Publications

September 19, 2019

Book chapter: Delta Economics and Sustainability

Environmental change constitutes a risk to the sustainability of economic activities, within deltas and the wider regions and economies within which they sit. Slow acting environmental change and shocks from extreme events can affect economic activities. Using multiregional input-output tables, extended to include environmental dimensions and combined with Computable General Equilibrium models, flows of economic activities and ecosystem services across supply chains are assessed.
September 18, 2019

Greener and Fairer: A Progressive Environmental Tax Reform for Spain

Environmental externalities call for the use of environmental taxes to get prices right and thereby reduce environmental pressures. To date, however, the Spanish government makes only limited use of environmental taxes. One major reason for the policy reluctance are concerns on the regressive impacts of environmental taxes. We argue that policy can hedge against these concerns by means of revenue recycling. More specifically, we assess the impacts of a green tax reform where additional revenues are redistributed lump-sum to Spanish households on an equal-per-capita basis. Based on quantitative evidence from coupled microsimulation and computable equilibrium analyses we find that such a green tax reform leads to a substantial reduction in harmful emissions while having a progressive impact.
August 7, 2019

Jornal Article: Dry deposition of air pollutants on trees at regional scale: A case study in the Basque Country

There is increased interest in the role of trees to reduce air pollution and thereby improve human health and well-being. This study determined the removal of air pollutants by dry deposition of trees across the Basque Country and estimated its annual economic value. A model that calculates the hourly dry deposition of NO2, O3, SO2, CO and PM10 on trees at a 1 km x 1 km resolution at a regional scale was developed.
August 5, 2019

Book: Aid Effectiveness for Environmental Sustainability

This collection examines the role that foreign aid can play in dealing with the severe global challenge of climate change, one of the most pressing international development issues of the 21st century. Addressing the key threats of rising temperatures, changes in precipitation, coastal erosion and natural disasters, the book considers the implications for policy and future research, particularly in developing countries.
June 11, 2019

New BC3-FAO-PROFOR/WB Infography: Mapping Katowice decisions related to Nationally determined contributions

The materials presented in this product seek to provide information on the Katowice Climate Package, agreed during the Katowice Climate Conference held in 2018. Specifically, it contains information on the decisions related to the modalities, procedures and guidelines for the transparency framework for action and support to facilitate understanding of the Parties’ communication and reporting obligations under the Paris Agreement, as well as the process to track progress implementation of NDC commitments. This material seeks to serve as a resource for developing countries for the update, review and communication of NDCs, as well as for the reporting and accounting of their NDC commitments.
April 5, 2019

BC3 publication: Toward a normative land systems science

Science should provide solutions for societal transformations toward sustainability in the face of global environmental change. Land system science, as a systemic science focused on complex socio-ecological interactions around land use and associated trade-offs and synergies, is well placed to contribute to this agenda.
April 3, 2019

BC3 publication: Human dependence on natural resources in rapidly urbanising South African regions

Enhancing the governance of social-ecological systems for more equitable and sustainable development is hindered by inadequate knowledge about how different social groups and communities rely on natural resources. We used openly accessible national survey data to develop a metric of overall dependence on natural resources. These data contain information about households' sources of water, energy, building materials and food.
April 3, 2019

BC3 publication: Cascading effects associated with climate-change-induced conifer mortality in mountain temperate forests result in hot-spots of soil CO2 emissions

Climate change-induced tree mortality is occurring worldwide, at increasingly larger scales and with increasing frequency. How climate change-induced tree mortality could affect the ecology and carbon (C) sink capacity of soils remains unknown. This study investigated regional-scale drought-induced tree mortality, based on events that occurred after a very dry year (2012) in the Carpathians mountain range (Romania), which caused mortality in three common conifer species: Scots pine, Black pine, and Silver fir.
April 2, 2019

BC3 Publication “The ecosystem carbon sink implications of mountain forest expansion into abandoned grazing land: The role of subsoil and climatic factors”

Woody encroachment is a widespread phenomenon resulting from the abandonment of mountain agricultural and pastoral practices during the last century. As a result, forests have expanded, increasing biomass and necromass carbon (C) pools. However, the impact on soil organic carbon (SOC) is less clear. The main aim of this study was to investigate the effect of woody encroachment on SOC stocks and ecosystem C pools in six chronosequences located along the Italian peninsula, three in the Alps and three in the Apennines.
March 18, 2019

New DECCMA policy brief “Climate change and the economic future of deltas in Africa and Asia”

The project Deltas, vulnerability and Climate Change; Migration as an Adaptation (DECCMA), has release a new policy brief "Climate change and the economic future of deltas in Africa and Asia". The objective of it is to explore the economics implications of climate change for the three deltas of the DECCMA project and to summarise the finds for the Business as Usual scenario, without climate change, with climate change, and with climate change and adaptation.