The importance of equity in payments to encourage coexistence with large mammals.

Large mammals often impose significant costs such as livestock depredation or crop foraging on rural communities, and this can lead to the retaliatory killing of threatened wildlife populations. One conservation approach-payments to encourage coexistence (PEC)-aims to reduce these costs through financial mechanisms, such as compensation, insurance, revenue sharing, and conservation performance payments. Little is known about the equitability of PEC, however, despite its moral and instrumental importance, prevalence as a conservation approach, and the fact that other financial tools for conservation are often inequitable. We used examples from the literature to examine the capability of PEC-as currently perceived and implemented-to be inequitable. We recommend improving the equitability of current and future schemes through the cooperative design of schemes that promote compensatory equity and greater consideration of conservation performance payments and by changing the international model for funding PEC to reduce global coexistence inequalities. New and existing programs must address issues of equitability across scales to ensure that conservation efforts are not undermined by diminished social legitimacy.

Importancia de la equidad de pago para alentar la coexistencia con mamíferos mayores Resumen Con frecuencia, los grandes mamíferos acarrean costes importantes para las comunidades rurales, como resultado de la depredación del ganado o por daños a cultivos, lo que puede derivar en la caza de cierta fauna amenazada como represalia. Una de las posibles estrategias para la protección de esta fauna-los llamados 'pagos para alentar la coexistencia' (PEC por sus siglas en inglés)-busca reducir estos costes a través de mecanismos financieros como los seguros de compensación, el reparto de ingresos y el 'pago por resultados'. Actualmente se conoce muy poco sobre aspectos relacionados con la equidad en relación a los PECs, a pesar de la importancia moral e instrumental de este asunto, y de la prevalencia de estos instrumentos, especialmente considerando que otras herramientas financieras para la conservación suelen no ser equitativas. En este artículo usamos ejemplos de la literatura para examinar la (in)equidad potencial de los PECs - de acuerdo a como están siendo percibidos e implementados actualmente. En las conclusiones, recomendamos que los programas actuales y futuros sean mejorados mediante diseños cooperativos que promuevan la equidad compensatoria y una mayor consideración del pago por resultados de conservación. Así mismo, debe cambiarse modelo internacional de financiamiento de los PECs para reducir las desigualdades globales en cuanto a la coexistencia con grandes mamíferos. Tanto los programas nuevos como los ya existentes deben abordar los temas de equidad a todas las escalas para asegurar que los esfuerzos de conservación no se vean perjudicados por una legitimidad social disminuida.

How do information flows affect impact from environmental research? - An analysis of a science-policy network.

Evidence of the impact arising from environmental research is increasingly demanded. Exchanges between science providers and actors that use scientific knowledge to address environmental problems are recognized as a key component of the mechanisms through which impact occurs. Yet, the role of interactions between science and policy actors in delivering and shaping research impact is not well established. We aim to better understand how transfer of science in a science-policy network generates impact. Our approach relies on an exploratory social network analysis (SNA), applied to a network of organisations working on land and water management in a catchment in the UK. We analyse flows of scientific information across these organisations and how those contribute to impact, which we conceptualized as change in organisations at three levels: increased awareness, operational change and strategic change. We find that organisations occupying central positions in the network facilitate the transfer of science and influence the level of change achieved. We also find that the effectiveness of the flows of information and impact delivery depends on boundary organisations, in particular public regulatory bodies, that connect agents with others. Moreover, intended change reported by science providers does not often transform directly into change as reported by the receivers of the information. We conclude that both exchanges between researchers and research users and the role of boundary organisations are key to impact delivery and making change possible. This is valuable for understanding where improvements to information flows between organisations might enhance impact.

Are stakeholders ready to transform phosphorus use in food systems? A transdisciplinary study in a livestock intensive system.

Food systems worldwide are vulnerable to Phosphorus (P) supply disruptions and price fluctuations. Current P use is also highly inefficient, generating large surpluses and pollution. Global food security and aquatic ecosystems are in jeopardy if transformative action is not taken. This paper pivots from earlier (predominantly conceptual) work to develop and analyse a P transdisciplinary scenario process, assessing stakeholders potential for transformative thinking in P use in the food system. Northern Ireland, a highly livestock-intensive system, was used as case study for illustrating such process. The stakeholder engagement takes a normative stance in that it sets the explicit premise that the food system needs to be transformed and asks stakeholders to engage in a dialogue on how that transformation can be achieved. A Substance Flow Analysis of P flows and stocks was employed to construct visions for alternative futures and stimulate stakeholder discussions on system responses. These were analysed for their transformative potential using a triple-loop social learning framework. For the most part, stakeholder responses remained transitional or incremental, rather than being fundamentally transformative. The process did unveil some deeper levers that could be acted upon to move the system further along the spectrum of transformational change (e.g. changes in food markets, creation of new P markets, destocking, new types of land production and radical land use changes), providing clues of what an aspirational system could look like. Replicated and adapted elsewhere, this process can serve as diagnostics of current stakeholders thinking and potential, as well as for the identification of those deeper levers, opening up avenues to work upon for global scale transformation.

Do awareness-focussed approaches to mitigating diffuse pollution work? A case study using behavioural and water quality evidence.

Efforts to tackle diffuse water pollution from agriculture are increasingly focusing on improving farmers' awareness under the expectation that this would contribute to adoption of best management practices (BMPs) and, in turn, result in water quality improvements. To date, however, no study has explored the full awareness-behaviour-water quality pathway; with previous studies having mostly addressed the awareness-behaviour link relying on disciplinary approaches. Using an interdisciplinary approach, we investigate whether awareness-focussed approaches to mitigating diffuse water pollution from agriculture indeed result in water quality improvement, addressing the pathway in full. We worked with Dwr Cymru Welsh Water (a water and waste utility company in the UK) on a pesticide pollution intervention programme, referred to as "weed wiper trial". The main goal of the trial was to raise farmers' awareness regarding pesticide management practices and to promote uptake of BMPs to tackle the rising concentrations of the pesticide MCPA (2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid) in raw water in three catchments in Wales. Using factorial analysis of variance, we analysed MCPA concentrations from 2006 to 2019 in the three targeted catchments and in three control catchments. This was followed by semi-structured in-depth interviews with institutional stakeholders and farmers with varying degrees of exposure to the weed wiper trial. Results show that MCPA concentration for both targeted and control catchments had reduced after the implementation of the weed wiper trial. However, the decline was significantly larger (F(1) = 6.551, p < 0.05, n = 3077, Partial eta-squared (ηp2) = 0.002) for the targeted catchments (mean = 45.2%) compared to the control catchments (mean = 10.9%). Results from the stakeholder interviews indicate that improved awareness contributed to changes in farmers' behaviour and that these can be related to the water quality improvements reflected by the decline in MCPA concentration. Alongside awareness, other psychosocial, economic, agronomic factors, catchment and weather conditions also influenced farmer's ability to implement BMPs and thus overall water quality improvements.

Five pillars for stakeholder analyses in sustainability transformations: The global case of phosphorus.

Phosphorus is a critical agricultural nutrient and a major pollutant in waterbodies due to inefficient use. In the form of rock phosphate it is a finite global commodity vulnerable to price shocks and sourcing challenges. Transforming toward sustainable phosphorus management involves local to global stakeholders. Conventional readings of stakeholders may not reflect system complexity leaving it difficult to see stakeholder roles in transformations. We attempt to remedy this issue with a novel stakeholder analysis method based on five qualitative pillars: stakeholder agency, system roles, power and influence, alignment to the problem, and transformational potential. We argue that our approach suits case studies of individual stakeholders, stakeholder groups, and organisations with relationships to sustainability challenges.

Towards resolving the phosphorus chaos created by food systems.

The chaotic distribution and dispersal of phosphorus (P) used in food systems (defined here as disorderly disruptions to the P cycle) is harming our environment beyond acceptable limits. An analysis of P stores and flows across Europe in 2005 showed that high fertiliser P inputs relative to productive outputs was driving low system P efficiency (38 % overall). Regional P imbalance (P surplus) and system P losses were highly correlated to total system P inputs and animal densities, causing unnecessary P accumulation in soils and rivers. Reducing regional P surpluses to zero increased system P efficiency (+ 16 %) and decreased total P losses by 35 %, but required a reduction in system P inputs of ca. 40 %, largely as fertiliser. We discuss transdisciplinary and transformative solutions that tackle the P chaos by collective stakeholder actions across the entire food value chain. Lowering system P demand and better regional governance of P resources appear necessary for more efficient and sustainable food systems.

How to make complexity look simple? Conveying ecosystems restoration complexity for socio-economic research and public engagement.

Ecosystems degradation represents one of the major global challenges at the present time, threating people's livelihoods and well-being worldwide. Ecosystem restoration therefore seems no longer an option, but an imperative. Restoration challenges are such that a dialogue has begun on the need to re-shape restoration as a science. A critical aspect of that reshaping process is the acceptance that restoration science and practice needs to be coupled with socio-economic research and public engagement. This inescapably means conveying complex ecosystem's information in a way that is accessible to the wider public. In this paper we take up this challenge with the ultimate aim of contributing to making a step change in science's contribution to ecosystems restoration practice. Using peatlands as a paradigmatically complex ecosystem, we put in place a transdisciplinary process to articulate a description of the processes and outcomes of restoration that can be understood widely by the public. We provide evidence of the usefulness of the process and tools in addressing four key challenges relevant to restoration of any complex ecosystem: (1) how to represent restoration outcomes; (2) how to establish a restoration reference; (3) how to cope with varying restoration time-lags and (4) how to define spatial units for restoration. This evidence includes the way the process resulted in the creation of materials that are now being used by restoration practitioners for communication with the public and in other research contexts. Our main contribution is of an epistemological nature: while ecosystem services-based approaches have enhanced the integration of academic disciplines and non-specialist knowledge, this has so far only followed one direction (from the biophysical underpinning to the description of ecosystem services and their appreciation by the public). We propose that it is the mix of approaches and epistemological directions (including from the public to the biophysical parameters) what will make a definitive contribution to restoration practice.

Integrated cost-effectiveness analysis of agri-environmental measures for water quality.

This paper presents an application of integrated methodological approach for identifying cost-effective combinations of agri-environmental measures to achieve water quality targets. The methodological approach involves linking hydro-chemical modelling with economic costs of mitigation measures. The utility of the approach was explored for the River Dee catchment in North East Scotland, examining the cost-effectiveness of mitigation measures for nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) pollutants. In-stream nitrate concentration was modelled using the STREAM-N and phosphorus using INCA-P model. Both models were first run for baseline conditions and then their effectiveness for changes in land management was simulated. Costs were based on farm income foregone, capital and operational expenditures. The costs and effects data were integrated using 'Risk Solver Platform' optimization in excel to produce the most cost-effective combination of measures by which target nutrient reductions could be attained at a minimum economic cost. The analysis identified different combination of measures as most cost-effective for the two pollutants. An important aspect of this paper is integration of model-based effectiveness estimates with economic cost of measures for cost-effectiveness analysis of land and water management options. The methodological approach developed is not limited to the two pollutants and the selected agri-environmental measures considered in the paper; the approach can be adapted to the cost-effectiveness analysis of any catchment-scale environmental management options.

Application of a value-based equivalency method to assess environmental damage compensation under the European Environmental Liability Directive.

The Environmental Liability Directive (ELD) establishes a framework of liability based on the 'polluter-pays' principle to prevent and remedy environmental damage. The ELD requires the testing of appropriate equivalency methods to assess the scale of compensatory measures needed to offset damage. The aim of this paper is to contribute to fill the existing knowledge gap on the application of the value equivalency approach for damage compensation in this context. We analyze the toxic spill damaging the Doñana National Park (Spain) in 1998. The welfare losses associated with the resource damage are estimated using non-market valuation and compared to the value of the compensatory measures taken after the accident. Our results show that the in-kind compensation may have been insufficient to offset the welfare losses. We conclude that a more comprehensive knowledge of the human welfare effects caused by environmental damage is of substantial importance to determine compensatory remediation, as insufficient information in this respect can lead to erroneous decisions causing loss to society.

Using multi-criteria analysis to explore non-market monetary values of water quality changes in the context of the Water Framework Directive.

The EU Water Framework Directive represents a major change in the management of water resources and sets ambitious ecological objectives for all European waters. In the Directive, the economic assessment of the non-market environmental benefits of water quality improvements plays a crucial role. Studies valuing these benefits are now appearing in the literature, applying stated preference valuation techniques. However, these techniques are often criticized for providing only narrow mono-criterion information to the decision-making process. The research presented here builds on a recent line of investigation that combines monetary stated preference tools, in this case a choice experiment, with multi-criteria analysis, in this case the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). We argue that the AHP can contribute to a better understanding and interpretation of the choice experiment results by exploring the criteria involved in respondents' trade-off between the attributes. The AHP provides relevant insights for the application of use-based water quality ladders in the valuation of environmental benefits in the context of the WFD. Results also show the importance of the spatial dimension of preferences for water quality.