| 1. |
|
|
| 2. |
|
|
| 3. |
- Czajkowski, Mikołaj, et al.
(författare)
-
Increasing the cost-effectiveness of nutrient reduction targets using different spatial scales
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Science of the Total Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0048-9697 .- 1879-1026. ; 790
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper, we investigate the potential gains in cost-effectiveness from changing the spatial scale at which nutrient reduction targets are set for the Baltic Sea, with particular focus on nutrient loadings from agriculture. The costs of achieving loading reductions are compared across five levels of spatial scale, namely the entire Baltic Sea; the marine basin level; the country level; the watershed level; and the grid square level. A novel highly-disaggregated model, which represents decreases in agricultural profits, changes in root zone N concentrations and transport to the Baltic Sea is used. The model includes 14 Baltic Sea marine basins, 14 countries, 117 watersheds and 19,023 10-by-10 km grid squares. The main result which emerges is that there is a large variation in the total cost of the program depending on the spatial scale of targeting: for example, for a 40% reduction in loads, the costs of a Baltic Sea-wide target is nearly three times lower than targets set at the smallest level of spatial scale (grid square). These results have important implications for both domestic and international policy design for achieving water quality improvements where non-point pollution is a key stressor of water quality.
|
|
| 4. |
- Hasler, Berit, et al.
(författare)
-
Farmers’ preferences for nutrient and climate-related agri-environmental schemes : A cross-country comparison
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Ambio. - : Springer. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209. ; 48:11, s. 1290-1303
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We use data from a survey of 2439 farmers in 5 countries around the Baltic Sea (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Poland and Sweden) to investigate their preferences for adopting agricultural practices aimed at reducing nutrient leaching and greenhouse gas emissions. The measures considered are set-aside, catch crops and reduced fertilization. Contracts vary with respect to the area enrolled, contract length, possibility of premature termination, availability of professional advice and compensation. We quantitatively describe farmers’ preferences in terms of their willingness-to-accept compensation for specific attributes of these contracts, if implemented. The results vary substantially between farm types (farmers’ characteristics) and between the 5 countries, and support differentiation of contract obligations and payments to improve the uptake of AgriEnvironmental Schemes. The results can be readily used to improve the design of country-specific nutrient reduction policies, in accordance with the next Common Agricultural Policy.
|
|
| 5. |
- Hasler, Berit, et al.
(författare)
-
Sustainable ecosystem governance under changing climate and land use : An introduction
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Ambio. - : Springer Netherlands. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209. ; 48, s. 1235-1239
-
Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Combatting eutrophication is currently a major challenge for policy makers in the Baltic Sea region, and it is likely to remain so in the decades to come. Although total nutrient loads to the Baltic Sea have recently declined, the gap between current loadings and those required to ensure the desired status is still substantial (Reusch et al. 2018). This Special Issue is dedicated to research that helps inform how the eutrophication challenge might best be addressed by improving our understanding of technological constraints, societal drivers of change, land uses, environmental policies, and innovative governance with stakeholder involvement. These issues are important for the current generation and those to come and are issues we must address in order to succeed in reducing nutrient loads to the desired levels to gradually achieve the desired good environmental status of the Baltic Sea. Currently, we witness a new era of water policies across the entire Baltic Sea region. Our changing climate is impacting on precipitation and runoff, and is also the reason why new EU climate policies seek to tie carbon sinks more visibly to carbon sources. Both these aspects have repercussions for water policies. Thus, solving eutrophication challenges requires sharpening of existing policies and instruments, as well as creating new insights and governance approaches with broad stakeholder involvement in a changing environment. In order to design coherent water and climate policies, and target and implement those policies more efficiently, policy makers need to combine new insights regarding the inhabitants in the region, the catchments, and the Baltic Sea itself. Such insights can be expected from soil scientists, agronomists, hydrogeologists, marine ecologists, economists, and social and policy scientists. What is needed is on the one hand effectively targeted governance at appropriate spatial and temporal scales, adapted to differing interests and motivations of citizens living around the Baltic Sea, and on the other hand fine tuning and co-designing of policies at local, national, Baltic Sea regional and EU level. This Special Issue brings together recent research from four BONUS-funded projects—BONUS BALTICAPP, BONUS GO4BALTIC, BONUS MIRACLE and BONUS SOILS2SEA—that comprised part of the ‘Viable Ecosystem’ and ‘Sustainable Ecosystem Services’ BONUS research programmes. The projects addressed these common concerns through somewhat different, but inter-related, themes. Key messages emphasized and discussed in the research papers of this Special Issue are summarized under four interlinked themes: Scenarios for the future, Policies and ecosystem services in water governance, Novel approaches for managing nutrients, and Advanced modelling from field level to the entire Baltic Sea region.
|
|
| 6. |
- Hyytiäinen, Kari, et al.
(författare)
-
Worth it: Benefits outweigh costs in reducing eutrophication in the Baltic : BalticSTERN Summary Report for HELCOM 2013 Ministerial Meeting
- 2013
-
Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This summary report reviews the findings of BalticSTERN, an international research network conducting economic analysis of the ongoing and prospective efforts to reduce eutrophication in the Baltic Sea.The network has undertaken surveys exploring the benefits to be realized by citizens of countries on the Baltic from improved water quality and estimated cost-effective combinations of nutrient abatement measures which would fulfil the targets of the Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP). The cost-benefit analysis reported here evaluated the long-term net benefits and ecological consequences of the BSAP.The results indicate that the overall benefits of pursuing the proposed nutrient reductions clearly outweigh their aggregate cost, suggesting that the BSAP is an economically sound plan for solving the transboundary eutrophication problem. The cost of inaction - not implementing the objectives of the BSAP - would be significant.The research tools developed in BalticSTERN may aid decision making and inform processes related to the planning, design and evaluation of future international and national water management plans and policies for the Baltic Sea.
|
|
| 7. |
- Jansson, Torbjörn, et al.
(författare)
-
Baltic Sea eutrophication status is not improved by the first pillar of the European Union Common Agricultural Policy
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Regional Environmental Change. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1436-3798 .- 1436-378X. ; 19:8, s. 2465-2476
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Agriculture is an important source of nitrogen and phosphorous loads to the Baltic Sea. We study how the European Union's (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and in particular how its first pillar, containing most of the budget and the decoupled farm payments, affects eutrophication. To aid our study, we use three simulation models, covering the agricultural sector in the EU, a hydrological nutrient flow model and a model of eutrophication in the Baltic Sea. We compute changes in key eutrophication indicators in a business-as-usual baseline and in a hypothetical situation where the first pillar of the CAP, containing the direct payments, greening and accompanying measures, is not present. Comparing the outcomes, we find that in the scenario without the first pillar, production and agricultural land use is lower, while yields and fertiliser use per hectare are higher, causing less nitrogen and phosphorous loads (0.5 to 4% depending on the basin) and less eutrophication in the Baltic Sea as net effect. We therefore conclude that the policies of the first pillar of the CAP contribute to increased eutrophication in the Baltic Sea.
|
|
| 8. |
- Jansson, Torbjörn, et al.
(författare)
-
Can investments in manure technology reduce nutrient leakage to the Baltic Sea?
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Ambio. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209. ; 48:11, s. 1264-1277
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this study, quantitative models of the agricultural sector and nutrient transport and cycling are used to analyse the impacts in the Baltic Sea of replacing the current Greening measures of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy with a package of investments in manure handling. The investments aim at improving nutrient utilization and reducing nitrogen leaching, based on the assumption that lagging farms and regions can catch up with observed good practice. Our results indicate that such investments could reduce nitrogen surpluses in agriculture by 18% and nitrogen concentrations in the Baltic Sea by 1 to 9% depending on the basin. The Greening measures, in contrast, are found to actually increase nitrogen leaching.
|
|
| 9. |
|
|
| 10. |
- Noring, Maria, 1981-
(författare)
-
Valuing ecosystem services - linking ecology and policy
- 2014
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Ecosystem services constitute a precondition for human welfare and survival. This concept has also become increasingly popular among both scientists and policymakers. Several initiatives have been taken to identify and value ecosystem services. Several services are threatened, and it has been concluded that in order to better manage ecosystem services they need to be further investigated and valued. By measuring them using a common metric—monetary value—they can be more easily compared and included in decision-making tools. This thesis contributes to this goal by presenting values for several ecosystem services and also including them in decision-making tools.Starting with a discussion of the concept of ecosystem services, this thesis aims to present values for certain ecosystem services and to illustrate the use of these values in systems-analysis tools such as cost-benefit analyses (CBA) and a weighting set. Links between ecology, economics and policy are discussed within a broader framework of ecosystem services. Five papers are included, in which two contingent valuation studies (CV) have been used to find values for different ecosystem services. One valuation study is focused on the effects from tributyltin (TBT) in Swedish marine waters. In addition, a quantitative assessment framework has been developed in order to simplify analysis of environmental status, progress in environmental surveillance and the relevance of different measures. It is suggested that the framework should also be used when assessing the impacts of other substances affecting the environment. The second valuation study investigates the risk of an oil spill in northern Norway. The results have been included in two CBAs and a weighting set. The first CBA compares costs for remediation of polluted sediments, caused by TBT, with the benefits of reducing TBT levels. The second CBA compares costs and benefits for reducing the probability of an oil spill. The weighting set includes monetary values on a number of impact categories where marine toxicity is based on the valuation study on TBT. One study also examines the inclusion of environmental costs in life cycle costing (LCC) in different sectors in Sweden.Results show that respondents consider ecosystem values to be important. The values of Swedish marine waters and coastal areas outside Lofoten-Vesterålen in Norway have been identified and quantified in terms of biodiversity, habitat, recreation and scenery. In the Norwegian case, an ongoing debate on the issue of oil and gas exploration has had an impact on the number of protest bids found in the study.Based on the cost and benefits of limiting impacts on ecosystem services derived from the valuation studies, CBAs show that the suggested measures are most likely beneficial for society, and the results contribute to policy recommendations. A weighting set has been updated with new values through value transfer. The weighting set is compatible with LCA. The final study shows that companies and public organisations use environmental costs (internal and external) in a limited manner.In this thesis the ecosystem service concept is used both as an introduction and a guiding thread for the reader, as a way to frame the studies undertaken. The concept of ecosystem services can be useful, as it emphasises the importance of the services to humans. By finding and presenting values of ecosystem services, such services are more easily incorporated into decision-making.
|
|
