Natural Capital Stocks Research Articles

Natural capital and ecosystem services for sustainable livelihoods in Costa Vicentina, Portugal

Event Abstract Back to Event Natural capital and ecosystem services for sustainable livelihoods in Costa Vicentina, Portugal Rui Santos1*, Paula Antunes1*, Pedro Clemente1 and Marta Calvache1 1 CENSE – Centre for Environmental and Sustainability Research Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal The OpenNESS project, funded by EC FP7, aims to translate the concepts of Natural Capital (NC) and Ecosystem Services (ES) into operational frameworks that provide tested, practical and tailored solutions for integrating ES into land, water and urban management and decision-making, while promoting local stakeholders well-being. Central to the project is a multi-scale case study approach, designed to ground concepts and theories on real world observations and analysis. This paper presents one of the project case studies, located in the Portuguese southwest coast – Costa Vicentina. This case study is focused on the use of NC and ES concepts to design instruments for sustainable management of living resources (algae, shellfish and fish) and to promote a sustainable nature-based tourism. The research aims to (1) identify the linkages between marine natural capital stocks (e.g. bottom algae, shellfish populations,...) with ES provision; (2) explore the perceptions and importance of ES to local stakeholders’ wellbeing and their economic value; and (3) evaluate the use of ES in land-use planning and conservation, and the potential of different policy instruments and governance arrangements to ensure the delivery of ES and to promote local stakeholders well-being. The combination of methods such as ES mapping, monetary and non-monetary valuation of ES, and system dynamics modelling, will ultimately be used to inform and support decision makers and policy instruments design. The research is rooted on a participatory process involving the main stakeholder groups, thus fostering dialogue and social learning. Keywords: natural capital, ecosystem services, governance, system dynamics modelling, Conservation of Natural Resources Conference: IMMR | International Meeting on Marine Research 2014, Peniche, Portugal, 10 Jul - 11 Jul, 2014. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: BIODIVERSITY, CONSERVATION AND COASTAL MANAGEMENT Citation: Santos R, Antunes P, Clemente P and Calvache M (2014). Natural capital and ecosystem services for sustainable livelihoods in Costa Vicentina, Portugal. Front. Mar. Sci. Conference Abstract: IMMR | International Meeting on Marine Research 2014. doi: 10.3389/conf.fmars.2014.02.00097 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 21 May 2014; Published Online: 18 Jul 2014. * Correspondence: Dr. Rui Santos, CENSE – Centre for Environmental and Sustainability Research Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal, rfs@fct.unl.pt Dr. Paula Antunes, CENSE – Centre for Environmental and Sustainability Research Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal, mpa@fct.unl.pt Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Rui Santos Paula Antunes Pedro Clemente Marta Calvache Google Rui Santos Paula Antunes Pedro Clemente Marta Calvache Google Scholar Rui Santos Paula Antunes Pedro Clemente Marta Calvache PubMed Rui Santos Paula Antunes Pedro Clemente Marta Calvache Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Conservation of Natural Capital Stock and Funding for Conservation

Conservation of Natural Capital Stock and Funding for Conservation

What Do We Need to Know to Enhance the Environmental Sustainability of Agricultural Production? A Prioritisation of Knowledge Needs for the UK Food System

Increasing concerns about global environmental change and food security have focused attention on the need for environmentally sustainable agriculture. This is agriculture that makes efficient use of natural resources and does not degrade the environmental systems that underpin it, or deplete natural capital stocks. We convened a group of 29 ‘practitioners’ and 17 environmental scientists with direct involvement or expertise in the environmental sustainability of agriculture. The practitioners included representatives from UK industry, non-government organizations and government agencies. We collaboratively developed a long list of 264 knowledge needs to help enhance the environmental sustainability of agriculture within the UK or for the UK market. We refined and selected the most important knowledge needs through a three-stage process of voting, discussion and scoring. Scientists and practitioners identified similar priorities. We present the 26 highest priority knowledge needs. Many of them demand integration of knowledge from different disciplines to inform policy and practice. The top five are about sustainability of livestock feed, trade-offs between ecosystem services at farm or landscape scale, phosphorus recycling and metrics to measure sustainability. The outcomes will be used to guide on-going knowledge exchange work, future science policy and funding.

Valuing the soil natural capital: a New Zealand case study

Inherent characteristics of soil and land valuation data are used to examine the relationship between soil characteristics and rural farmland values to value soil natural capital in the 6000 km2 Manawatu catchment in New Zealand. The study applies a widely used economic valuation method to determine whether the value of inherent characteristics of soils is reflected in land values. We find empirical evidence that the characteristics used to describe soil natural capital stock, e.g. gravel class, drainage class, potential rooting depth, and profile available water, are reflected in rural land values. Moreover, we find that these characteristics of soil stocks do not behave simply as independent variables but that there are complex relationships between them influencing their value.

Fishing industry borrows from natural capital at high shadow interest rates

Fish stocks can be considered as natural capital stocks providing harvestable fish. Fishing at low stock sizes means borrowing from the natural asset. While fishing a particular quantity generates immediate profits and income, an interest rate has to be paid in terms of foregone future fishing income, as the fish stock's reproductive capacity remains low and fishing costs stay high. In this paper we propose to apply the concept of shadow interest rate to quantify the degree of overfishing. It incorporates the relevant biological and economic information and compares across fish stocks. We calculate the shadow interest rates for 13 major European fish stocks and find these rates to range from 10% to more than 200%. The concept of the shadow interest rate can be used to make the economic consequences of overfishing transparent and to evaluate the profitability of short-term catch reductions as investments in natural capital stocks.

PARTICIPATORY IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF RICE PARBOILING VIDEOS WITH WOMEN IN BENIN

SUMMARYUsing the sustainable livelihoods framework to evaluate the impact of a farmer-to-farmer video on the improved rice parboiling technology, women in Benin rated financial, social, human, natural and physical capital stocks for the baseline year (2006) and the impact year (2009) on a 0–5 scale. Women who had watched the video and those who had not, but who lived in the same villages, perceived a significant improvement in four out of five livelihood capitals while processors in control villages did not perceive any significant change. Apart from testing the sustainable livelihoods conceptual framework as a participatory impact assessment tool for video-mediated rural learning, this study shows how farmer-to-farmer training videos helped to improve multiple livelihood assets.

A DYNAMIC GAME OF ENVIRONMENTAL EXPLOITATION BETWEEN TWO COUNTRIES WITH SEQUENTIAL MAXIMIN OBJECTIVES

This paper formulates a dynamic game between the governments of two countries that share a common stock of natural capital (such as environmental quality). The objective of each government is to find a sustainable utility path that satisfies the sequential maximin property. A utility path is a sequential maximin if it survives all successive rounds of eliminating Pareto inferior outcomes based on the maximin criterion. It is shown that, under the sequential maximin objective, there exists a Markov perfect Nash equilibrium in which utility is constant over time. This equilibrium turns out to be Pareto efficient, in sharp contrast to the typical inefficiency of Markov perfect Nash equilibria under the usual discounted utilitarian objective. We also find a Stackelberg equilibrium that results in sustainable development, in which the welfare of the leader is lower (and that of the passive follower is higher) than the symmetric welfare level in the Nash equilibrium.

Capital Stocks and Organizational Resilience in the Annapurna Conservation Area, Nepal

We have undertaken empirical research to explore relationships between the stock of various capitals and the resilience of conservation area management committees (CAMCs)—the functional decision-making units of community-based conservation—within the Annapurna Conservation Area, Nepal. We surveyed 190 members of 30 CAMCs during the summer of 2007, estimated the capital stocks of each CAMC, and interviewed 13 park officials to assess the degree of resilience of each CAMC during and after the Maoist insurgency (1996–2006). Multiple regression analyses suggest that human and social capital stocks are positively related to the resilience of the CAMCs. Of particular importance are themes of intracommittee trust, help networks, and the duration of members' tenure on the committees. Furthermore, natural capital stocks showed a parabolic relationship with resilience; the most resilient CAMCs had moderate amounts of natural capital under their jurisdictions.

Green National Income and Green National Product

We observe that the value of the gross natural increment in natural capital is the appropriate entry in the income side of the national accounts, when “greened.” This entry is zero for the special case of nonrenewable resources. Greening is motivated by the desire to account for the value of changes in the size of the stock of natural capital in net national product. We also report on the problem of the use of distorted prices in national accounting.

Managing the natural capital of papyrus within riparian zones of Lake Victoria, Kenya

The harvesting of natural products such as papyrus (Cyperus papyrus L.), whether for subsistence value or for the production of commodities intended for sale at local markets, contributes to the well-being of riparian peoples around Lake Victoria, Kenya. Serious losses of papyrus wetlands across East Africa have been reported, most of which are attributed to increasing anthropogenic stressors. Recent studies have called for restoration of these wetlands, emphasizing the need for sustainable harvesting strategies to be put in place, although few have provided suggestions as to how this might happen in practical terms and, crucially, with the consent and active participation of local communities as key stakeholders. Here we explore the socioeconomic characteristics of livelihoods based on papyrus, presenting data generated from surveys, interviews and group discussions collected at multiple sites within the Nyando river basin, Kenya. Conceptualizing papyrus stands as living stocks of natural capital, we then outline our proposal for maintaining the provisioning services of this species, without compromising the critical ecohydrological functions of these swamps as land–water buffer zones. Finally we suggest how this approach might be adapted for wider dissemination around Lake Victoria and beyond, motivated by what we believe to be the first reported case of successful papyrus restoration by a local community.

Towards a 3D National Ecological Footprint Geography

In the last decades several indicators have been proposed to guide decision makers and help manage natural capital. Among such indicators is the Ecological Footprint, a resource accounting tool with a biophysical and thermodynamic basis. In our recent paper ( Niccolucci et al., 2009), a three dimensional Ecological Footprint ( 3DEF) model was proposed to better explain the difference between human demand for natural capital stocks and resource flows. Such 3DEF model has two relevant dimensions: the surface area (or Footprint size – EF size) and the height (or Footprint depth – EF depth). EF size accounts for the human appropriation of the annual income from natural capital while EF depth accounts for the depletion of stocks of natural capital and/or the accumulation of stocks of wastes. Building on the 2009 Edition of the National Footprint Accounts (NFA), global trends (from 1961 to 2006) for both EF size and EF depth were analyzed. EF size doubled from 1961 to 1986; after 1986 it reached an asymptotic value equal to the Earth's biocapacity (BC) and remained constant. Conversely, EF depth remained constant at the “natural depth” value until 1986, the year in which global EF first exceeded Earth's BC. A growing trend was observed after that. Trends in each Footprint land type were also analyzed to better appraise the land type under the higher human induced stress. The usefulness of adopting such 3DEF model in the National Footprint Accounts was also discussed. In comparing any nation's demand for ecological assets with its own biocapacity in a given year, four hypothetical cases were identified which could serve as the basis for a new Footprint geography based on both size and depth concepts. This 3DEF model could help distinguish between the use of natural capital flows and the depletion of natural capital stocks while maintaining the structure and advantages of the classical Ecological Footprint formulation.

The relationship between resilience and sustainability of ecological-economic systems

Resilience as a descriptive concept gives insight into the dynamic properties of an ecological-economic system. Sustainability as a normative concept captures basic ideas of intergenerational justice when human well-being depends on natural capital and services. Thus, resilience and sustainability are independent concepts. In this paper, we discuss the relationship between resilience and sustainability of ecological-economic systems. We use a simple dynamic model where two natural capital stocks provide ecosystem services that are complements for human well-being, to illustrate different possible cases of the relationship between resilience and sustainability, and to identify the conditions under which each of those will hold: a) resilience of the system is necessary, but not sufficient, for sustainability; b) resilience of the system is sufficient, but not necessary, for sustainability; c) resilience of the system is neither necessary nor sufficient for sustainability; and d) resilience is both necessary and sufficient for sustainability. We conclude that more criteria than just resilience have to be taken into account when designing policies for the sustainable development of ecological-economic systems, and, vice versa, the property of resilience should not be confused with the positive normative connotations of sustainability.

Tracking the Sputnik Economy

In his 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama stressed investment in infrastructure, education and clean energy in the U.S. economy to "win the future." Edward Barbier of the University of Wyoming argues that to track the progress of such an investment strategy will require replacing GDP per capita as the main economic indicator with a Net Domestic Product (NDP) measure that is "adjusted" for real depreciation or appreciation in the reproducible, human and natural capital stock.

Estimates of Human Capital in Canada: The Lifetime Income Approach

This paper produces an estimate of market-based human capital investment and stock for Canada over the period from 1970 to 2007 based on the lifetime income approach and compares it with that of physical and natural capital investment and stock. It adopts the methodology developed by Jorgenson and Fraumeni, and estimates human capital stock as the expected future lifetime income of all individuals. Human capital investment is estimated as changes in human capital stock due to the addition of new members of the working age population arising from the rearing and education of children and the effect of immigration on human capital.The main findings are as follows: 1. The volume of aggregate human capital rose at an annual rate of 1.7% in Canada for the period 1970 to 2007, and most of the growth is due to the increase in the number of individuals in the working-age population. The rising education level of the Canadian population is also a significant contributing factor to the growth in human capital. 2. The compositional effects of aging of the Canadian population (a movement to a population that is older on average) reduced human capital growth by 0.6% per year over the period 1980 to 2007, while the rising education level increased human capital growth by 0.7% per year over the period. 3. Human capital stock on a per capita basis increased at 0.9% per year for the period 1970 to 1980, due to the rising education attainment during the period. After 1980, human capital stock per capita was virtually unchanged due to two offsetting factors: rising education level which increased human capital stock and the compositional effects of population aging, which reduced human capital stock. 4. The value of human capital investment and stock exceeds the value of physical capital investment and stock, and the ratio of human capital investment and stock to physical capital investment and stock declined over time. In 2007, human capital stock is about four times as large as physical capital stock while investment in human capital is about two times the magnitude of investment in physical capital. 5. The levels of human capital investment and stock estimates are sensitive to the assumptions made about expected future income growth and the rate used to discount the future income when calculating human capital, but the growth of the quantity and price of human capital investment and stock is not sensitive to the assumptions in these areas

Valuing ecosystem services

The concept of ecosystem services has shifted our paradigm of how nature matters to human societies. Instead of viewing the preservation of nature as something for which we have to sacrifice our well-being, we now perceive the environment as natural capital, one of society's important assets. But ecosystem services are becoming increasingly scarce. In order to stop this trend, the challenge is to provoke society to acknowledge the value of natural capital. Ecosystem services valuation (ESV) is the method to tackle such a challenge. ESV is the process of assessing the contributions of ecosystem services to sustainable scale, fair distribution, and efficient allocation. It is a tool that (1) provides for comparisons of natural capital to physical and human capital in regard to their contributions to human welfare; (2) monitors the quantity and quality of natural capital over time with respect to its contribution to human welfare; and (3) provides for evaluation of projects that will affect natural capital stocks. This review covers: (1) what has been done in ESV research in the last 50 years; (2) how it has been used in ecosystem management; and (3) prospects for the future. Our survey of the literature has shown that over time, there has been movement toward a more transdisciplinary approach to ESV research which is more consistent with the nature of the problems being addressed. On the other hand, the contribution of ESV to ecosystem management has not been as significant as hoped nor as clearly defined. Conclusions drawn from the review are as follows: first, ESV researchers will have to transcend disciplinary boundaries and synthesize tools, skills, and methodologies from various disciplines; second, ESV research has to become more problem-driven rather than tool-driven because ultimately the success of ESV will be judged on how well it facilitates real-world decision making and the conservation of natural capital.

Reconfiguring an irrigation landscape to improve provision of ecosystem services

Over-allocation of fresh water resources to consumptive uses, coupled with recurring drought and the prospect of climate change, is compromising the stocks of natural capital in the world's basins and reducing their ability to provide water-dependent ecosystem services. To combat this, governments worldwide are making significant investment in efforts to improve the sharing of water between consumptive uses and the environment. Many investments are centred on the modernisation of inefficient irrigation delivery systems and the purchase of consumptive water for environmental flows. In this study, we applied spatial targeting within a cost–benefit framework to reconfigure agricultural land use in an irrigation district to achieve a 20% reduction in agricultural water use to increase environmental flows, and improve the provision of other ecosystem services. We demonstrate a targeted land use reconfiguration policy approach using spatial planning and optimisation models. Our model estimates a potential increase in the net present value of ecosystem services of up to $A 347 million. The increase in ecosystem services include recovering 62 GL of water for environmental flows, the sequestration of 10.6 million tonnes of CO2e/year, a 12 EC (μS/cm) reduction in river salinity, and an overall 9% increase in the value of agriculture. Without a spatially targeted approach to planning, a 20% reduction in water for irrigation could result in the loss of $A 68.7 million in economic returns to agriculture which may be only marginally offset by the increased value of ecosystem services resulting from the return of 62 GL of water to the environment.

Importing terrestrial biocapacity: The U.S. case and global implications

Human societies depend for their survival on goods and services provided by both local and global ecosystems. For most of history, people used mainly local resources. Increasingly, however, globalization and trade enable consuming populations everywhere to support themselves on the output of distant ecosystems. This is potentially problematic because of global change and because the spatial separation of material production (including resource exploitation) from consumption eliminates the direct negative feedback that normally occurs when people dependent on local ecosystems degrade those ecosystems. With spatial separation comes psychological separation. Modern consumers remain generally unconscious of their growing reliance on biophysical goods and services produced half a world away and see no connection between their consumer lifestyles and distant ecological consequences. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to raise a cautionary flag about unfettered trade and to show the value of accounting for trade-related physical flows and their impacts on natural capital in sustainability analyses. Using the United States as an example, we present an analytical method that can locate and measure the ecosystem area embodied in any population's imports of renewable resources. We quantify U.S. imports from specific countries around the world; we estimate the area of terrestrial ecosystems in those countries devoted to consumers in the U.S. and we highlight both increasing U.S. imports and their potential impact on extra-territorial ecosystems. This method creates indirect (conceptual) feedback between consumption and ecosystems integrity which we hope will partially replace the physical feedback neutralized by globalization. Such analyses can help generate public and decision makers’ awareness of both their dependence and their impacts on, distant natural capital stocks. This in turn should increase interest in establishing improved co-management regimes to maintain the stability and reliability of such now obligatory relationships.

How deep is the footprint? A 3D representation

Depletion of natural capital stocks and use of natural capital flows are the central issues in the sustainability debate. Differentiation of these two components, considering natural capital and its limits, is important for planning and management of land use. This paper offers insights into this issue and proposes a new perspective of the Ecological Footprint (EF) in three dimensions, considering not only its size but also its depth: according to this viewpoint the footprint is not an area but a volume, although maintaining the same value as the one in two dimensions. Use of annual flows provided by the Earth is represented by the footprint size, expressed in global hectares ( gha) and plotted in the ( x, y) plane. Footprint depth represents the demand for extra land to meet human needs through depletion of stocks of natural capital. It is plotted on the z-axis. It can be seen as the number of years necessary to regenerate resources liquidated in 1 year (and to absorb the respective wastes) or as the number of planets necessary to support the inhabitants of the planet Earth. The evolution of these two components in the last five decades is studied and discussed.

Ecosystem services and conservation strategy: beware the silver bullet

AbstractThere is an important analytical distinction for conservationists between the flow of ecosystem services and the stock of natural capital that underpins or constitutes them. The relationship between these two is often complex and indeterminate. Ecosystem services result from the interplay of different biological and physical processes across a variety of scales. Flows of ecosystem services may be imperfectly related to stocks of natural capital. Conservation is concerned with the protection of certain stocks of natural capital, but also with maintaining the complex web of relationships that characterize biodiversity. Despite the obvious links between ecosystem services, natural capital, and biodiversity, these are not identical. Practitioners and policy makers should be cautious in their use of the proxy indicator of ecosystem services when developing mechanisms for biodiversity conservation. Conceptual clarity is essential in order to harness the potentially important role that ecosystem service based interventions can play in mainstreaming conservation issues.

Empowering Palestinian Community Water Management Capacity: Understanding the Intersection of Community Cultural, Political, Social, and Natural Capitals

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) call for a reduction by half of the estimated more than 1.5 billion people still lacking access to potable water by 2015. As this date approaches, there is increased interest in developing capacity at the community level to supply potable water. Water supply is one of the most contentious issues in the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This article will use the sustainable livelihoods approach (SLA) and the community capitals framework (CCF) to frame efforts to by a consortium of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and international donors to develop Palestinian village-level drinking water management capacity within the context of a regional water framework. Our study compares two villages within this context. Our finding of dramatically different outcomes indicates that community capacity development efforts are highly conditional on existing stocks of natural, political and cultural capital.