Jayanath Ananda

The use of analytic hierarchy process to incorporate stakeholder preferences into regional forest planning

Abstract Forest management decisions are often characterised by complexity, irreversibility and uncertainty. Much of the complexity arises from the multiple-use nature of forest goods and services, difficulty in monetary valuation of ecological services and the involvement of numerous stakeholders. Under these circumstances, conventional methods such as cost-benefit analysis are ill-suited to evaluate forest decisions. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), can be useful in regional forest planing as it can accommodate conflictual, multidimensional, incommensurable and incomparable set of objectives. The objective of this paper is to examine the scope and feasibility of the AHP in incorporating stakeholder preferences into regional forest planning. The Australian Regional Forest Agreement Programme is taken as an illustrative case for the analysis. The results show that the AHP can formalise public participation in decision making and increase the transparency and the credibility of the process.

Soil erosion in developing countries: a socio-economic appraisal

Soil erosion is the single most important environmental degradation problem in the developing world. Despite the plethora of literature that exists on the incidence, causes and impacts of soil erosion, a concrete understanding of this complex problem is lacking. This paper examines the soil erosion problem in developing countries in order to understand the complex inter-relationships between population pressure, poverty and environmental-institutional dynamics. Two recent theoretical developments, namely Boserups theory on population pressure, poverty and soil erosion and Lopezs theory on environmental and institutional dynamics have been reviewed. The analysis reveals that negative impacts of technical change, inappropriate government policies and poor institutions are largely responsible for the continued soil erosion in developing countries. On the other hand, potential for market-based approaches to mitigate the problem is also low due to the negative externalities involved. A deeper appreciation of institutional and environmental dynamics and policy reforms to strengthen weak institutions may help mitigate the problem.

Incorporating stakeholder values into regional forest planning: a value function approach

Forest management involves multiple objectives, multiple stakeholders, complex socio-ecological and political interactions. Public involvement in forest decision making is a challenging task that involves controversies. Various participatory tools such as public consultation forums, public comment processes, opinion polls are used to consult and to obtain inputs from communities. All these methods can provide useful information but they fail to quantify the trade-offs systematically and offer little help in minimizing conflicts. The Australian Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) program was implemented in response to the decades of conflicts and debate between various stakeholder groups and government over the use and management of forest resources. So far, it has not been able to minimize conflicts in the forestry sector, partly due to its poor incorporation and integration of stakeholder values. This paper uses the value functions approach in modelling stakeholder values in regional forest planning. The results of the study indicate that this method can help to incorporate value preferences effectively into the decision making process. It can also increase the transparency and credibility of the forest planning exercises such as RFA process.

Evaluating the Performance of Urban Water Utilities: Robust Nonparametric Approach

AbstractThis paper empirically analyzes the efficiency of urban water utilities using state-of-the-art methodology combining data envelopment analysis (DEA) and a two-stage double bootstrap procedure. In the first stage, robust efficiency estimates are obtained with an improved DEA analysis. In the second stage, a truncated regression model and a double bootstrap procedure are used to estimate the effect of a set of environmental variables on unbiased DEA estimates. The findings suggest that the efficiency scores obtained after bias correction are significantly different to the original efficiency estimates. The results also show the existence of a significant relation between efficiency and several environmental variables including the proportion of water sourced from groundwater, customer density, and residential consumption.

Multidisciplinary Approaches to Natural Resource Management

Counter-acting forces to increase rural production and/or its efficiency, and to sustain an ecosystem now recognised to be under increasing and destructive pressures have created exigencies in achieving balanced natural resource management (NRM). Nowhere is this more apparent than in the management of the Murray Darling System in south-eastern Australia. All actions affecting natural resources impinge on the ecosystems that support those resources, the economy based on them, and the human society and culture connected to them. Change is best managed with the cooperation of those most affected. If NRM is to be achieved through informed community decisions, there is a need for a multidisciplinary process, drawing on specialist (intra-disciplinary) expertise, and a requirement to pull the resultant knowledge into an integrated form which supports decision-making at the management and community level. We propose a framework that identifies tasks necessary to support community decision-making and inject specialist technical knowledge into the process. For complex NRM issues, it is likely that there is insufficient information in one or more disciplines to support a strong decision. Where possible, this should lead to the interposition of targeted pilot trials, based on principles of adaptive management, prior to the final assessment and (presumedly) management plans. These ‘management experiments’ follow a similar path to specialist hypotheses and measurements (based on the same management intervention) followed by an integrated assessment. It appears that identification of, and engagement with, components of the community, and analytical techniques to support integrated assessment are two major areas in which new knowledge is urgently needed.

Assessment of Wilderness Quality Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process

Wilderness is a unique environmental resource that provides a multitude of use and non-use benefits. The use and management of wilderness depend on the assessment of wilderness quality. Current wilderness assessment in Australia is based on two broad criteria, the remoteness and naturalness of the wilderness, determined using geographic information systems. This paper discusses a complementary assessment method using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The AHP can be used to incorporate additional criteria, such as social and cultural criteria, to improve the quality of wilderness assessment. It provides a flexible and compatible method for large-scale wilderness assessments with multiple criteria. The weighting factors for the different criteria can be obtained from expert panels and focus groups.

Implementing participatory approaches in formulating regional forest policy

Forest policy-makers increasingly recognise the importance of public participation in planning and policy-making endeavours. In many countries, public participation has been institutionalised into national forest policy. Despite the stated policy assurances, implementing participatory approaches has been a challenging task. This paper examines the public involvement in forest policy-making, particularly focusing on the Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) programme in Australia. The RFA is regarded as the most ambitious, expensive and comprehensive resource planning exercise ever undertaken in the country. The evidence suggestes that various participatory and deliberative approaches have been used under the RFA to allow for a plurality of environmental values, but that the integration of public values into final decision-making has been unsatisfactory. Process design, commitment and inadequate attention paid to conflict resolution can be attributed as reasons for sub-optimal outcomes.

Determination of yield and erosion damage functions using subjectively elicited data: application to smallholder tea in Sri Lanka

Tea has been Sri Lanka’s major export earner for several decades. However, soil erosion on tea‐producing land has had considerable on‐site and off‐site effects. This study quantifies soil erosion impacts for smallholder tea farms in Sri Lanka by estimating a yield damage function and an erosion damage function using a subjective elicitation technique. The Mitscherlich‐Spillman type of function was found to yield acceptable results. The study indicates that high rates of soil erosion require earlier adoption of soil conservation measures than do low rates of erosion. Sensitivity analysis shows the optimum year to change to a conservation practice is very sensitive to the discount rate but less sensitive to the cost of production and price of tea.

Rationality, accounting and benchmarking water businesses: An analysis of measurement challenges

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the sensitivity of economic efficiency rankings of water businesses to the choice of alternative physical and accounting capital input measures. Design/methodology/approach Data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to compute efficiency rankings for government-owned water businesses from the state of Victoria, Australia, over the period 2005/2006 through 2012/2013. Differences between DEA models when capital inputs were measured using either: statutory accounting values (historic cost and fair value), physical measures, or regulatory accounting values, were scrutinised. Findings Depending on the choice of capital input, significant variation in efficiency scores and the ranking of the top (worst) performing firms was observed. Research limitations/implications Future research may explore the generalisability of findings to a wider sample of water utilities globally. Future work can also consider the most reliable treatment of capital inputs in efficiency analysis. Practical implications Regulators should be cautious when using economic efficiency data in benchmarking exercises. A consistent approach to account for the capital stock is needed in the determination of price caps and designing incentives for poor performers. Originality/value DEA has been widely used to explore the role of ownership structure, firm size and regulation on water utility efficiency. This is the first study of its kind to explore the sensitivity of DEA to alternative physical and accounting capital input measures. This research also improves the conventional performance measurement in water utilities by using a bootstrap procedure to address the deterministic nature of the DEA approach.

Watershed Development, Decentralisation and Institutional Change: Insights from the Mechanism Design Theory

Watershed development (WSD) is one of the core strategies to arrest widespread resource degradation and reduce poverty in India’s semiarid regions. Although many WSD initiatives had positive short-term impacts, long-term returns to investment have been questioned. Overall, past approaches of WSD programmes have had slow, inequitable and short-lived impact. In recent times, many WSD programmes have taken a participatory approach, where state governments share costs and benefits with local communities. The shift towards a participatory approach largely stems from the failure of the top-down approach. There are several varied institutional configurations involved in implementing WSD programmes including non-governmental organisations, government departments and various partnership arrangements. The 73rd amendment of the Indian Constitution provided an impetus for decentralisation by strengthening local government bodies, collectively called Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs), at district, block and village levels. These self-governing bodies have been given an expanded role in implementing WSD initiatives within a nested and decentralised institutional environment. This chapter examines the institutional apparatus of WSD programmes in India. Using mechanism design theory, the chapter evaluates the new institutional structures proposed by the WSD Common Guidelines of 2008. The findings indicate that there is tension between traditional government bureaucracies and self-governing bodies. Informational asymmetries, inadequate devolution and capacity constraints preclude the WSD implementing agencies, achieving their full potential in delivering outcomes. Future institutional reforms should focus on lowering information gathering and processing costs and enhancing technical skills at the local level. Reforms to contractual agreements between the state government and the project implementing agencies are also needed in order to provide renegotiating opportunities and robust compliance mechanisms.