Pressure State Impact Response Research Articles

Evaluation of Mountain Case Studies by Means of Sustainability Variables

The International Year of Mountains (IYM) 2002 drew attention to mountain regions and their fragile ecosystems. The present article makes a comparative analysis of mountain case studies from developing countries (DCs) and industrialized countries (ICs) using sustainability variables in the framework of a Driving force–Pressure–State–Impact–Response Model (DPSIR Model). Response variables, ie efforts made by society to move towards sustainable mountain development (SMD), are believed to improve the situation with regard to sustainability, and are a focus of this study. In the course of the IYM, a total of 40 appropriate case studies were analyzed, to demonstrate the wide variety of approaches to SMD. Case studies that deal with themes considered to be particularly important in mountain regions were chosen for analysis. Such key themes include freshwater, forestry, agriculture, poverty, indigenous knowledge, migration, tourism, and legislation. Variables of great importance in any mountain area include “involvement of stakeholders in planning and development process (public participation)” and “gathering of baseline information.” Additional challenges to SMD in DCs include lack of options to facilitate out-migration, declining forest cover, insufficient access to resources, and poverty. The main conclusion of this study is that the DPSIR Model that was applied is an adequate tool with which to analyze SMD case studies, especially studies relating to DCs.

Management of Wetlands

This special issue comprises articles reporting research into wetlands. The common feature of this research is that it directed towards bridging the gap between science and policy. Research has been conducted explicitly to provide information which decision-makers can use for managing wetlands. The term ‘wetlands’ attempts to generalise the interface between water and land. It is an umbrella term, encompassing the very large range of terms used to describe such systems. Wetlands have been receiving considerable public and policy attention in recent years. It is now widely recognised that they provide many important goods and services to human societies. Examples include drinking water, flood mitigation, water quality control, fish, and recreational and residential opportunities. Wetlands also support various endangered, charismatic and migratory species. Increased interest in wetlands stems from recognition that human activities are compromising the ability of wetlands to deliver these goods and services. The greatest sources of stress on wetlands include: changes in land use with habitat loss and fragmentation; resource extraction; drainage and reclamation, and pollution. Various international agreements exist to protect wetlands and their dependent species, but despite this, many wetlands over the world are under threat. Turner et al. (2000) identify four main reasons for this: (1) market failures due to the public good nature of wetlands; (2) externalities caused by economic activities such as agriculture, industry, and water abstraction; (3) lack of understanding of the many values associated with wetlands due to the complexity and ‘invisibility’ of spatial relationships among groundwater, surface water and wetland species; and (4) frequent failure of policy intervention and land use planning due to inconsistent treatment of wetlands by economic, agriculture, environmental and nature protection policies. Wetland goods and services, and their future, is of prime concern to the Netherlands, which explains a bias in the research reported here. Much of the Netherlands is wetland, lying at the interface between land and water. Expected climate change will only exacerbate the struggle of this nation to secure its population and associated activities from high water levels. What are the key issues regarding wetland management at the moment? This special issue attempts to elaborate on a number of these issues, as well as taking on board the different perspectives of different disciplines. Disciplines represented in this special issue include management science, policy science, economics, hydrology, and ecology. Most articles draw on more than one of these. The articles may be grouped into three categories: the science-policy interface; scientific research and management; and policy and stakeholders. Two articles address the science-policy interface. The article by Goosen and Vellinga focuses on issues encountered in the Netherlands. An analysis of recent water management projects reveals constraints regarding: (1) national versus local goals; (2) limited sense of urgency among members of the public; (3) lack of coordination in the water management community; (4) unclear views about nature conservation; and (5) limited understanding of wetlands in relation to flood risk management. The authors propose platforms for collaborative planning as a way of improving stakeholder participation in early stages of decision-making. Negotiation and mediation support tools can enable stakeholders and mediators to formulate more purposely the problems that need to be addressed. The articles by Van der Werff and Lindahl and Soderqvist, also in this special issue, elaborate further on stakeholder participation. The article by Turner et al. explores four interrelated management problems—eutrophication of shallow lakes, sea level rise, flooding risks and tourism—in various wetland management options in the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads in the United Kingdom. They use the Driving Forces Pressure State Impact Response (DPSIR) framework to analyse the problem from an interdisciplinary ecological-economic perspective. Balancing various Received: 16 April 2004 / Accepted: 24 April 2004 Published online: 10 June 2004 a Springer-Verlag 2004

Indicators for pan-European assessment and monitoring of soil erosion by water

Abstract Soil erosion forms a major threat to European soil resources. Although soil is a vital and largely non-renewable resource, it has not been the subject of comprehensive EU action so far. A thematic strategy for soil protection, which recognises soil erosion as one of the major threats, has currently been placed high on Europe’s political Agenda. Assessing and monitoring soil erosion is needed to evaluate the impact of, inter alia, agricultural and land use policies in Europe. The driving force–pressure–state–impact–response (DPSIR) policy framework, applied to soil erosion, is reviewed and suggestions for improvements are proposed. The agri-environmental indicators (AEIs) of soil erosion are discussed in relation to data availability, policy requirements and analytical soundness. We propose a reviewed framework and a set of soil erosion indicators that can be objectively calculated, validated against measurements or observations and evaluated by experts.

The use of DPSIR framework to evaluate sustainability in coastal areas. Case study: Guanabara Bay basin, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The Guanabara Bay basin, SE Brazil, is shown as an experimental site to evaluate development and sustainability in coastal areas. We developed a Driver–Pressure–State–Impact–Response (DPSIR) framework in a practical context to integrate natural and socio-economic indicators. Sustainability reflects public policies towards the utilization of natural resources. Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) included in DPSIR evaluates losses and benefits resulting from such policies. CBA has some limitations due to the difficulty of valuating environmental goods and services. Instead of valuating them we propose to combine sustainability indicators and defensive expenditures for the implementation of public policies. This approach agrees with the environmental conservation paradigm implicit in sustainable development. It allows an estimation of the physical natural capital depreciation (PNCD), by using it to correct the gross domestic product (GDP) of the study area, and demonstrating the present non-sustainable characteristics of the current policies applied to the area.

The Humber catchment and its coastal area: from UK to European perspectives

The present water quality of the Humber rivers and coastal zone depends on a complex interplay of factors, including physical ones, such as the underlying geology, which influences soil type, climatic ones, such as the rainfall, which influences runoff, socio-economic ones, which influence present-day human activities in the catchment, and the legacy of former activities, such as contaminated sediments from mining. All of these factors affect the fluxes of nutrients and other contaminants to the rivers and coastal zone. The Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires the production of a river basin management plan intended to lead to the achievement of good chemical and ecological status for all water bodies in the catchment over the next two decades. This paper provides an overview of the current environmental and socio-economic state of the Humber catchment and coastal zone, and broadly examines how socio-economic drivers affect the fluxes of nutrients and contaminants to the coastal zone, using the driver–pressure–state–impact–response (DPSIR) approach. This is followed by an overview of future research, describing the use of scenarios to simulate future fluxes and provide a consistent framework to evaluate potential policies to improve water quality in the estuary. The Humber catchment is one of eight case studies within a European research project, EUROCAT (EVK1-CT-2000-00044), which aims to achieve integrated catchment and coastal zone management by analysing the response of the coastal sea to changes in fluxes of nutrients and contaminants from the catchments. For the Humber case study, the research focuses on the fluxes of two nutrient elements, N and P, and four metal contaminants, As, Cu, Pb and Zn. The project requires the integration of scientific and socio-economic approaches, bringing together quantitative environmental data garnered for individual river catchments and coastal zones in previous research programmes, and local and regional socio-economic data, to aid decision-makers in their search for integrated and sustainable coastal zone management strategies.

Socio-economic indicators and integrated coastal management

The need to better understand the linkages and interdependencies of socio-economic and coastal environmental dynamics has taken on a more deliberate role in the development and assessment of Integrated Coastal Management world-wide. The analysis and establishment of indicator-driven programs to assess change in coastal and watershed systems have increasingly moved to stress socio-economic forcings and impacts. This article serves to review the need for and provide an assessment of important frameworks designed to foster such integration. It argues that the evolution of the Driver–Pressure–State–Impact–Response (DPSIR) framework, now in broad use, provides an essential contribution.

Integrating natural and socio-economic science in coastal management

The future more sustainable management of coastal resources is an important policy goal for all governments of countries with coastlines. Coastal areas are under intense environmental change pressure with extensive feedback effects between the natural systems and the human systems. It could be argued that there is just one jointly determined and coevolving system that needs to be studied and managed. Understanding the interactions between the coastal zone and environmental change cannot be achieved by observational studies alone. Modelling of key environmental and socio-economic processes is a vital tool, required to buttress coastal management institutions and practice. Three overlapping procedural stages can be identified in the coastal resource assessment process. The scoping and auditing stage, implemented via a ‘pressure–state–impact–response’ framework, details, among other thing, problems, system boundaries and value conflicts. The framework is itself based on a conceptual model, which lays stress on functional value diversity and the links between ecosystem processes, functions and outputs of goods and services which are deemed ‘valuable’ by society. The two subsequent stages are integrated modelling, combining natural and social science methodologies, and evaluation of management options and related gains and losses. An overview of a research project, which utilised the pressure–state–impacts–response (P–S–I–R) framework and supporting concepts and methods, is presented in the last section of the paper, together with some generic ‘lessons’ for interdisciplinary research.

From data and theory to environmental models and indices formation

A prerequisite for environmental indices is that they represent environmental pressure, and the state of, and impact on environmental conditions. In other words, they should capture as much as possible of the cause-effect chains they represent and relate pressure and effect to criteria of environmental quality. The approach proposed in the article attempts to link the pressure–state–impact–response framework of indicators to the integrated environmental model, based on the method of response function (MRF). The MRF allows to construct purposeful, credible models from data and prior knowledge or information. The data are usually time series observations of system inputs and outputs, and sometimes of internal states. The output of such models is presented with highly aggregated environmental indices, reflecting the main pressure–state–impact–response cause-effect chains. The proposed approach is illustrated with the example of soil erosion indices.