Rk Turner

Coastal Management for Sustainable Development: Analysing Environmental and Socio-Economic Changes on the UK Coast

Littoral areas of the British Isles present an array of properties and features which have long been exploited by human populations and have contributed to the wealth and the quality of life of the nation. Past and ongoing differentiation in uses of coastal zones has led to conflicts ranging from deleterious effects on supporting ecosystems to symbiosis with human activities. This paper aims to elicit the main forces influencing the development of coastal areas and the means available to assess the present use and manage future exploitation of the coastal zone, following the P-S-I-R Framework and an ecosystem function-based valuation methodology. A variety of pressures and their trends is analysed (climate change, population and tourism changes, port development, hydrocarbon and marine aggregate extraction and pollution). All these factors are examined in the context of the sustainable use of coastal resources and on the basis of an interdisciplinary ecological economics approach.

Ecosystem Valuation: A Sequential Decision Support System and Quality Assessment Issues

Understanding the economic value of nature and the services it provides to humanity has become increasingly important for local, national, and global policy and decision making. It has become obvious that quantifying and integrating these services into decision making will be crucial for sustainable development. Problems arise in that it is difficult to obtain meaningful values for the goods and services that ecosystems provide and for which there is no formal market. A wide range of ecosystem services fall into this category. Additional problems arise when economic methods are applied inappropriately and when the importance of ecosystem maintenance for human welfare is underestimated. In this article we identify a place for monetary valuation within the pluralistic approach supported by ecological economics and assess progress to date in the application of environmental valuation to ecosystem service provision. We first review definitions of ecosystem services in order to make an operational link to valuation methods. We then discuss the spatially explicit nature of ecosystem services provision and benefits capture. We highlight the importance of valuing marginal changes and the role for macroscale valuation, nonlinearities in service benefits, and the significance of nonconvexities (threshold effects). We also review guidance on valuation studies quality assurance, and discuss the problems inherent in the methodology as exposed by the findings of behavioral economics, as well as with benefits transfer—the most common way valuation studies are applied in the policy process. We argue for a sequential decision support system that can lead to a more integrated and rigorous approach to environmental valuation and biophysical measurement of ecosystem services. This system itself then needs to be encompassed within a more comprehensive multicriteria assessment dialogue and process.

Assessing the economic costs of sea level rise

Sea level rise is one of the potential consequences of human induced global climate change, and coastal zones, together with their inhabitants, may be becoming more susceptible and vulnerable to such external shocks and related damage impacts. Global, regional, and national scale studies have been undertaken in an attempt to assess the future threat posed by sea level rise. To date none of these studies have fully encompassed the relationship between the physical change impacts and the socioeconomic implications. The authors utilise both a ‘GDP-at-risk’ and an economic cost—benefit approach, in combination with biophysical analysis, to model the impacts of sea level rise along the East Anglian coastline of eastern England. The economic results indicate that for most sea-level-rise predictions the protect strategy is economically justifiable on a region-wide basis. At a more localised scale a combination of response options, including ‘do nothing and retreat’, may be optimal.

Coastal zone ecosystem services : from science to values and decision making : a case study

This research is concerned with the following environmental research questions: socio-ecological system complexity, especially when valuing ecosystem services; ecosystems stock and services flow sustainability and valuation; the incorporation of scale issues when valuing ecosystem services; and the integration of knowledge from diverse disciplines for governance and decision making. In this case study, we focused on ecosystem services that can be jointly supplied but independently valued in economic terms: healthy climate (via carbon sequestration and storage), food (via fisheries production in nursery grounds), and nature recreation (nature watching and enjoyment). We also explored the issue of ecosystem stock and services flow, and we provide recommendations on how to value stock and flows of ecosystem services via accounting and economic values respectively. We considered broadly comparable estuarine systems located on the English North Sea coast: the Blackwater estuary and the Humber estuary. In the past, these two estuaries have undergone major land-claim. Managed realignment is a policy through which previously claimed intertidal habitats are recreated allowing the enhancement of the ecosystem services provided by saltmarshes. In this context, we investigated ecosystem service values, through biophysical estimates and welfare value estimates. Using an optimistic (extended conservation of coastal ecosystems) and a pessimistic (loss of coastal ecosystems because of, for example, European policy reversal) scenario, we find that context dependency, and hence value transfer possibilities, vary among ecosystem services and benefits. As a result, careful consideration in the use and application of value transfer, both in biophysical estimates and welfare value estimates, is advocated to supply reliable information for policy making.

Sustainable economic development: economic and ethical principles

The current concern with global environmental issues — climate change, biodiversity loss, ozone layer depletion, etc. — reflects the evolution in thinking about environmentalism which has taken place over the last twenty years or so. During the 1970s concern was overtly focused on source limits, i.e. population growth and natural resources and food supply, with relatively less emphasis on sink limits, i.e. pollution and the assimilative capacity of the biosphere. By the time the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) had taken place in the summer of 1992, the primary focus for concern had shifted towards sink limits. Hence UNCED concentrated on two main issues, for which international agreements were signed, climate change and biodiversity.

“And DPSIR begat DAPSI(W)R(M)!” - A unifying framework for marine environmental management

The marine environment is a complex system formed by interactions between ecological structure and functioning, physico-chemical processes and socio-economic systems. An increase in competing marine uses and users requires a holistic approach to marine management which considers the environmental, economic and societal impacts of all activities. If managed sustainably, the marine environment will deliver a range of ecosystem services which lead to benefits for society. In order to understand the complexity of the system, the DPSIR (Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response) approach has long been a valuable problem-structuring framework used to assess the causes, consequences and responses to change in a holistic way. Despite DPSIR being used for a long time, there is still confusion over the definition of its terms and so to be appropriate for current marine management, we contend that this confusion needs to be addressed. Our viewpoint advocates that DPSIR should be extended to DAPSI(W)R(M) (pronounced dap-see-worm) in which Drivers of basic human needs require Activities which lead to Pressures. The Pressures are the mechanisms of State change on the natural system which then leads to Impacts (on human Welfare). Those then require Responses (as Measures). Furthermore, because of the complexity of any managed sea area in terms of multiple Activities, there is the need for a linked-DAPSI(W)R(M) framework, and then the connectivity between marine ecosystems and ecosystems in the catchment and further at sea, requires an interlinked, nested-DAPSI(W)R(M) framework to reflect the continuum between adjacent ecosystems. Finally, the unifying framework for integrated marine management is completed by encompassing ecosystem structure and functioning, ecosystem services and societal benefits. Hence, DAPSI(W)R(M) links the socio-ecological system of the effects of changes to the natural system on the human uses and benefits of the marine system. However, to deliver these sustainably in the light of human activities requires a Risk Assessment and Risk Management framework; the ISO-compliant Bow-Tie method is used here as an example. Finally, to secure ecosystem health and economic benefits such as Blue Growth, successful, adaptive and sustainable marine management Responses (as Measures) are delivered using the 10-tenets, a set of facets covering all management disciplines and approaches.

Valuation of the Environmental Impact of Wetland Flood Protection and Drainage Schemes

Large areas of the remaining wetlands in the United Kingdom are faced with virtual extinction because of the pressures engendered by high productivity farming practices, reinforced by subsidised land drainage and flood protection schemes as well as by price supports for agricultural produce in the European Economic Community. Unique environmental resources are being put at risk by changing farming methods and in particular by arable conversion schemes. A case study, the Yare Barrier Proposal in Norfolk, is used to analyse and evaluate the environmental impacts of drainage and flood protection schemes on the surrounding wetland ecosystems. An opportunity cost model is used to estimate the costs and benefits involved in this policy decision on preservation versus development. We conclude that the case for the agricultural development of the wetlands made on the grounds of economic efficiency is not a strong one.

Modelling the U.K. waste paper market

Abstract This paper presents an attempt to construct an economic model of the U.K. waste paper industry. A primary determinant of the demand for waste paper was found to be the output of the packaging industry. Neither mechanical pulp prices nor waste paper prices appeared to have any significant effect on waste paper demand. Imports of waste paper appear to be determined to some extent (stock levels also being important) by the gap between forthcoming home supplies and forecasted usage requirements. On a limited price data base, it seems from our investigations that (with one exception in the period 1974/1975) the supply elasticity of waste paper in the United Kingdom is low, at least in the poorer quality grades. This would seem to be an important finding as it suggests that the opportunities for recycling waste paper might be substantially less than many have hoped.

Ecological Economics and Coastal Zone Ecosystems’ Values: An Overview

Given the continued intensification of the process of globalisation — involving population growth, population density changes via urbanisation, industrial development, increased trade and capital flows, liberalisation of transnational corporation activity and lifestyle and attitudinal changes — coastal zones and their hydrologically linked catchment areas have come under heavy environmental pressure. The scale and extent of socio-economic activities have profound implications for the now coevolving natural and human systems and their complex interrelationships (Turner, Perrings and Folke, 1997). The consequences of this process of change manifest themselves across a range of spatial and temporal scales. Indeed the juxtaposition of different spatial, functional and temporal scales that is inherent in the catchment-coastal ecosystems-seas/oceans continuum poses particularly difficult challenges for both science and resource management/governance. The environmental risks being faced in this context are compounded by the potential effects of climate change such as sea level rise and increased storm frequency and intensity.

Jellyfish Blooms and Their Impacts on Welfare Benefits: Recreation in the UK and Fisheries in Italy

Over the last decades, extensive jellyfish blooms have been recorded in several regions worldwide raising concern about a possible “jellification” of global seas. Potential causes of jellyfish blooms include overfishing, global warming, eutrophication, chemical pollution, the increase of artificial hard substrates, and the transport of exotic species in ballast water or for trade. Jellyfish blooms have negative impacts in a number of ways. Impacts on fisheries are the most frequently reported but the evidence base also includes impacts on aquaculture, energy production, tourism, and human health. Very few estimates of the welfare losses due to jellyfish blooms are available. We provide estimates of the potential welfare losses stemming from impacts of blooms on recreation in the UK and fisheries in Italy. Our estimates show that losses can be considerable. The evidence collected here and elsewhere in the literature warrants a consideration of increased efforts towards the monitoring and control of jellyfish blooms.