away. As expected, the bid offered and the household’s income are significant determinants of WTP; however, the remainder of the variables change, denoting that poor people are more concerned about river pollution

Enhancing megacities' resilience to flood hazard through peri-urban nature-based solutions: Evidence from Mexico City

Floods are one of the most frequent natural hazards in almost every country, with climate change exacerbating their frequency and intensity. Nature-based solutions (NbS) can be a cost-effective way to make human settlements more resilient to flooding. However, decision-makers need reliable information on which to base NbS policy and funding. This research estimates the potential of peri-urban NbS to regulate water flow and the benefits downstream through the development of supply and demand indicators for the context of complex megacities. In our Mexico City case study the supply indicator is the runoff coefficient, which is spatially estimated across peri-urban areas, and the economic value is estimated using replacement cost (grey infrastructure). The demand indicator identifies flood-prone areas based on spatially explicit ponding events and avoided costs of insurance flood claims data and estimates with parametric cost functions. The supply indicator provides straightforward information for decision-makers to spatially target conservation in peri-urban areas where runoff coefficients are high combined with flood-prone areas, while the lowest coefficients reinforce the importance of policies for protected areas. In combination with demand indicator information, we find NbS in peri-urban upstream catchments is cost-effective compared to avoidable flood-related costs and alternative investments in grey infrastructure