Economic-environmental Trade-offs Research Articles

Environmental-Economic Measures of Tourism Yield

A focus on ‘tourism yield’ is an important aspect of business strategies to maintain and enhance destination competitiveness. Ideally the notion of ‘tourism yield’ should include tourism's environmental and social value to a destination in addition to economic value. This paper attempts to develop measures of economic and environmental yield. It first describes how measures of economic yield may be estimated and presents results for Australian inbound tourism. Environmental yield estimates are then developed for the same visitor markets. A hybrid approach is employed, combining input-output analysis with an onsite audit for tourist accommodation. The relevant environmental impacts include those on energy use, water use, greenhouse gas emissions and ecological footprint. The findings reveal that, for some inbound markets, simultaneous achievement of relatively high economic and environmental goals is not possible, and that economic-environmental tradeoffs may be necessary. The results have implications for all destinations which use notions of ‘tourism yield’ to inform their marketing strategies.

Economic‐Environmental Tradeoffs in Swine Finishing Operations

This study examines the cost effectiveness of 81 alternative manure management systems for a swine finishing operation in reducing three pollutants associated with livestock waste: ammonia, nitrogen and phosphorus. The results are presented in terms of the tradeoff between the levels of these pollutants (environmental indicator) and the economic returns to the producer. The levels of the three manure residuals cannot be reduced by more than half from the present levels under the profit‐maximizing system for each farm size. Further reduction would require changes in hog numbers to reduce the volume of manure and consequently residual levels. However, the feasible reductions in residuals can be achieved at relatively low cost. Larger farms tend to have lower abatement costs as the percentage reduction in residuals increase. The attempt to reduce more than one of the residuals simultaneously is complicated by the conflicting effects of alternative manure management systems on ammonia and nitrogen levels.L'étude évalue la rentabilité de 81 systèmes de gestion du fumier pour les élevages de porcs quant à la réduction de la concentration de trois polluants associés aux déchets animaux: l'ammoniaque, l'azote et le phosphore. Les auteurs présentent les résultats sous forme de compromis entre la concentration de polluants (indice environnemental) et le rendement de l'élevage pour le producteur. Quelle que soit la taille de l'exploitation, il est impossible de réduire la concentration des trois résidus du fumier à plus de la moitié de leur concentration actuelle dans un régime de maximisation des bénéfices. Pour réduire leur concentration davantage, il faudrait diminuer la taille du troupeau et le volume de fumier. Atteindre les réductions de concentration réalisables ne coûte cependant pas très cher. Dans les gros élevages, le coût des mesures de lutte contre la pollution a tendance à baisser avec la hausse de la réduction des résidus en pour cent. L'action contraire des différents systèmes de gestion du fumier sur la concentration d'ammoniaque et d'azote complique les efforts déployés pour réduire simultanément la concentration de plusieurs résidus.

PETROBRAS STARTS PLATFORM BIDDING

Even though economic dispatch of integrated electricity and natural gas systems using optimization techniques has been widely conducted, a cooperative distributed and multi-objective optimization is still needed for meeting multi-energy demands from both conventional and renewable energy resources. In this study, an original bi-level economic-environmental equilibrium model is proposed to optimize a dispatch strategy for an integrated system, which include combined cooling, heating, and power and power to gas technologies. By optimizing cooperative distributed decisions, the system attempts to provide heat/cooling, power and natural gas loads. An equilibrium consideration of economic energy supply and environmental carbon emission control is achieved using a multi-objective optimization in the model. To reflect interactions of individual system operators in a cooperative distributed manner, a bi-level optimization is applied to address the respective decisions and objective functions. Subsequently, an interactive solution approach based on Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II and genetic algorithm is specifically designed to solve the model by updating individual decisions interactively and iteratively, and the optimality of an integrated solution lies in the capability to coordinate two system operators for a reliable, economic and environmental energy supply. Performance of the dispatch strategy is validated for a case with various system configurations. The obtained results showed that multi-energy needs are met, economic-environmental trade-offs achieved and hierarchical interactions addressed. Proper managerial suggestions are also provided based on comparison analyses. The proposed method is therefore worthy of being popularized in integrated systems.

Hydropower and environment in India

Hydroelectric power is the cheapest source of energy, renewable and environmentally benign during running. Yet environmental activism has obstructed hydrodevelopment throughout the world, and more so in India. The paper calls for a realistic economic-environmental trade-off and improvements in environmental decision making apparatus.

Economic-environmental tradeoffs among alternative crop rotations

Simulated long-term impacts of different cropping systems are evaluated and analyzed in terms of the tradeoffs among net returns and different components of environmental quality. The cropping systems are modeled after the BARC Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Farm. EPIC was used to obtain crop yields, soil erosion, and the environmental fate of nitrogen, phosphorous, and herbicides in response to weather and management practices over a simulated 30 year period. This procedure provides a way to estimate the environmental impact of cropping rotations, and to analyze the tradeoffs between competing objectives, whether they are farm income, erosion control, or the reduction of multiple hazards. The results indicate that the no-till rotation provides the greatest net returns, followed by the conventional rotation. The net returns on the two cover crop rotations are lowest. In terms of environmental impacts, no-till rotation dominates all other rotations with lowest nitrogen loss, and the covercrop rotations perform best in terms of erosion and phosphorous loss. However because herbicides are necessary to control weeds in no-till, the pesticide hazard index is very high, suggesting a tradeoff between pesticide hazard and other environmental considerations. To provide decision makers with better information, an environmental hazard index was constructed to analyze the tradeoffs between potential chemical contamination and net returns. Depending on preference structure, any one of three rotations could be preferred: no-till; manure at medium application rates; and cover crop without fertilizer.

Environmental factors in Soviet interbasin water transfer policy

Over 60% of the USSRs river discharge crosses sparsely settled regions and flows into the Arctic Ocean, whereas the most densely settled and economically developed southern regions possess only 12% of surface flow. Consequently, the Soviets perceive an urgent need to redistribute water resources to avoid future shortages. The Soviet government is diligently pursuing development of schemes for the mass transfer of water from northern to southern drainage basins. Because of their grand scale, these could have major, pervasive, and long-term environmental impacts. Although environmental factors were given minimal attention in earlier designs for interbasin water transfers, present proposals are being subjected to thorough, careful, and thoughtful environmental evaluation. The Academy of Sciences and the Hydrometeorological Service as well as several national ministries have been assigned responsibility for evaluating the potential environmental ramifications of alternative schemes including formulation of systems of mathematical models for quantitative estimation of these effects. Indeed, a guiding principle for the development of an “acceptable” diversion system is that it be environmentally sound. This requires identification and estimation of the magnitude of significant adverse environmental impacts and, where possible, formulation of mitigative measures; reasonable economic-environmental tradeoffs; and a negligible potential for irreversible catastrophic environmental changes. It appears that environmental factors are of major importance in devising Soviet interbasin water transfer policy and that resolution of key environmental questions is to precede implemention of any large-scale water diversion scheme.