Limits to the World’s Green Water Resources for Food, Feed, Fiber, Timber, and Bioenergy

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (March 12, 2019 v116, pp4893-4898; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1817380116, published ahead of print February 25, 2019) / by Joep F. Schyns, Arjen Y. Hoekstra, Martijn J. Booij, Rick J. Hogeboom, and Mesfin M. Mekonnen https://www.pnas.org/content/116/11/4893 [Abstract] Green water––rainfall over land that eventually flows back to the atmosphere as evapotranspiration––is the main … Continue reading →

Long-Term Productivity Growth and the Environment

OECD / by Alex Bowen and Tomasz Kozluk http://bit.ly/1TxyySS The natural environment provides crucial inputs and services for economic development, but its role for productivity growth is insufficiently explored. Environmental scarcities can pose a drag on productivity growth and a risk for its sustainability. At the same time productivity growth is often seen as the solution to environmental … Continue reading →

Flood Risks and Environmental Vulnerability — Exploring the Synergies Between Floodplain Restoration, Water Policies and Thematic Policies

European Environment Agency http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/flood-risks-and-environmental-vulnerability This report focuses on the role of floodplains in flood protection, water management, nature protection or agriculture and the impact of hydromorphological alterations on the ecosystem services that floodplains provide. The aim is to support the implementation of the EU Floods Directive (EU, 2007), in particular with regard to environmental impacts … Continue reading →

The Economic Feedbacks of Loss of Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services

OECD / by Anil Markandya http://bit.ly/1RrBTXi The topic of biodiversity loss has been the subject of a vast and growing scientific and economic literature. Species are estimated to be going extinct at rates 100 to 1000 times faster than in geological times. Globally, terrestrial biodiversity is projected to decrease by a further 10% by 2050. … Continue reading →

Responses to Weather and Climate: A Cross-Section Analysis of Rural Incomes

World Bank / by Frederik Noack, et al. http://bit.ly/1NIAISy How much do poor rural households rely on environmental extraction from natural ecosystems? And how does climate variability impact their livelihoods? This paper sheds light on these two questions with household income data from the Poverty and Environment Network pantropical data set, combined with climate data for … Continue reading →

Nature as Capital — PNAS 100th Anniversary Special Feature on Ecosystem Services (Free Online)

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2015, v112 n24) Full table of contents: http://www.pnas.org/content/current Core Concept: Ecosystem services / by Amy West If one were to build a healthy biosphere from scratch on another planet, what kinds of ecosystems and combinations of species would be necessary to support humans? This is the thought experiment that ecologist Gretchen … Continue reading →

European Ecosystem Assessment — Concept, Data, and Implementation

European Environment Agency http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/european-ecosystem-assessment [From Summary] …Europe is becoming greener (Fuchs et al., 2014) but, at the same time, losing biodiversity. At least one-out-of-three species in Europe is threatened with extinction (IUCN, 2011a-d). Many ecosystems are pushed towards the provision of one service — mainly food production — at the cost of the other services … Continue reading →

Evaluating Taboo Trade-offs in Ecosystems Services and Human Well-being

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences / by Tim M. Daw, eta l. http://www.pnas.org/content/112/22/6949.short Managing ecosystems for multiple ecosystem services and balancing the well-being of diverse stakeholders involves different kinds of trade-offs. Often trade-offs involve noneconomic and difficult-to-evaluate values, such as cultural identity, employment, the well-being of poor people, or particular species or ecosystem … Continue reading →

Biodiversity and Development Co-operation

OECD / by Anna Drutschinin, Juan Casado-Asensio, Jan Corfee-Morlot and Dilys Roe http://bit.ly/1ESlhwc This paper considers how development co-operation is addressing the twin objectives of biodiversity conservation and sustainable use on the one hand, and development and poverty reduction on the other. It outlines how development co-operation can a) support mainstreaming biodiversity and ecosystem services … Continue reading →

Ecosystem Services Lost to Oil and Gas in North America

Science (April 24, 2015, v348 n6233 p401-402; doi: 10.1126/science.aaa4785) / by Brady W. Allred, et al. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6233/401.full …We provide a first empirical analysis to advance beyond common rhetoric and speculation of oil and gas development (6), combining high-resolution satellite data of vegetation dynamics with industry data and publicly available data of historical and present-day oil and … Continue reading →