Ecological Insurance Research Articles

Organic Farming in Agricultural Practices: A Review

Creating sufficient food to address the issues of a developing populace has forever been the biggest worry of food strategy creators all over the planet. The review showed that the main benefits of organic farming are ecological insurance and a higher flexibility to natural changes, expanding ranchers' pay and lessening outside input cost, upgrading social limit and expanding work open doors. As well as upgrading food security essentially by expanding the food buying force of nearby individuals. Notwithstanding, the fundamental difficulties of this food creation framework incorporate lower yields in contrast with traditional frameworks, challenges with soil supplement the board, confirmation and market obstructions, and the instructive and research necessities of little holders. The paper infers that despite the fact that OF could introduce a few huge difficulties to limited scope ranchers, it could/ ought to enhance the overall soil health.

Concepts of Mining Management in Leuser Ecosystem Areas in A Special Autonomous Context

Background: Act No. 11 of 2006 on the Government of Aceh, granting broad authority to the government of Aceh in the context of the management of natural resources in Aceh, as regulated in Article 7 paragraph (1), which states that the government and the district/city authority regulate and manage affairs in all sectors except for the affairs of government, which becomes the authority of the government. Article 149(1) of Act No. 11 of 2006 explains that the Government of Aceh and the Governments of the district or city are obliged to carry out the management of the living environment in an integrated manner, taking into account the spatial planning, the protection of the natural resources, non-biological resources, artificial resources, the conservation of natural resources and their ecosystems, cultural reserves, and biodiversity about the rights of indigenous peoples and to the greatest of the well-being of the people. But the reality is that many parts of the Leuser ecosystem bordered by protected forests and conservation forests are used as both legal and illegal mining grounds. The application of the law to the management of ecosystems in Leuser is not optimal, so flora and fauna can't be saved from irresponsible human actions. Objective: To analyze the inconsistencies in the implementation of concepts of mining management in Leuser Ecosystem Areas in a Special Autonomous Context. Theoretical framework: This research and analysis is about discovering and developing the theory of the authority of the government of Aceh in mining management and the development of mining management by the government in the Leuser Ecosystem Area. The Aceh government can establish mining areas with strong ecological authority. The closest government should also efficiently control the implementation of mining activities by enforcing strict regulations and maintaining a natural governance system that regularly guides the mine settlement's local community, ensuring that mining operations adhere to legal requirements, particularly regarding executive and ecological insurance. The management of mining by the Government of Aceh in the Leuser ecosystem area has not been based on the State Responsibility Framework, which plays an important role in taking account of such impacts, while the Government of Aceh has the authority to direct the maintenance of mining of minerals and coal, with the privilege and specialty of Aceh to oversee mining at the level of provinces and districts/cities. Method: In this study, the method of normative law research is used to solve regulatory problems and inconsistencies that occur in search of solutions. The research uses several approaches: conceptual, historical, comparative, and analytical approaches; government regulation; and laws enforced.

Functional redundancy of seasonal vitamin B12 biosynthesis pathways in coastal marine microbial communities.

Vitamin B12 (cobalamin) is a major cofactor required by most marine microbes, but only produced by a few prokaryotes in the ocean, which is globally B12 -depleted. Despite the ecological importance of B12 , the seasonality of B12 metabolisms and the organisms involved in its synthesis in the ocean remain poorly known. Here we use metagenomics to assess the monthly dynamics of B12 -related pathways and the functional diversity of associated microbial communities in the coastal NW Mediterranean Sea over 7 years. We show that genes related to potential B12 metabolisms were characterized by an annual succession of different organisms carrying distinct production pathways. During the most productive winter months, archaea (Nitrosopumilus and Nitrosopelagicus) were the main contributors to B12 synthesis potential through the anaerobic pathway (cbi genes). In turn, Alphaproteobacteria (HIMB11, UBA8309, Puniceispirillum) contributed to B12 synthesis potential in spring and summer through the aerobic pathway (cob genes). Cyanobacteria could produce pseudo-cobalamin from spring to autumn. Finally, we show that during years with environmental perturbations, the organisms usually carrying B12 synthesis genes were replaced by others having the same gene, thus maintaining the potential for B12 production. Such ecological insurance could contribute to the long-term functional resilience of marine microbial communities exposed to contrasting inter-annual environmental conditions.

Regional horizontal ecological compensation and ecosystem service value based on water resources pattern and insurance gain.

Ecological compensation plays an important role in maintaining ecosystem services and promoting regional green development. We built a regional horizontal ecological compensation model based on water resources pattern and insurance gain, and which was used to solve the problems of single compensation method and low compensation efficiency. Taking the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region as an example, we analyzed water footprint and water ecological carrying capacity from 2000 to 2019. The compensation subject and object and water footprint compensation amount were determined according to the input cost of ecological protection and allocation factor. Then, the insurance pricing model was introduced to determine ecological insurance premium rate. We calculated insurance compensation, ecological compensation standard and different types of ecosystem service value. Results showed that the whole region was at a state of water ecological deficit, with the agricultural water footprint accounting for 94.5%. From the perspective of the compensation subject and object, Beijing and Tianjin, as the compensation subject, needed to pay 0.402 billion yuan and 0.396 billion yuan (the amount of compensation) to Hebei Province each year. Hebei Province obtained a total of 0.228 billion yuan of ecological insurance with an insurance premium rate of 1.4%, and should receive an average annual ecological compensation standard of 0.81 billion yuan from Beijing and Tianjin. Hydrological regulation was the core ecosystem service in the region, with an average value of 187.974 billion yuan. It was of strategic significance to introduce ecological insurance mechanism to construct horizontal ecological compensation mechanism, improve ecosystem service function, and enhance the value of ecosystem services in the study area.

Ecological Insurance of Arctic Oil and Gas Producing Shelf Projects in Russia

The article deals with problems of ecological insurance of arctic oil and gas producing shelf projects in Russia and possible ways of its development. The authors put forward the method of estimating financial security of operations on eliminating possible ecological damage in case of hydrocarbon spill on arctic shelf oil and gas producing fields and study oil spills on arctic shelf fields ‘Prirazlomnoye’ and ‘Pobeda’. They estimate the cost of measures aimed at elimination of such incidents and propose a special indicator, i.e. financial loss factor for oil spill. Empiric conclusions obtained by comparative analysis of legislation in the field of ecology of entrails use in Russia, Norway, the US and Canada can be used for optimization of the effective Russian legislation and introduction of obligatory ecological insurance. Data of mathematic spill modeling can be applied by insurance companies for calculating insurance premium, by Rosprirodnadzor – for charging penalties and for other supervision bodies – for underwriting oil and gas arctic projects.

Seasonal patterns of functional alpha and beta redundancies of macroinvertebrates in a disturbed (sub)tropical river

Functional redundancy is an essential component of ecological insurance and indicates the properties of community assembly, maintenance of ecosystem functions, and stability under disturbance. It can be measured as alpha redundancy within a local community and beta redundancy between pairs of local communities. Although functional redundancy has been measured and discussed widely, its spatial and temporal patterns remain unclear. We hypothesized that high functional alpha redundancy accumulates within local communities under low environmental disturbance and limited interspecific competition, while high functional beta redundancy can occur under small environmental distances due to trait similarity between local communities. To test these hypotheses, we surveyed macroinvertebrates in a (sub)tropical medium river subjected to multiple anthropogenic stressors in two hydrologically different disturbance regimes: wet and dry seasons. Following the framework of Ricotta and co-workers, functional alpha (beta) redundancy was defined as the fraction of species diversity (dissimilarity) that was not expressed by functional diversity (dissimilarity). Functional alpha redundancy reduced significantly under high hydrological disturbance during the wet season. That is, the functional alpha redundancy accumulated in the dry season enhanced community resilience and provided insurance to maintain the stability of community functional diversity during the flooding period. Taxonomic and functional beta diversities decreased synchronously from the dry to wet seasons. There were no significant seasonal changes in functional beta redundancy. Our study provides a case for quantitatively measuring functional alpha and beta redundancies in macroinvertebrates and their seasonal changes in (sub) tropical disturbed rivers.

Plant diversity improves resistance of plant biomass and soil microbial communities to drought

Abstract Biodiversity is known to affect ecosystem resistance and have implications for the maintenance of ecosystem functions and services under climate change. Compared to numbers of studies focusing on above‐ground vegetation, the response of below‐ground communities to abiotic stresses along plant diversity gradients is often ignored and is considered an important knowledge gap in ecosystem ecology. Here we conducted an integrative research to evaluate the resistance of plant biomass, and soil microbial communities and associated functional profiles to drought under varying plant diversity. We carried out a 3‐year manipulation experiment by factorially controlling plant diversity gradient (1, 2, 4 and 8 species richness) and soil moisture treatment (drought and non‐drought), and investigated the responses of plant biomass, soil bacterial and fungal diversity and community composition, soil glomalin, and five key soil enzymes. We found that plant diversity significantly improved the resistance of soil fungal communities and microbial functional profiles characterized by soil glomalin and five key enzymes, which was partly driven by the availability and accessibility of soil resources (e.g. soil moisture and organic matter) mediated by plant diversity. Furthermore, our results indicated that the enhanced resistance of fungal communities was consistent with ecological insurance theory that diverse fungal communities at high plant diversity had a higher probability of containing taxa that adapt to drought. Synthesis. Our study provides novel empirical insights into the mechanism underlying the regulatory effect of plant diversity on resistance of above‐ground vegetation and below‐ground biota to drought, with implications for understanding ecosystem response to climate change and improving biodiversity conservation practices.

Spatiotemporal patterns of riparian bat assemblages in a novel riparian ecosystem

AbstractDespite increasing awareness of the ecological roles and ecosystem services that bats provide, spatiotemporal patterns in bat abundance and community assembly remain poorly understood outside of select sites in the tropics. We conducted systematic full-spectrum acoustic surveys of bats over the course of a year at eight permanent sites spanning nearly 50 km along Putah Creek, a stream in California’s Central Valley that has been subject to restoration efforts and changes to its in-stream flow regime over the past two decades. We surveyed all sites for 1 week each month. In 158 sampling nights over 11 months, we recorded 157,762 identifiable calls, thereby documenting a rich bat assemblage comprising 15 species from eight genera and two families. Seven species appeared to occur here year-round, whereas six others evidently migrated seasonally, and two were incidental visitors. Species richness and activity diversity were effectively invariant across this 50-km gradient, but assemblage composition varied both spatially and temporally. Spatial patterns suggest species-specific distributions that presumably reflect individualistic habitat preferences and responses to extrinsic factors. Species also varied temporally, with bat activity generally declining in winter, with an unexpected dip in richness and activity in late spring. For the three most commonly detected species, generalized linear models further highlighted the species-specific and individualistic nature of spatiotemporal activity patterns. When integrated with available data from other temperate sites, our results suggest that local species richness is high in temperate riparian systems. Additionally, our observations suggest that species responses to environmental variation are individualistic (e.g., “Gleasonian”) in nature and that local composition varies greatly over spatiotemporal gradients, but that emergent assemblage characteristics do not. The generality of these observations, and the underlying mechanism(s) leading to invariance in emergent characters, warrant further investigation. Similarly, the extent to which greater bat species richness provides complementary ecosystem services (hence, ecological insurance) is of both ecological and economic interest.

Economic tools of providing a balanced development of berry growing

In the article the modern state of berry growing in Ukraine is analyzed. The mechanism of the government regulation of Ukrainian economy in berry growing field is presented. The economic approaches to providing balanced development of berry growing in Ukraine are described. The climate, nature, economic, social-demographic and other conditions which influence berry growing area are taken into consideration in terms of perspective development. The systematization of eco-economic tools of balanced development of berry growing is presented, in particular: ecological insurance, ecological management, ecological marketing, ’ecological’ certificates, ecological charges and fines, trade permission on pollution, subsidies on ecology, ecological taxes and ecological audit. It was discovered that economic tools of providing a balanced development of berry growing are the components which enable to provide a balance attitude to the development of the field, save the environment and enhance the Ukrainian economy. It was stated that the mechanism of the government regulation in this field needs to be improved taken into account modern ways of management and the market demand. The economic and ecological tools of a balanced development were highlighted as they should be aimed at stimulating and support of all subjects in this field in order to create favorable conditions for successful activity.

Formation of the market of ecological insurance in Ukraine for maintenance of national ecological safety

Formation of the market of ecological insurance in Ukraine for maintenance of national ecological safety

Ecological zone and health insurance coverage among adolescent girls in Ghana: analysis of the 2017 maternal health survey

Health insurance has been recognized globally as one of the significant means of financing healthcare to achieve universal coverage, particularly in low and middle-income countries. This article sought to examine how ecological zone interacts with other socio-demographic characteristics to influence health insurance coverage among adolescent girls in Ghana. The study used data from the 2017 Ghana Maternal Health Survey. A sample size of 3767 adolescent girls was used for this study. This study employed both descriptive and inferential analytical approaches to analyze the data using STATA version 14.0. The study found that ecological zone has a statistically significant association with health insurance coverage among adolescent girls in Ghana, with adolescent girls in the Northern Zone less likely to be covered by health insurance than those in the Coastal Zone [AOR = 0.76, CI = 0.58–0.98]. Other factors that determined health insurance coverage among adolescent girls in Ghana were age, parity, education level and marital status. With adolescent girls in the Northern Zone less likely to be covered by health insurance, it is unlikely that Ghana will be able to achieve equity in healthcare even with the existence of health insurance. If this situation persists, the ability of the country to work towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 3, which seeks to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, is under threat.

Performance Evaluation of Inconel 718 under vegetable oils based nanofluids using Minimum Quantity Lubrication Grinding

The growing demands for high productivity in machining requires large amount of cutting fluids to control the lubrication phenomenon efficiently. The application of lubricants/coolants in machining operation has improved the efficiency of these operations, however the disposal of such coolants is hazardous to the eco-system. Hence eco friendly cutting fluids are required urgently to solve the environment problems related with traditional fluids. Minimum Quantity Lubrication (MQL) is an environmentally friendly method and efficient technique of applying cutting fluids in machining processes. In the present study Grinding of Inconel-718 has been investigated with regard to forces, surface roughness, grinding energy and G-Ratio under different cooling lubrication strategies i,e, flood, pure MQL and nanofluid MQL. For pure MQL technique sunflower and ricebran were used as base fluids, and different types of nanofluids were prepared by adding 1%, 0.5% Al2O3 nano-particles to these vegetable oils for evaluating the grinding process. From the results it is observed that sunflower has given better surface integrity and low grinding energy using pure MQL technique. Moreover, addition of Al2O3 nano-particles in the base fluid further enhanced the quality of surface, lower the grinding energy and enhanced the G-Ratio. Better surface integrity achieved under nanofluid MQL technique might be attributed to the filling and polishing effects of nano-particles along with good anti friction behaviour. Moreover nano-particles form a shearing film by penetrating into pores of workpiece surface resulted in shearing action leads to high values of G-Ratio. Hence results indicated that vegetable based nanofluids has the potential to be successfully apply at the grinding of hard materials. It appears that the proposed cooling strategy may conceivably improve the efficiency of cutting activities as far as machining quality, costs, and ecological insurance. This can enable in reduction of expensive fluid wastages which can lead to environmental friendly machining.

ОПТИМІЗАЦІЯ ЕКОЛОГІЧНИХ РИЗИКІВ ПРИ БУДІВНИЦТВІ ТА ЕКСПЛУАТАЦІЇ АВТОМОБІЛЬНИХ ДОРІГ

UDC 658.272:625.27; JEL: R 42 Purpose. The purpose of the article is to substantiate and develop the theoretical principles of risk management of road economy enterprises during the construction and operation maintenance of highways on the basis of the formation of their ecological insurance base. Methodology of research. The following methods were used in the research. The dialectical method was used for identifying causal link of economic and environmental processes in road production. The analytical method was applied for systematization of information for the formation of the base of environmental insurance of highways. The observation and generalization were relevance for the development of recommendations for the directions of development of the road economy. Findings. The research considers actual theoretical questions of optimization of environmental risks during the construction and operation maintenance of highways. The connection between the system of ecological and economic risks and the process of production of road works, which is mediated through a system of control over the quality of road construction and maintenance work, was established. The block diagram of the formation of the base of the ecological insurance of highways has been developed, which contains detailed recommendations for the formation of a trust fund for ecological insurance of highways. The importance of creating such a fund as an effective mechanism to optimize ecological risks in the construction and operation maintenance of roads in Ukraine was underlined. Originality. The theoretical and methodological approach to risk management in road economy was further developed by formation of block diagram base of the ecological insurance of highways, aimed at detailing the structure of the fund of ecological insurance of domestic roads. Practical value. The results of the research can be used as guidelines for the public administration in the development of regional programs for the construction and operation maintenance of highways, development of transport network of the region.

The ecological insurance trap

Common pool resources often insure individual livelihoods against the collapse of private endeavors. When endeavors based on private and common pool resources are interconnected, investment in one can put the other at risk. We model Senegalese pastoralists who choose whether to grow crops, a private activity, or raise livestock on common pool pastureland. Livestock can increase the likelihood of locust outbreaks via ecological processes related to grassland degradation. Locust outbreaks damage crops, but not livestock, which are used for savings and insurance. We show the incentive to self-protect (reduce grazing pressure) or self-insure (increase livestock levels) changes with various property rights schemes and levels of ecological detail. If the common pool nature of insurance exacerbates the ecological externality even fully-informed individuals may make risk management decisions that increase the probability of catastrophe, creating an “insurance trap.”

FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS TO INCREASE THE ECOLOGICAL SAFETY

This article justifies, that questions of environmental protection, protection of natural resources, ecological safety are the most actual for effective development of economic systems. In the modern economic situation, coherence and administrative leverage in total with ecological taxation and insurance are forceful instruments to move towards the model of «green» economy. The main goal is to consult the theoretical and practical experience of formation the ecological safety under the paradigm of «green» economy of European countries and the Republic of Belarus based on analysis of main financial instruments of the state ecological policy. The main tasks are: identifying mechanism of formation of ecological safety in conditions of green economy in European countries and in the Republic of Belarus; identify and systematization of main financial instruments for state ecological policy; justification of necessity and directions for improvement the ecological taxation and insurance. Methodology of the study is based on the principles of the system analysis, formal logic and interdisciplinary scientific approach to the problem. Monographic and descriptive method, method of analysis and synthesis, statistical data analysis method were used to complete the tasks of research. Novelty of this research is that systematization of theoretical practical foundations of state management of ecological safety through financial instruments of green economy can increase the effectiveness of the stable development of the economic system.

СУЧАСНИЙ СТАН ЕКОЛОГІЧНОГО СТРАХУВАННЯ В УМОВАХ ЗАГОСТРЕННЯ ЕКОЛОГІЧНОЇ СИТУАЦІЇ В УКРАЇНІ

СУЧАСНИЙ СТАН ЕКОЛОГІЧНОГО СТРАХУВАННЯ В УМОВАХ ЗАГОСТРЕННЯ ЕКОЛОГІЧНОЇ СИТУАЦІЇ В УКРАЇНІ

A first analysis on the need to integrate ecological aspects into financial insurance

It is known that financial insurance can address the economic impacts of a natural disaster, but some ecological aspects can play a crucial role in mitigating the overall risks for socio-ecological systems. To better strengthen the study of these relations, the aims of this paper are: (1) to analyze the main research topics of the scientific literature on ecological and/or financial-economic insurance to face natural disasters, through a co-word network analysis; (2) to analyze the temporal trends of the total Gross Insurance Premium and Meteorological and climatological extreme events in 29 OECD countries; and (3) to carry out a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of some selected variables in order to conceptualize a first empirical model combining financial-economic and ecological insurance to face natural disasters. The literature review has shown a predominance of topics related to financial insurance (about 60%), and the co-word map of key words has highlighted a common space where economic and ecological insurances interact. PCA highlighted three major components explaining 90.6% of the overall variation and discriminating aspects more related to the “financial” insurance, from those related to the “ecological” insurance. More in detail, PC1, which represents the financial insurance, explains the 60.4% of variation, PC2 and PC3 that represent surrogates of the “ecological” insurance explain respectively the 19.6% and the 10.6% of variation. On the basis of the application of the proposed empirical model, countries with high levels of financial and ecological preparedness have been identified. The next steps of this research will be focused on a pilot study area where a quantitative assessment will be applied to better define the landscape contribution to natural disaster risk mitigation, the analysis of the role of social capital through a cross-scales approach, in terms of policies and management strategies, and the investigation of innovative economic tools to take into account specific payment for ecosystem services in the context of natural disasters.

Insurance of environmental risks in the system of soil contamination level regulation

The basis of functioning of the mechanism of state insurance of environmental risks in the process of agricultural activity has been considered. The advantages of ecological insurance in ensuring balanced land use in the territory of Ukraine have been determined. The author covers the peculiarities of the use of economic and mathematical modeling to determine the basis for calculating soil contamination due to the implementation of agricultural activities.

Functional diversity and redundancy across fish gut, sediment and water bacterial communities.

This article explores the functional diversity and redundancy in a bacterial metacommunity constituted of three habitats (sediment, water column and fish gut) in a coastal lagoon under anthropogenic pressure. Comprehensive functional gene arrays covering a wide range of ecological processes and stress resistance genes to estimate the functional potential of bacterial communities were used. Then, diversity partitioning was used to characterize functional diversity and redundancy within (α), between (β) and across (γ) habitats. It was showed that all local communities exhibit a highly diversified potential for the realization of key ecological processes and resistance to various environmental conditions, supporting the growing evidence that macro-organisms microbiomes harbour a high functional potential and are integral components of functional gene dynamics in aquatic bacterial metacommunities. Several levels of functional redundancy at different scales of the bacterial metacommunity were observed (within local communities, within habitats and at the metacommunity level). The results suggested a high potential for the realization of spatial ecological insurance within this ecosystem, that is, the functional compensation among microorganisms for the realization and maintenance of key ecological processes, within and across habitats. Finally, the role of macro-organisms as dispersal vectors of microbes and their potential influence on marine metacommunity dynamics were discussed.

Assessment of level of quality of property insurance within the scope of protection against ecological risks in Poland with the use of the Servqual method. Research results

The article addresses the issue of ecological insurance. Its aim is the assessment of the level of the quality of property insurance services within the scope of protection against ecological risks by individual clients in Poland (from the Podkarpackie, Świętokrzyskie and Małopolskie voivodeships). The SERVQUAL method was used to measure the quality of services provided by insurance companies. The analyses showed that ecological insurance is practically non-existent on the Polish market even though protection against ecological risks is offered by 25 insurance companies (78.1%). The survey research was carried out among 450 respondents – clients of insurance companies in years 2015, 2016 and 2017. The results indicate the reluctance of individual clients to conclude insurance contracts. The SERVQUAL indicators are at the level below the proposed critical point of .00, which indicates the lack of the so-called quality optimum.