In complex natural resource systems, modifications or disruptions tend to affect many and diverse components of the ecological system, settlements and groups of people. This book uses the Lagoon of Venice – a unique natural resource, wildlife habitat, centre of cultural heritage and recreational site – as an example of one such system that has been heavily affected by human activities, including the harvesting of natural resources and industrial production. The contributors explore the Lagoon’s potential for regeneration, examining public policies currently under consideration. The aim of these policies is to restore island coastlines and marshes, fish stocks, habitat and environmental quality, defend morphology and landscape through the strict control of fishing practices, and to protect the islands from high tides. Learn More

The focus of this unique collection of case studies is the validity and accuracy of benefit transfer using choice modelling, rather than the traditional focus of transferring results from contingent valuation and travel cost models. The book includes a simple guide to using choice modelling results in a benefit transfer process, an overview of the theoretical issues involved, and a number of case studies from Australia, Finland, New Zealand, the UK and the US. The conclusion is that the benefit transfer process is not straightforward, but that use of the choice modelling technique allows for more ‘automatic’ adjustment of values by the factors that frame the case study of interest. Learn More

Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, national governments have introduced a range of policy measures designed to steer their economies along a more sustainable path. Yet how are we to know how successful these have been? This significant new book discusses the ways in which sustainable development indicators can be improved in order to both assess the impact of past policies and avoid the repetition of previous failings. Learn More

The Handbook on Contingent Valuation is unique in that it focuses on contingent valuation as a method for evaluating environmental change. It examines econometric issues, conceptual underpinnings, implementation issues as well as alternatives to contingent valuation. Anna Alberini and James Kahn have compiled a comprehensive and original reference volume containing invaluable case studies that demonstrate the implementation of contingent valuation in a wide variety of applications. Chapters include those on the history of contingent valuation, a practical guide to its implementation, the use of experimental approaches, an ecological economics perspective on contingent valuation and approaches for developing nations. Learn More

This multidisciplinary work explores ways of making environmental policy decisions in managing public goods and natural parks with the goal of maximizing economic benefits to society. The contributors to the volume seek the best strategies for improving the environmental sustainability and quality of a public resource by showing how to develop quantitative information about the natural area and how it interacts with the economy. Such an analysis can be used to define policies that encourage interactions among institutions, local economic agents and park users. At the same time, it provides a measure to account for the implications of those policies on the local economy. Learn More

This book systematically addresses the issue of interdependence between road projects in a network, when prioritising and scheduling road expansion and maintenance. The book presents substantial applications for both rural and urban projects and to the optimization of maintenance. The authors confirm the extreme sensitivity to project timing but also show that solutions with almost equal net present values may have dissimilar work schedules. One of these may be selected on environmental or other grounds without losing road user benefits. They go on to explore and demonstrate the issues associated with the integration of evolutionary computing techniques, transport modelling and cost–benefit analysis to achieve an optimal road investment timetable. Learn More

How are the economic values of water and water quality accounted for in policy and project appraisal? This important book gives an overview of the state-of-the-art in Cost–Benefit Analysis (CBA) in water resources management throughout Europe and North America, along with an examination of current applications. Learn More

Over the past decade there has been growing interest in the role of information in the promotion of environmentally friendly behaviour. This book examines how and why the provision of such information can affect individual decisions concerning buying or consuming a product or valuing a policy. The information can take the form of a product label or a statement in a survey questionnaire, and the decision can be what product to buy, what food to eat or how to answer a contingent valuation question. Learn More

This important collection brings together Peter Nijkamp’s work in the area of environmental and resource economics. The essays selected pay particular attention to theory and modelling, environmental analysis as well as policy issues and implications. Learn More

This book cleverly integrates the research on welfare measurement and social accounting in imperfect market economies. In their previously acclaimed volume, Welfare Measurement, Sustainability and Green National Accounting, the authors focused on the external effects associated with environmental damage and analysed their role in the context of social accounting. This book adopts a much broader perspective by analysing a wide spectrum of resource allocation problems of real-world market economies. Learn More

This book is an original study of the challenge of implementing sustainable development in Western democracies. It highlights the obstacles which sustainable development presents for strategic governance and critically examines how these problems can best be overcome in a variety of different political contexts. Learn More

Analytical Strategic Environmental Assessment (ANSEA) is an insightful new approach to environmental evaluation, based on decision theory, policy analysis and environmental considerations. These concepts, though not new in their own fields of application, are combined and integrated in an innovative fashion. This book presents recent research on the implementation of the ANSEA approach which aims to ensure environmental values are properly integrated into the decision-making process. Learn More

This important Handbook presents an indispensable overview of the range of new methods and of the conceptual advances in Social Impact Assessment (SIA). Recent increased attention to social considerations has led to substantial development in the techniques useful to, and the thinking in, SIA. A distinguished group of contributors provides an up-to-date and comprehensive account of the cutting-edge in SIA development. Learn More

Cost–Benefit Analysis presents an authoritative collection of the most important published articles in the field together with an extensive new introduction by the editors. Whilst focusing on the practical side, looking at applications such as education, transportation and the value of life and health, this important volume also emphasises the essential role of economic theory, with sections on the economic costs of public funds, foreign exchange and labour. The result is an influential selection based on robust and fundamental theoretical propositions – ones that are readily suitable for everyday applications. Learn More

In this book, the first of two volumes, the authors provide detailed case studies of valuation techniques that have been used in developing countries. They demonstrate that valuation works and that it can yield significant insights into policy-relevant issues regarding conservation and economic development. The authors address a whole range of environmental issues under the broad themes of water and air quality, biological diversity and forest functions. The economic approaches covered include contingent valuation, hedonic property prices, travel cost methodologies and benefits transfer. Learn More

This manual offers a detailed, up-to-date explanation of how to carry out economic valuation using stated preference techniques. It is relevant for the application of these techniques to all non-market goods and services including air and water quality; provision of public open space; health care that is not sold through private markets; risk reduction policies and investments not provided privately; provision of information as with the recorded heritage, the protection of cultural assets and so on. The resulting valuations can be used for a number of purposes including, but not limited to, demonstrating the importance of a good or service; cost–benefit analysis; setting priorities for environmental policy; design of economic instruments; green national/corporate accounting, and natural resource damage assessment. Learn More

The Environmentalism of the Poor has the explicit intention of helping to establish two emerging fields of study – political ecology and ecological economics – whilst also investigating the relations between them. Learn More