Abstract
A complex interplay of socio-ecological drivers of change exists at the different spatiotemporal scales affecting environmental degradation. This is a key issue worldwide and needs to be understood to develop efficient management solutions. One of the most applied theories in the regional analysis is the U-shaped relationship between environmental degradation and the level of income in a given economic system or Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). Specifically, the EKC hypothesis underlines the (potentially positive) role of formal responses to environmental degradation grounded on government policies that are usually more ambitious in wealthier economic systems. However, there is a lack of knowledge on the role of space in EKC, arguing that spatial variability in the environment–income relationship may indicate additional targets for integrated socio–environmental policies. We hypothesize that a spatially differentiated response to environmental degradation could better adapt to differentiated local contexts. Therefore, to achieve this goal, we present a multi-scale investigation of degradation processes at the local level, providing a refined knowledge of the environment–economy linkages considering more traditional, cross-country and cross-region exercises. Our results demonstrated that—together with temporal, sectoral, and institutional aspects—space and, consequently, the related analysis’ spatial scales, are significant dimensions in ecological economics, whose investigation requires improvements in data collection and dedicated statistical approaches.
Highlights
Social inequality, economic polarization, and territorial disparities represent a challenge in sustainable development, with direct environmental impacts (Boyce 1994; Barrett and Graddy 2000; Heerink et al 2001)
As clearly highlighted in the exercise proposed in this commentary, the value-added of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis was to provide further insights into the decentralized environment–economy dynamics
While cross-country analysis may represent a fruitful research issue in ecological economics, moving to disaggregated analysis’ scales and spatially explicit approaches is a strategy containing technical problems associated with the comparison of aggregated data from different countries
Summary
Economic polarization, and territorial disparities represent a challenge in sustainable development, with direct (and indirect) environmental impacts (Boyce 1994; Barrett and Graddy 2000; Heerink et al 2001). Theoretical frameworks and quantitative approaches assessing convergence (or divergence) between economic growth and ecosystem degradation have been developed (Mukherjee and Kathuria 2006) In this regard, the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesizing the existence of a non-linear, inverted U-shaped relationship between ecosystem degradation and a country’s income, has attracted increasing interest among scholars, policy-makers, and stakeholders (Caviglia-Harris et al 2009). The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesizing the existence of a non-linear, inverted U-shaped relationship between ecosystem degradation and a country’s income, has attracted increasing interest among scholars, policy-makers, and stakeholders (Caviglia-Harris et al 2009) This hypothesis assumes the (supposedly beneficial) indirect role of rising income in maintaining ecosystem functions (Dasgupta et al 2006).
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