Natural capital approaches for the optimal design of policies for nature recovery.

By embedding a spatially explicit ecosystem services modelling tool within a policy simulator we examine the insights that natural capital analysis can bring to the design of policies for nature recovery. Our study is illustrated through a case example of policies incentivising the establishment of new natural habitat in England. We find that a policy mirroring the current practice of offering payments per hectare of habitat creation fails to break even, delivering less value in improved flows of ecosystem services than public money spent and only 26% of that which is theoretically achievable. Using optimization methods, we discover that progressively more efficient outcomes are delivered by policies that optimally price activities (34%), quantities of environmental change (55%) and ecosystem service value flows (81%). Further, we show that additionally attaining targets for unmonetized ecosystem services (in our case, biodiversity) demands trade-offs in delivery of monetized services. For some policy instruments it is not even possible to achieve the targets. Finally, we establish that extending policy instruments to offer payments for unmonetized services delivers target-achieving and value-maximizing policy designs. Our findings reveal that policy design is of first-order importance in determining the efficiency and efficacy of programmes pursuing nature recovery. This article is part of the theme issue 'Bringing nature into decision-making'.

Tracking GDP in real-time using electricity market data: Insights from the first wave of COVID-19 across Europe.

This paper develops a methodology for tracking in real-time the impact of shocks (such as natural disasters, financial crises or pandemics) on gross domestic product (GDP) by analyzing high-frequency electricity market data. As an illustration, we estimate the GDP loss caused by COVID-19 in twelve European countries during the first wave of the pandemic. Our results are almost indistinguishable from the official statistics during the first two quarters of 2020 (the correlation coefficient is 0.98) and are validated by several robustness tests. We provide estimates that are more chronologically disaggregated and up-to-date than standard macroeconomic indicators and, therefore, can provide timely information for policy evaluation in time of crisis. Our results show that pursuing "herd immunity" did not shelter from the harmful economic impacts of the first wave of the pandemic. They also suggest that coordinating policies internationally is fundamental for minimizing spillover effects from non-pharmaceutical interventions across countries.

Real-Time Estimation of the Short-Run Impact of COVID-19 on Economic Activity Using Electricity Market Data.

In response to the COVID-19 emergency, many countries have introduced a series of social-distancing measures including lockdowns and businesses' shutdowns, in an attempt to curb the spread of the infection. Accordingly, the pandemic has been generating unprecedented disruption on practically every aspect of society. This paper demonstrates that high-frequency electricity market data can be used to estimate the causal, short-run impacts of COVID-19 on the economy, providing information that is essential for shaping future lockdown policy. Unlike official statistics, which are published with a delay of a few months, our approach permits almost real-time monitoring of the economic impact of the containment policies and the financial stimuli introduced to address the crisis. We illustrate our methodology using daily data for the Italian day-ahead power market. We estimate that the 3 weeks of most severe lockdown reduced the corresponding Italian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by roughly 30%. Such negative impacts are now progressively declining but, at the end of June 2020, GDP is still about 8.5% lower than it would have been without the outbreak.

Conservation policies informed by food system feedbacks can avoid unintended consequences.

Understanding the feedbacks between food systems and conservation policies can help avoid unintended environmental consequences. Using a survey-based choice experiment and economic modelling, we quantify the potential impact of tourists' responses to a shift in offshore fish supply after the designation of a large-scale marine protected area in Palau. We find that this conservation policy may increase offshore fish prices and tourists' consumption of reef fish, thereby further endangering local reef ecosystems. However, if tourists are offered a sustainable offshore choice, their demand for fish could be kept at current levels, and environmental impacts from increased reef fish consumption would be avoided.

Spatially explicit integrated modeling and economic valuation of climate driven land use change and its indirect effects.

We present an integrated model of the direct consequences of climate change on land use, and the indirect effects of induced land use change upon the natural environment. The model predicts climate-driven shifts in the profitability of alternative uses of agricultural land. Both the direct impact of climate change and the induced shift in land use patterns will cause secondary effects on the water environment, for which agriculture is the major source of diffuse pollution. We model the impact of changes in such pollution on riverine ecosystems showing that these will be spatially heterogeneous. Moreover, we consider further knock-on effects upon the recreational benefits derived from water environments, which we assess using revealed preference methods. This analysis permits a multi-layered examination of the economic consequences of climate change, assessing the sequence of impacts from climate change through farm gross margins, land use, water quality and recreation, both at the individual and catchment scale.

The effects of weather and climate change on dengue.

BACKGROUND: There is much uncertainty about the future impact of climate change on vector-borne diseases. Such uncertainty reflects the difficulties in modelling the complex interactions between disease, climatic and socioeconomic determinants. We used a comprehensive panel dataset from Mexico covering 23 years of province-specific dengue reports across nine climatic regions to estimate the impact of weather on dengue, accounting for the effects of non-climatic factors. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Using a Generalized Additive Model, we estimated statistically significant effects of weather and access to piped water on dengue. The effects of weather were highly nonlinear. Minimum temperature (Tmin) had almost no effect on dengue incidence below 5 °C, but Tmin values above 18 °C showed a rapidly increasing effect. Maximum temperature above 20 °C also showed an increasing effect on dengue incidence with a peak around 32 °C, after which the effect declined. There is also an increasing effect of precipitation as it rose to about 550 mm, beyond which such effect declines. Rising access to piped water was related to increasing dengue incidence. We used our model estimations to project the potential impact of climate change on dengue incidence under three emission scenarios by 2030, 2050, and 2080. An increase of up to 40% in dengue incidence by 2080 was estimated under climate change while holding the other driving factors constant. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that weather significantly influences dengue incidence in Mexico and that such relationships are highly nonlinear. These findings highlight the importance of using flexible model specifications when analysing weather-health interactions. Climate change may contribute to an increase in dengue incidence. Rising access to piped water may aggravate dengue incidence if it leads to increased domestic water storage. Climate change may therefore influence the success or failure of future efforts against dengue.

Bringing ecosystem services into economic decision-making: land use in the United Kingdom.

Landscapes generate a wide range of valuable ecosystem services, yet land-use decisions often ignore the value of these services. Using the example of the United Kingdom, we show the significance of land-use change not only for agricultural production but also for emissions and sequestration of greenhouse gases, open-access recreational visits, urban green space, and wild-species diversity. We use spatially explicit models in conjunction with valuation methods to estimate comparable economic values for these services, taking account of climate change impacts. We show that, although decisions that focus solely on agriculture reduce overall ecosystem service values, highly significant value increases can be obtained from targeted planning by incorporating all potential services and their values and that this approach also conserves wild-species diversity.

Predicting microbial pollution concentrations in UK rivers in response to land use change.

The Water Framework Directive has caused a paradigm shift towards the integrated management of recreational water quality through the development of drainage basin-wide programmes of measures. This has increased the need for a cost-effective diagnostic tool capable of accurately predicting riverine faecal indicator organism (FIO) concentrations. This paper outlines the application of models developed to fulfil this need, which represent the first transferrable generic FIO models to be developed for the UK to incorporate direct measures of key FIO sources (namely human and livestock population data) as predictor variables. We apply a recently developed transfer methodology, which enables the quantification of geometric mean presumptive faecal coliforms and presumptive intestinal enterococci concentrations for base- and high-flow during the summer bathing season in unmonitored UK watercourses, to predict FIO concentrations in the Humber river basin district. Because the FIO models incorporate explanatory variables which allow the effects of policy measures which influence livestock stocking rates to be assessed, we carry out empirical analysis of the differential effects of seven land use management and policy instruments (fiscal constraint, production constraint, cost intervention, area intervention, demand-side constraint, input constraint, and micro-level land use management) all of which can be used to reduce riverine FIO concentrations. This research provides insights into FIO source apportionment, explores a selection of pollution remediation strategies and the spatial differentiation of land use policies which could be implemented to deliver river quality improvements. All of the policy tools we model reduce FIO concentrations in rivers but our research suggests that the installation of streamside fencing in intensive milk producing areas may be the single most effective land management strategy to reduce riverine microbial pollution.

Cost-effective mitigation of diffuse pollution: setting criteria for river basin management at multiple locations.

A case study of the Yorkshire Derwent (UK) catchment is used to illustrate an integrated approach for assessing the viability of policy options for reducing diffuse nitrate losses to waterbodies. For a range of options, modeling methods for simulating river nitrate levels are combined with techniques for estimating the economic costs to agriculture of modifying those levels. By incorporating spatially explicit data and information on catchment residence times (which may span many decades particularly in areas of groundwater discharge) a method is developed for efficient spatial targeting of measures, for example, to the most at-risk freshwater environments. Combining hydrological and economic findings, the analysis reveals that, in terms of cost-effectiveness, the ranking of options is highly sensitive to both (i) whether or not specific stretches of river within a catchment are regarded as a priority for protection, and (ii) the criterion of nitrate concentration deemed most appropriate as an indicator of the health of the environment. Therefore, given the focus under European legislation upon ecological status of freshwaters, these conclusions highlight the need to improve understanding of mechanistic linkages between the chemical and biological dynamics of aquatic systems.