Higher water tariffs for less river pollution—evidence from Min River and Fuzhou City, People’s Republic of China

Upstream nonpoint source pollution has become a significant threat to urban drinking water safety in the People’s Republic of China. Payment for environmental services (PES) is seen as a promising mechanism to deal with the situation. In designing a sound PES, it is crucial to determine the willingness to pay (WTP) of urban beneficiaries for upstream water pollution controls. An analysis of household data from a contingent valuation survey conducted in Fuzhou in 2009 reveals that household income is the most important factor in determining respondents’ positions on water tariff increases as well as WTP under a PES scheme. Mean WTP varies from Yuan (CNY) –0.45 per cubic meter to CNY0.86 for different income groups. The overall mean WTP is estimated to be CNY0.21, which is equivalent to a 10% increase in the current tariff, with the 95% confidence interval at (CNY0.12, CNY0.31). The point estimate implies a total annual WTP of Fuzhou City equal to CNY22 million, which is 27% less than the contribution of Fuzhou to an ongoing government-financed PES. However, with continuous water tariff increases, affordability among low-income households might arise as an issue. This calls for subsidies targeting low-income households to be incorporated in water tariff reform.water tariff, river pollution, upstream nonpoint source pollution, payment for environmental services, willingness to pay, Min River, Fuzhou City, China

Money and the Downfall of a Democracy Economic Crises and the Weimar Republic

I. Synthesis Essay……………………………….2 II. Primary Documents and Headnotes……….32 III. Textbook Critique…………………………….45 IV. New Textbook Entry…………………………48 V. Bibliography…………………………………..54https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/history_mat/1009/thumbnail.jp

Art of the Weimar Republic and the Premonitions of Fascism

Founded in 1918 following the carnage of World War One until the Nazi takeover of 1933, the Weimar Republic is widely renowned as a bastion of freedom and democracy that existed only briefly between the reigns of two authoritarian regimes. The Weimar period witnessed an unprecedented prosperity of art and culture, with tremendous advancements in the fields of literature, the visual arts, and film. However, the remnants of the old Empire persisted within the new Republic, and new fascist factions rose to prominence within German society. Artists that lived through the era, both liberal and conservative, observed and provided their opinions on this phenomenon that would culminate in the advent of Nazi Germany. The purpose of this paper is to examine works of art across genres and by different artists, establish a connection with the fascist trends in Weimar Germany, and understand the attitudes of each respective artist towards the decline of German society into illiberalism and barbarism. I argue that artists anticipated fascist political and cultural developments in the years prior to the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, and look at the various artists in the realms of literature, the visual arts, and film

Young Weekend Farmers in Lusaka, Zambia: Motivation and Their Role in Agriculture

When it comes to describing the activities of urban youth in Lusaka agriculture is not likely to be a word that will come up so often. This is changing with observable increment in numbers of urban youths trying to venture into agriculture through weekend farming. This is a group of youths who are rarely considered when the debate of how to attract youths into agriculture is discussed because the focus of agriculture policy is biased towards rural youths. Driven by the desire for extra income, passion, desire to grow their own food and hoping to retire early from formal employment they travel dozens of kilometres from Lusaka to surrounding districts to farm. With the help of hired local or family labour they farm on their personally acquired, family or rented land growing various crops and keeping livestock. Their role in agriculture development includes that of creating employment, promoting local food security, enhancing technology adoption, building the image of agriculture and as investors in small scale agriculture. Keywords: Weekend Farming, Lusaka Urban Youth, Small Scale Farming, Youth Employment, Motivatio

Integration of distributed energy resources (Solar PV) a revenue impact study and tariff optimisation analysis for EThekwini Municipality.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.The South African energy generation sector is naturally evolving from a traditionally vertically integrated structure to a more liberalised one via the promotion of local generation. The main drivers of such a transition are the rapid drop in generation technology prices, especially solar photovoltaic (PV) and the corresponding increase in electricity prices. While this transition is unconventional for South Africa, it does bring fresh opportunities for local economic stimulation and job creation. However, as the generation becomes more localised, customers reduce their energy dependency from the network due to their ability to self-consume generated electricity. This self-consumption creates an imbalance in the recovery of network-related charges for the municipality, i.e. creating a revenue loss. The rate of localisation of energy generation will dictate the magnitude of loss for the municipality. To better understand the level of revenue loss associated with customers migrating to solar PV, a solar techno-economic model was designed and analysed with eThekwini Municipality’s unique loading and generation data. The model showed that customers were deemed feasible if their projects met the minimum Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 15% and a maximum Simple Payback Period (SPBP) of ten years. Based on the number of feasible customers migrating to PV under various scenarios, the municipal revenue loss was quantified. The potential renewable energy (RE) that could be introduced onto the grid for each scenario was also quantified. The electricity tariff structures were optimised for each customer category within eThekwini Municipality to mitigate revenue losses. The optimised tariff structures were focussed on introducing fixed network access charges, based on the PV inverter size and a buy-back tariff for energy exported onto the grid. In instances where customers adopt a long term view for solar PV investing, and accept to calculate the IRR over 25 years, 37% of customers met the feasibility criteria. This resulted in the municipality potentially losing R1.041 billion and gaining 1343 MW of RE, should all feasible customers install solar PV. Applying generation limits as per NRS 097-2-3, resulted in a municipal revenue loss of R959 million and a RE gain of 1251 MW. Introducing RE tariffs to counteract the revenue loss, in conjunction with the generation limits resulted in only 3.9% of customers remaining feasible, with a reduced RE gain of 722 MW. Applying the NRS 097-2-3 generation limits and calculating the IRR over 10 years, resulted in 31% of customers meeting the feasibility criteria. Under these conditions, the municipality could potentially lose R 397 million and gain 684 MW of RE should all feasible customers install solar PV. Introducing RE tariffs to counteract the revenue loss resulted in zero customers meeting the feasibility criteria. The revenue losses were introduced because the current municipal tariffs recover fixed network charges via variable energy rates. Each unit of electricity offset due to self-consumption via solar PV results in fixed network costs incorrectly being offset as well, due to the nature of the current tariff design. RE tariffs were designed to remedy this anomaly. They incorporated fixed network charges and a buy-back energy rate, priced at the avoided cost. The RE tariffs have been optimised to position the municipality in a revenue neutral position as solar PV is introduced, resulting in no windfall gain or inadvertent revenue losses to the municipality.Publications on page iii

Households’ Coping Strategies to Food Insecurity: Insights from a Farming Community in Aguie District of Niger

Niger is affected by recurrent production shocks leading the country into food insecurity situation at varying magnitude across regions. Farm households are the most affected because their livelihood relies on the agriculture sector that has the highest sensitivity to climate change. During a food shock period, households implement a package of strategies to mitigate their vulnerability from food shock. The objective of this study is to analyze households’ coping strategies to food shocks. We randomly selected 160 heads of households from two villages in Aguie Department of Maradi Region. Probit model is also used to determine the effect of households’ characteristics on the adoption of coping strategies. The study identified that households employed different coping strategies, among the most regularly employed are expenditure reduction (92.6%), smoothing consumption (66.40%), borrowing food or money (55.00%), waged labor (45.00%), and undesirable food consumption. The results reveal that the adoption of specific strategy depends on a household’s livelihood strategy and its socio-economic characteristics. Results from probit analysis show that a household’s decision to adopt a specific coping strategy is significantly influenced by gender, ethnicity, annual revenue, food production, livestock size, food stock, education, adaptive capacity, and number of meal per day. Keywords: Adaptation, dry land, food security, livelihood, coping mechanis

Households' vulnerability to Climate Change: Insights from a farming community in Aguie district of Niger

There is evidence that the effects of climate change constitute a serious problem for the development of sub-Sahara African. Developing countries are more vulnerable to extreme climate change due to their low adaptive capacity. The objective of this research is to analyze household vulnerability to climate change in Aguie district of Niger. Principal components analysis was used to construct the different index. Results of farmers’ perception of factors determining vulnerability outlined food expenditure (2.58), ceremonies (2.13), farming (1.34), and livestock (1.00) as the key factors. The vulnerability level of the study area is 0.075, However, farmers (0.093) are found to be the most vulnerable and pastoralists (-0.328) the least vulnerable. The study also shows that education rate, association membership, strategies index, soil fertility, food coverage, income and agriculture experience family size, income, association membership, strategies index, and farm tree coverage (a proxy of soil fertility) have a significant effect on vulnerability. As far as policy implication, specific attention should be given to small-scale farmers to reducing their sensitivity to climate change through soil fertility management. Keywords: Adaptation, Drought, Exposure, Sensitivity, Resilienc