Methods for assessing spillover effects between concurrent green initiatives.

This research presents the methods that are used to examine the dynamics and potential spillover effects of various global environmental conservation programs. We specifically show the data and models that we use to analyze the interactions and mutual influences between the U.S.'s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), as well as those between China's Grain-to-Green Program (GTGP) and Forest Ecological Benefit Compensation (FEBC). Additionally, this study illustrates information about global initiatives, their interconnected impacts, and the associated policy strategies for environmental conservation. By utilizing multivariate regression, logistic regression, eigenvector spatial filtering, and scenario modeling, the research aims to understand the collective influence of these initiatives on broader environmental objectives. The findings of this study provide valuable insights for improving conservation policy designs and effectiveness.•Multivariate and logistic regression analyses to dissect global environmental conservation program interactions and mutual influences.•Eigenvector spatial filtering to address spatial autocorrelation and enhance the accuracy of the model results and our interpretations.•Scenario modeling to project potential future outcomes and impacts.

Global hidden spillover effects among concurrent green initiatives.

Concurrently implemented green initiatives to combat global environmental crises may be curtailed or even sacrificed given the ongoing global economic contraction. We collected empirical data and information about green initiatives from 15 sites or countries worldwide. We systematically explored how specific policy, intended behaviors, and gains of given green initiative may interact with those of other green initiatives concurrently implemented in the same geographic area or involving the same recipients. Surprisingly, we found that spillover effects were very divergent: one initiative could reduce the gain of another by 22 % âˆ¼ 100 %, representing alarming losses, while in other instances, substantial co-benefits could arise as one initiative can increase the gain of another by 9 % âˆ¼ 310 %. Leveraging these effects will help countries keep green initiatives with significant co-benefits but stop initiatives with substantial spillover losses in the face of widespread budget cuts, better meeting the United Nations' sustainable development goals.

Payments for ecosystem services did not crowd out pro-environmental behavior: Long-term experimental evidence from Uganda.

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) are increasingly being implemented worldwide as conservation instruments that provide conditional economic incentives to landowners for a prespecified duration. However, in the psychological and economic literature, critics have raised concerns that PES can undermine the recipient's intrinsic motivation to engage in pro-environmental behavior. Such "crowding out" may reduce the effectiveness of PES and may even worsen conservation outcomes once programs are terminated. In this study, we harnessed a randomized controlled trial that provided PES to land users in Western Uganda and evaluated whether these incentives had a persistent effect on pro-environmental behavior and its underlying behavioral drivers 6 y after the last payments were made. We elicited pro-environmental behavior with an incentivized, experimental measure that consisted of a choice for respondents between more and less environmentally friendly tree seedlings. In addition to this main outcome, survey-based measures for underlying behavioral drivers captured self-efficacy beliefs, intrinsic motivation, and perceived forest benefits. Overall, we found no indications that PES led to the crowding out of pro-environmental behavior. That is, respondents from the treatment villages were as likely as respondents from the control villages to choose environmentally friendly tree seedlings. We also found no systematic differences between these two groups in their underlying behavioral drivers, and nor did we find evidence for crowding effects when focusing on self-reported tree planting behavior as an alternative outcome measure.

Multicriteria spatial model to prioritize degraded areas for landscape restoration through agroforestry.

Reconciling the restoration of ecosystem services within agricultural landscapes is an effort that has been advancing within degraded areas restoration through agroforestry systems. However, to contribute to the effectiveness of these initiatives, it is essential to integrate landscape vulnerability and local demands to better highlight in which areas the implementation of agroforestry systems should be prioritized. Thus, we developed a spatial hierarchization methodology as a decision support tool as an active strategy for agroecosystem restoration. The proposed method constitutes a spatial indicator of priority areas to guide agroforestry interventions, including resource allocation and public policies for payment for environmental services. The methodology consists of Multicriteria Decision Analysis implemented in GIS software by combining input datasets based on biophysical conditions, environmental and socioeconomic aspects, that integrated promotes an assessment of the environment fragility, the pressures and responses to land use dynamic; a strategy for landscape restoration and conservation of the natural habitats, and multiple specific scenarios for decision making regarding the agricultural and the local actors demands. The output of the model provides the spatial distribution of areas suitable for the implementation of agroforestry systems, sorted into four priority levels (Low, Medium, High, and Extreme priority). The method is a promising tool proposal for territorial management and governance and subsidizes future research on the flows of ecosystem services.•Assessment of the environment fragility and the pressures and responses to land use dynamic.•Strategy for landscape restoration and conservation of remaining natural habitats.•Multiple specific scenarios for decision making regarding the agricultural and the local actors demands.

Payments for environmental services strategy for transboundary air pollution: A stochastic differential game perspective.

Air pollution has become a global threat to societal development. The main challenges of transboundary air pollution control include two perspectives: uneven socioeconomic development of regions and the diffusion of air pollution. This paper proposes an PES strategy to alleviate transboundary air pollution by coordinating regional economic interests and environmental preferences within the joint prevention and control of air pollution region. To make the model design more realistic, we introduce the stochastic differential game model to characterize the diffusion and uncertainty of air pollution. The optimal feedback Nash equilibrium is derived in three PES scenarios (no PES, dynamic PES, and fixed-fee PES) by using the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation. Numerical simulations and sensitivity analysis are implemented to compare the optimal strategies under the three PES scenarios. The dynamic PES strategy is shown to outperform the no PES strategy and the fixed-fee PES strategy by encouraging the backward region to cut more emissions. Besides, the confidence interval theory is used to estimate the variation range of air pollution stocks, which provides a powerful diagnostic tool for policy-makers.

Spatial indicator of priority areas for the implementation of agroforestry systems: An optimization strategy for agricultural landscapes restoration.

The ecological functions restoration in agricultural areas is a major challenge on a landscape scale. In the specific case of active restoration through Agroforestry Systems (AFS), the absence of a specific direction hinders ecological restoration processes, especially in regions that prefer intensive agriculture. Thus, this study aims to develop a Spatial Indicator of Priority Areas to guide Agroforestry Systems implementation in agricultural landscapes. A spatial multicriteria decision analysis (MDCA) was carried out based on environmental factors: soil, geology and slope (which determine the natural vulnerability of the land) and anthropogenic factors: land use and land cover, forest fragments, potential land use capacity and legal protected areas in rural properties (which reflects human pressure and land use suitability). Subsequently, four priority levels were classified for agroforestry interventions: (1) Low priority; (2) Average priority; (3) High priority; (4) Extreme priority. A final map was made to identify priority areas for landscape recovery in 9 cities located at the mouth of the Mogi Guaçu River Hydrographic Basin, State of São Paulo, Brazil. Considering the natural vulnerability of the land and the multifunctional aspects of the landscape, the scenarios projection allowed a consensus for forest conservation and agricultural suitability perspectives. A final combination of the explored aspects culminated in the spatial indicator, which model foresees 22,300 ha available for urgent actions for restoration, reforestation and sustainable exploitation through agroforestry systems. We emphasize the challenges in reconciling the socioeconomic and ecological functions in the agroecosystem, however, the metric provides a more inclusive and assertive management strategy for natural resources and advances towards the goal of reforestation and implementation of payment for environmental services (PES) schemes.

From payments for ecosystem services to eco-compensation: Conceptual change or paradigm shift?

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) is an effective policy in conserving ecosystem services and is increasingly applied globally. The concept of PES was firstly defined in 2005, researches with various terminologies, concepts, and practices emerged since then. This paper analyzed the research patterns of PES studies through bibliometric methods, with a special focus on the trends of terminology, location (geographical research hotspot), types of PES, and PES effectiveness evaluation based on author keywords analysis. The results showed that PES started to receive considerable academic attentions from 2005, and the number of PES publications have relatively kept an increasing trend since then. The most influential journal, country, research organization, and author were Ecological Economics, USA, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS, China), and Dr. Wunder. Further analysis revealed that there were various terminologies in PES studies, notably "ecological compensation" and "eco-compensation" (EC) were primarily adapted by Chinese research community. China was the geographical research hotspot and developing countries (Vietnam, Mexico, and Brazil) have received growing academic interests in last decade. "Forest and Carbon" PES was the most concerned types of PES in last five years. There were 125 articles evaluated the effectiveness of empirical PES initiatives, and the majority focused on the social aspect. We proposed two suggestions for future research: (1) adapting EC as an alternative term for PES studies because of its inclusiveness and representation of empirical practices; (2) enhancing integrated evaluation of PES programs to achieve multiple benefits.

The effectiveness of Payments for Ecosystem Services at delivering improvements in water quality: lessons for experiments at the landscape scale.

BACKGROUND: Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) are used in impact evaluation in a range of fields. However, despite calls for their greater use in environmental management, their use to evaluate landscape scale interventions remains rare. Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) incentivise land users to manage land to provide environmental benefits. We present the first RCT evaluation of a PES program aiming to improve water quality. Watershared is a program which incentivises landowners to avoid deforestation and exclude cattle from riparian forests. Using this unusual landscape-scale experiment we explore the efficacy of Watershared at improving water quality, and draw lessons for future RCT evaluations of landscape-scale environmental management interventions. METHODS: One hundred and twenty-nine communities in the Bolivian Andes were randomly allocated to treatment (offered Watershared agreements) or control (not offered agreements) following baseline data collection (including Escherichia coli contamination in most communities) in 2010. We collected end-line data in 2015. Using our end-line data, we explored the extent to which variables associated with the intervention (e.g. cattle exclusion, absence of faeces) predict water quality locally. We then investigated the efficacy of the intervention at improving water quality at the landscape scale using the RCT. This analysis was done in two ways; for the subset of communities for which we have both baseline and end-line data from identical locations we used difference-in-differences (matching on baseline water quality), for all sites we compared control and treatment at end-line controlling for selected predictors of water quality. RESULTS: The presence of cattle faeces in water adversely affected water quality suggesting excluding cattle has a positive impact on water quality locally. However, both the matched difference-in-differences analysis and the comparison between treatment and control communities at end-line suggested Watershared was not effective at reducing E. coli contamination at the landscape scale. Uptake of Watershared agreements was very low and the most important land from a water quality perspective (land around water intakes) was seldom enrolled. DISCUSSION: Although excluding cattle may have a positive local impact on water quality, higher uptake and better targeting would be required to achieve a significant impact on the quality of water consumed in the communities. Although RCTs potentially have an important role to play in building the evidence base for approaches such as PES, they are far from straightforward to implement. In this case, the randomised trial was not central to concluding that Watershared had not produced a landscape scale impact. We suggest that this RCT provides valuable lessons for future use of randomised experiments to evaluate landscape-scale environmental management interventions.

Payments for environmental services supported social capital while increasing land management.

Payments for environmental services (PES) programs incentivize landowners to protect or improve natural resources. Many conservationists fear that introducing compensation for actions previously offered voluntarily will reduce social capital (the institutions, relationships, attitudes, and values that govern human interactions), yet little rigorous research has investigated this concern. We examined the land cover management and communal social capital impacts of Mexico's federal conservation payments program, which is a key example for other countries committed to reducing deforestation, protecting watersheds, and conserving biodiversity. We used a regression discontinuity (RD) methodology to identify causal program effects, comparing outcomes for PES participants and similar rejected applicants close to scoring cutoffs. We found that payments increased land cover management activities, such as patrolling for illegal activity, building fire breaks, controlling pests, or promoting soil conservation, by ∼50%. Importantly, increases in paid activities as a result of PES did not crowd out unpaid contributions to land management or other prosocial work. Community social capital increased by ∼8-9%, and household-level measures of trust were not affected by the program. These findings demonstrate that major environmental conditional cash transfer programs can support both land management and the attitudes and institutions underpinning prosocial behavior. Rigorous empirical research on this question can proceed only country by country because of methodological limitations, but will be an important line of inquiry as PES continues to expand worldwide.

Estimating water user demand for certification of forest watershed services.

Eco-certification is one solution to the common problem of verification of delivery of services in payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes. Certification incurs costs, which may limit uptake, so it should be able to benefit users of certified services for it succeeds. In part to inform a project targeting expansion of the Forest Stewardship Council's forest management certification to include ecosystem services, we tested market demand for a potential certification scheme for watershed services. Using choice experiments among end-users of water subject to an existing PES scheme in Lombok, Indonesia, we assessed potential business values of certification. Our results suggested that preferred business values included credible information disclosure on improved water quality, reduced flood risk, environmental safeguards, and/or social safeguards of the upstream forests. These preferences indicate potential demand for a certification of forest watershed services designed to provide such information to end users.

Targeted reforestation could reverse declines in connectivity for understory birds in a tropical habitat corridor.

Re-establishing connectivity between protected areas isolated by habitat clearing is a key conservation goal in the humid tropics. In northeastern Costa Rica, payments for environmental services (PES) and a government ban on deforestation have subsidized forest protection and reforestation in the San Juan-La Selva Biological Corridor (SJLSBC), resulting in a decline in mature forest loss and the expansion of tree plantations. We use field studies and graph models to assess how conservation efforts have altered functional connectivity over the last 25 years for four species of insectivorous understory birds. Field playback studies assessed how reforestation habitat quality affected the willingness of Myrmeciza exsul, Henicorhina leucosticta, Thamnophilus atrinucha, and Glyphorynchus spirurus to travel outside forest habitat for territorial defense. Observed travel distances were greatest in nonnative and native tree plantations with high understory stem density, regardless of overstory composition. In contrast, tree plantations with low stem density had travel responses comparable to open pasture for three of the four bird species. We modeled landscape connectivity for each species using graph models based on varying possible travel distances in tree plantations, gallery forests, and pastures. From 1986 to 2011, connectivity for all species declined in the SJLSBC landscape (5825 km2 ) by 14% to 21% despite only a 4.9% net loss in forest area and the rapid expansion of tree plantations over 2% of the landscape. Plantation placement in the landscape limited their potential facilitation of connectivity because they were located either far from forest cover or within already contiguous forest areas. We mapped current connectivity bottlenecks and identified priority areas for future reforestation. We estimate that reforestation of priority areas could improve connectivity by 2% with only a 1% gain in forest cover, an impressive gain given the small area reforested. Results indicate key locations where spatial targeting of PES within the SJLSBC study region would protect existing forest connectivity and enhance the connectivity benefits of reforestation.

Evaluating governance for sustainable development - Insights from experiences in the Dutch fen landscape.

Prominent strands of discussion in the literature on governance for sustainable development debate how change can be induced to enhance sustainability, and how to evaluate the interventions aimed at prompting such change. Strikingly, there are few contributions about how prominent ideas of inducing change deal with multiple governance criteria for pursuing sustainable development. Moreover, the way ideas about inducing change relate to criteria of governance for sustainable development is not yet studied in an empirical context. This paper therefore comparatively analyses how three prominent modes of sustainable development governance - adaptive management, transition management and payments for environmental services - relate to a set of five prominent criteria reported in the literature, namely: equity, democracy, legitimacy, the handling of scale issues and the handling of uncertainty issues. It finds that the academic debates on these three modes address these criteria with varying attention and rather fragmented, while in the empirical setting of the Dutch fen landscape several aspects relating to the studied criteria were present and substantially influenced the functioning of the three modes of sustainable development. Together, the analysis of the literature debate and the empirical data are able to show that a narrow evaluation perspective may fail to diagnose and capture relevant struggles and complexities coming along with governance for sustainable development relevant issues. The study shows that in order to advance our understanding of governance for sustainable development, it is indeed important to include multiple criteria in studying these modes. Moreover, the study shows the importance of including empirical experiences which manifest when different modes for sustainable development are applied in real-world settings.

The role of network bridging organisations in compensation payments for agri-environmental services under the EU Common Agricultural Policy.

Compensation payments to farmers for the provision of agri-environmental services are a well-established policy scheme under the EU Common Agricultural Policy. However, in spite of the success in most EU countries in the uptake of the programme by farmers, the impact of the scheme on the long term commitment of farmers to change their practices remains poorly documented. To explore this issue, this paper presents the results of structured field interviews and a quantitative survey in the Walloon Region of Belgium. The main finding of this study is that farmers who have periodic contacts with network bridging organisations that foster cooperation and social learning in the agri-environmental landscapes show a higher commitment to change. This effect is observed both for farmers with high and low concern for biodiversity depletion. Support for network bridging organisations is foreseen under the EU Leader programme and the EU regulation 1306/2013, which could open-up interesting opportunities for enhancing the effectiveness of the current payment scheme for agri-environmental services.

Pagamento por serviços ambientais contribuindo para a saúde ambiental, uma análise em nível local / Payments for environmental services that contribute to environmental health, a local level analysis

O presente artigo tem como objetivo propor que os mecanismos de pagamentos por serviços ambientais sejam utilizados como uma contribuição para a melhoria da saúde ambiental, partindo do nível local e discutindo a relação entre as mudanças trazidas por esses mecanismos e a melhoria da saúde ambiental. O campo de estudo foi o município de Rio Grande da Serra (SP), com 100% de seu território em área de proteção de mananciais, com população em alta vulnerabilidade social e localizado na Região Metropolitana de São Paulo, Brasil. Foi conduzido em três fases: i) revisão da literatura; ii) coleta de dados; e iii) análise do conjunto. As informações relativas à saúde ambiental do município foram disponibilizadas por parte da prefeitura municipal de Rio Grande da Serra e coletadas junto à Cetesb, IBGE e Datasus, sendo posteriormente analisadas para a obtenção de um grupo de serviços ambientais com capacidade de contribuir para a melhoria da saúde ambiental em nível local. Concluiu-se que os serviços ambientais com maior capacidade de melhoria nessa área são a regulação climática, seguida por controle de erosão e retenção de sedimentos, aprovisionamento de água e benefícios culturais e recreacionais...

This paper aims to propose that the mechanisms for Payments of Environmental Services are used as a contribution to the improvement of environmental health, based on the local level. It seeks to discuss the relationship between the changes brought by these mechanisms and the improvement of environmental health. The studied area was the city of Rio Grande da Serra, São Paulo state, with 100% of its territory in watershed protection area, population in high social vulnerability and in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo, Brazil. The study was conducted in three steps: i) a literature review; ii) data collection; e iii) analysis of data. The information about the local environmental health was provided by the Municipality of Rio Grande da Serra and collected at CETESB, IBGE and DATASUS, being later analyzed in order to define a group of environmental services capable of contributing to the improvement of environmental health at the local level. It concludes that the environmental services with greater capacity to improve environmental health are climate regulation, followed by erosion control and sediment retention, supply of water and recreational and cultural goods...

Pagamento por serviços ambientais contribuindo para a saúde ambiental, uma análise em nível local / Payments for environmental services that contribute to environmental health, a local level analysis

O presente artigo tem como objetivo propor que os mecanismos de pagamentos por serviços ambientais sejam utilizados como uma contribuição para a melhoria da saúde ambiental, partindo do nível local e discutindo a relação entre as mudanças trazidas por esses mecanismos e a melhoria da saúde ambiental. O campo de estudo foi o município de Rio Grande da Serra (SP), com 100 por cento de seu território em área de proteção de mananciais, com população em alta vulnerabilidade social e localizado na Região Metropolitana de São Paulo, Brasil. Foi conduzido em três fases: i) revisão da literatura; ii) coleta de dados; e iii) análise do conjunto. As informações relativas à saúde ambiental do município foram disponibilizadas por parte da prefeitura municipal de Rio Grande da Serra e coletadas junto à Cetesb, IBGE e Datasus, sendo posteriormente analisadas para a obtenção de um grupo de serviços ambientais com capacidade de contribuir para a melhoria da saúde ambiental em nível local. Concluiu-se que os serviços ambientais com maior capacidade de melhoria nessa área são a regulação climática, seguida por controle de erosão e retenção de sedimentos, aprovisionamento de água e benefícios culturais e recreacionais.(AU)