Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Where does our drinking water come from? (Canada)
The team at Thought Bubble have done an excellent job in communicating where drinking water comes from in British Columbia. Snazzy, clear, well-substantiated, and realistic. Excellent work.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Llobregat Field Work & Identification of Eligible Restoration Areas
This weekend I explored a segment of the Llobregat that I had skipped in my original trek down the river in 2008. In my original field survey I decided to visit Manresa, which lies on the Cardener river, not the Llobregat, but a main tributary. This detour took me West of the Llobregat for a morning, and then South, downstream the Cardener until the two waterbodies meet in Castellgalí. This weekend I returned to see the segment I missed, between the confluence of the Llobregat and Cardener rivers, until the monastery of Sant Benet del Bages further upstream.
In the last few months, I have been learning the Stream Network Temperature Model (SNTEMP) developed by the United States Geological Service (Bartholow 2000). The model support is strong and there is helpful guidance for collecting field data to feed the model (Bartholow 1989). Therefore during the field exploration I had a few questions on my mind:
What does the riparian vegetation look like? What is the species composition? How much shading does it provide?
How difficult will it be to gather the field data on topography and vegetation for the temperature model as outlined by Bartholow (2000)?
Are there any segments that might be deemed appropriate as a reference segments?
Returning to the river made me re-think how I should be collecting data for the model. The SNTEMP model allows users to divide the stream segment into various regions based on topographic and vegetative features. I had initially done this based on general stream characteristics between the Baells to Abrera:
Zone 1. Pre-Pyrenees segment. Baells to Can Rosal.
Zone 2. Industrial Colonies. Can Rosal to Sallent.
Zone 3. Central Bages. Sallent to Castellbell i el Vilar.
Zone 4. Montserrat. Castellbell i el Vilar to Olesa.
Zone 5. Final reach. Olesa to Abrera Water Treatment Plant.
To get a sense of how these geographic features fit in with the tributaries, point sources and other critical points you can look at the Skeleton Network that I have developed for the model.
My current endpoint is the Abrera treatment facility, but eventually, I would like to extend the model to Sant Joan Despí. Until this weekend, I was confident that this organization would be appropriate.
However my field work suggested that I may need to break up the stream features to smaller sub-segments and focus on a smaller segment first. Not only will this help me gradually build up to a larger model, but focusing on a smaller segment would also allow me to more clearly answer my research question that concerns vegetation. Recall that my question is: Can ecosystem services related to temperature maintain stream temperatures remain below critical threshold values?
Since stream shade plays such a key role in regulating stream temperature, I need to compare conditions with and without stream shading functions. Therefore I would like to identify eligible restoration areas, ie. segments where the shading function does not exist now, but could in the future. As my field work showed, not all areas are equally in need of river bank restoration. Some areas are in good shape, some areas have no vegetation at all, and some places are somewhere in between. My ideas is to first look at those stream segments in the worst shape, and then model what it would look like if those areas were improved. The most degraded areas would be my eligible restoration areas, defined as a stream segment with less than 20% of its riparian vegetation. Since my broad topographic areas have already been defined, these areas will only differ with respect to their vegetative conditions. I will then be able to model the impact of moving these areas from 20% vegetation cover to 70% vegetation cover.
This approach would imply that I identify the eligible restoration areas on a relatively fine scale. Conveniently, there are several eligible restoration areas in the last part of the river between Abrera and Olesa de Montserrat. Therefore my sense is that I should begin by focusing on that segment first.
References
Bartholow, J.M. 2000. The Stream Segment and Stream Network Temperature Models: A Self-Study Guide. US. Geological Survey. US Department of the Interior. Version 2.0 March 2000. Open File Report 99-112.
Bartholow, J.M. 1989. Stream Temperature Investigations: field and analytic methods. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Washington D.C. Instream Paper No. 13. Biological Report (89) 17.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Temperature Modeling
Yesterday I had the opportunity to met Sherri Johnson from the US Forest Service who gave an excellent presentation on stream temperature at the University of Girona. Her presentation reinforced the ecological significance of stream temperature. We discussed the SNTEMP model developed by USGS that I will apply in my dissertation to study stream temperature of the Llobregat River. She mentioned other models, such as WET-temp. Overall, it was an inspiring conversation that has motivated me to continue exploring stream temperature dynamics.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Innaguration of the Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA) H20 Building
Yesterday I went to Girona for the innaguration of the H2O building which will host the Catalan Institute for Water Research, or Institut Catala de Recerca de l'Aigua (ICRA). The institute was founded in 2006, and only three years later, they are now moving into to a new facility decked out with plenty of laboratory and office space. The initiative shows a clear commitment on behalf of the Catalan Government to promote and support water related research. The speaches by the public officials, including the Catalan Minister Josep Huguet, emphasized that Catalonia needs to reorient itself toward a knowledge based economy, driven by innovation and technology. The speed at which they have build ICRA demonstrates that the money is where their mouth is. And ICRA is likely to hire many more researchers in the upcomming year. I was able to briefly meet one of these researchers working on ecosystem services, Vicenç Acuña. It was encouraging to meet other people doing similar work, and I hope to develop some sort of intellectual exchange with them, since no doubt they are more familiar with the Mediterranean ecosystems than I am, and have much to teach me. Overall, ICRA shows tremendous promise as a cutting edge research center.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Aigua, Rius i Pobles / Agua, Rios, Pueblos / Water, Rivers, Communities
This week I had the opportunity to have lunch with Dr. Pedro Arrojo, from the University of Zaragoza. He has graciously accepted my invitation to become a member of my PhD dissertation committee, and I look forward to his input on my research.
During our lunch, I learned that Pedro Arrojo and several of his colleagues are currently organizing a first-class exhibit called Agua, Rios, Pueblos, which translates as Water, Rivers and Communities. The exhibit has already been presented successfully in Malaga, Spain and Mexico City, Mexico. Now it is comming to Barcelona in May 2010. The exhibit shows how different communities have managed water conflicts around the globe. In the next few months, local organizations in Catalunya will be invited to participate, and create case studies surrounding local water conflicts. The issues in the Llobregat river basin are likely to appear as one of the case studies. I look forward to helping, even if in a small way.
This event promises to have a considerable number of visitors. It should attract the attention of the press and the public on river management problems both locally and around the world. More later...
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Desalination Plant for Barcelona's Drinking Water
This month, Barcelona residents may begin to notice their tap water tastes better. On July 20th, the Catalan government will begin to supply their municipal network with desalinated water from the Mediterranean. This will improve drinking water quality, but also increase treatment costs. Their goal is to rely on desalinated water only during water shortages. In the radio interview below, a representative from the treatment facility acknowledged that the treatment cost per cubic meter is between 0.3-0.45 Euros per cubic meter. Based on the literature review I have conducted, the desalination treatment plants I am studying upstream, in Sant Joan Despi and Abrera, probably also have simliar treatment costs. Next week I move to the Barcelona Metropolitan Region with the hopes of working with the water treatment managers in order to find creative ways to bring these costs down, and simultaneously generate environmental benefits in the Llobregat River as well.
Listen to the tour of the desalination facility here. [in Catalan]
Listen to the tour of the desalination facility here. [in Catalan]
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Managing Nonlinear Ecosystem Services
Research Objective
A great deal of attention has been directed at ecosystem services and their potential to improve natural resource management (Daily et al. 1997, MA 2005, NRC 2005). By understanding how human populations benefit from ecosystems, we can more strategically protect valuable ecosystem functions. Yet despite the burst of enthusiasm for research on ecosystem services, the significant spatial and temporal variation in ecosystems themselves and the services they provide have prevented the successful integration of ecologic and economic systems into a coherent framework for decision-making. For example, the capacity of wetlands to treat sewage, mitigate floods, or purify water, often depends on their proximity to human populations as well as seasonal fluctuations. Researchers agree that ecosystem services fluctuate across space and time, and yet surprisingly little research has examined the management implications of non-linear ecosystem service provision (Costanza et al. 2001, Koch et al. 2009). As a result, researchers studying ecosystem services still confront a fundamental challenge: How to integrate highly variable and non-linear ecosystem services into decision making.
To answer this question we propose a two step approach. First we must adequately describe the variability in ecosystem service provision within our area of interest. Second, once equipped with a more realistic understanding of ecosystem service provision across space and time, we will then test the impact of various management decisions on the watershed and observe how the value of ecosystem services varies non-linearly or with sensitivity to particular thresholds. As a case study, we will examine the ecosystem services related to drinking water supplies in the Llobregat watershed. Thresholds and non-linearity have important implications for how ecosystem services can be exploited to meet drinking water objectives. This research should contribute to our understanding of non-linear ecosystem service provision, as well as provide a specific example of integrating non-linear ecosystem services into decision-making.
A great deal of attention has been directed at ecosystem services and their potential to improve natural resource management (Daily et al. 1997, MA 2005, NRC 2005). By understanding how human populations benefit from ecosystems, we can more strategically protect valuable ecosystem functions. Yet despite the burst of enthusiasm for research on ecosystem services, the significant spatial and temporal variation in ecosystems themselves and the services they provide have prevented the successful integration of ecologic and economic systems into a coherent framework for decision-making. For example, the capacity of wetlands to treat sewage, mitigate floods, or purify water, often depends on their proximity to human populations as well as seasonal fluctuations. Researchers agree that ecosystem services fluctuate across space and time, and yet surprisingly little research has examined the management implications of non-linear ecosystem service provision (Costanza et al. 2001, Koch et al. 2009). As a result, researchers studying ecosystem services still confront a fundamental challenge: How to integrate highly variable and non-linear ecosystem services into decision making.
To answer this question we propose a two step approach. First we must adequately describe the variability in ecosystem service provision within our area of interest. Second, once equipped with a more realistic understanding of ecosystem service provision across space and time, we will then test the impact of various management decisions on the watershed and observe how the value of ecosystem services varies non-linearly or with sensitivity to particular thresholds. As a case study, we will examine the ecosystem services related to drinking water supplies in the Llobregat watershed. Thresholds and non-linearity have important implications for how ecosystem services can be exploited to meet drinking water objectives. This research should contribute to our understanding of non-linear ecosystem service provision, as well as provide a specific example of integrating non-linear ecosystem services into decision-making.
We begin with a provocative hypothesis: recent changes in water treatment technology have helped realign environmental and economic interests in the watershed so that these goals have become mutually reinforcing. Furthermore, understanding the spatial and seasonal fluctuation in ecosystem service provision will be essential to accurately exploit ecosystem service provision. The Llobregat watershed near Barcelona, Spain provides an ideal location in which to study non-linear ecosystem service provision due to the natural variability in Mediterranean climates and the explicit and measurable links between river water quality, ecosystem services and treatment costs.
Ecosystem Services
To address this challenge, the two major drinking water facilities in the Llobregat recently installed desalination systems. The publically owned water treatment facility managed by Aigües Ter-Llobregat (ATLL) installed a reversible electrodialysis system, while further downstream, the private water company Aigües de Barcelona (AGBAR) installed a reverse osmosis system. Both water treatment plants are regulated by the regional Catalan Water Agency, Agència Catalana de l’Aigua (ACA). Thus in this case, the scale of the management institutions—the water providers and the regulatory agency—closely match the scale of the ecosystem services, allowing for the value of the ecosystem services to be taken into account by decision making authorities. The AGBAR treatment plant also extracts groundwater from a coastal aquifer that is experiencing seawater intrusion, and further compounding the salinity problem in its water supply.
Figure 1. Prior to the adoption of desalination
As mentioned, this research is inspired by the experience in New York City where water managers saved millions by investing in strategic land use management in the Catskill watershed. While this research follows the spirit of the New York case, it adds three important features that may contribute to more valuable or generalizable results. First, the technological context is vastly different. New York did not have a filtration plant to begin with, and knowledge about ecosystem services was used to avoid the construction of such a system. In contrast, our research examines the management of ecosystem services when water managers are already using the most advanced treatment technology available. Second, we will study ecosystem services in the context of restoration, not conservation. This allows us to quantify the tangible savings derived from improving surface water quality instead of speculating on the avoided costs that resulted from land conservation. Lastly, the technological and environmental conditions at our research site are more representative of urban water challenges globally. Most treatment facilities have already installed the filtration systems that New York avoided. This led to criticisms that the New York model was not replicable. Our research site reflects conditions that water managers are likely to face in the future, whereby poor water sources will be treated with newer and more costly technologies. In this respect, our case study should be more valuable to a wider audience of researchers interested in both in ecosystem services and municipal water treatment.
Ecosystem Services
Ecosystem services are the benefits that people derive from ecosystems (MA 2005). It is the natural capital that we rely on for food production, climate stabilization, pollination and drinking water. Research on ecosystem services has exploded as academics and practitioners alike search for more explicit connections between ecosystems and human well being. And while much has been written about integrating ecosystem services into decision making, there are few examples to draw from. The noteworthy exception is the case of New York City’s drinking water supply, which proponents of ecosystem services repeatedly cite as a success adoption of the ecosystem services framework. There, water managers found that investments in watershed protection in the Catskill Mountains provided equivalent water quality at only a fraction of the cost of building a new filtration plant (Chichilnisky & Heal 1998, NRC 2000). The city saved millions of dollars through investments in upstream land conservation that maintained high drinking water quality at the source. The innovative management of New York City’s drinking water provides a concrete example of how policy makers can use knowledge about ecosystem services to direct future investments. Over a decade later, however, few additional examples have surfaced. Some have begun to question whether the case of New York City’s drinking water was an anomaly rather than a replicable strategy (McCauley 2006). Pressure is building to move ecosystem services from theory to practice (Daily et al. 2009). In particular, we need cases that show how resource managers can successfully integrate ecosystem services into decision-making despite their non-linear qualities (Koch et al. 2009).
Researchers have only recently attempted to understand the stochastic qualities of ecosystem services. Aburto-Oropeza et al. (2008) studied the spatial and temporal fluctuations of fish catch as they related to mangrove conditions, while Koch et al. (2009) studied the irregular protection of coastal property provided by marine vegetation. The paucity of studies on non-linear ecosystem service provision has generated calls for improving our understanding of how ecosystem services fluctuate across space and time (Kremen and Ostfeld 2005, Koch et al. 2009). Studying ecosystem services under these more realistic assumptions will improve our ability to operationalize this attractive conceptual framework for resource management. Furthermore, our focus on meeting regulatory objectives allows us to sidestep controversial questions pertaining to valuation and instead concentrate on how ecosystem services can make tangible contributions to meeting water management objectives.
Valuation approaches remains highly controversial because of technical difficulties in obtaining willingness to pay values, and because they generally assume a linear or monotonic relationship between the ecosystem’s condition and the value of the service provided. This linearity does not hold for either the ecosystem conditions or for the services provided. Ecologists have documented that ecosystems can fluctuate between states where marginal changes have no impact if thresholds have been passed (Holling 1978). Economic systems also have thresholds whereby costs kick in after certain points. Thus assuming linearity in our study of ecosystem services is likely to provide misleading information. A new consensus is emerging that research on ecosystem services must consider the inherent variability and thresholds that are characteristic of both ecological and economic systems (Barbier et al. 2008, Koch et al. 2009).
Research Site: The Llobregat Watershed
The Llobregat Watershed provides an ideal site for examining non-linearity and thresholds in ecosystem service provision because it combines high ecosystem variability, plus human dependency . The Llobregat River flows 145 kilometers from the Pyrenees Mountains to the Mediterranean Sea and provides the city of Barcelona with its drinking water. At the same time Mediterranean rivers experience extreme seasonal fluctuations. Barcelona depends on the highly variable and polluted waters from the Llobregat for industrial, agricultural and domestic uses, and water managers at the two treatment facilities in the lower watershed have been dealing with contaminants dumped into the Llobregat for decades. In particular, mine tailings upstream release sodium chloride (NaCl) into the river. For years, addressing the source of this pollution has been deemed financially prohibitive (ACA 2006). The salts and bromides from the mine tailings react with disinfectants, such as chlorine, to form carcinogenic compounds known as trihalomethanes (THMs). These contaminants have plagued the region’s drinking water supply and generated incompliance with European public health standards for drinking water quality.
The Llobregat Watershed provides an ideal site for examining non-linearity and thresholds in ecosystem service provision because it combines high ecosystem variability, plus human dependency . The Llobregat River flows 145 kilometers from the Pyrenees Mountains to the Mediterranean Sea and provides the city of Barcelona with its drinking water. At the same time Mediterranean rivers experience extreme seasonal fluctuations. Barcelona depends on the highly variable and polluted waters from the Llobregat for industrial, agricultural and domestic uses, and water managers at the two treatment facilities in the lower watershed have been dealing with contaminants dumped into the Llobregat for decades. In particular, mine tailings upstream release sodium chloride (NaCl) into the river. For years, addressing the source of this pollution has been deemed financially prohibitive (ACA 2006). The salts and bromides from the mine tailings react with disinfectants, such as chlorine, to form carcinogenic compounds known as trihalomethanes (THMs). These contaminants have plagued the region’s drinking water supply and generated incompliance with European public health standards for drinking water quality.
To address this challenge, the two major drinking water facilities in the Llobregat recently installed desalination systems. The publically owned water treatment facility managed by Aigües Ter-Llobregat (ATLL) installed a reversible electrodialysis system, while further downstream, the private water company Aigües de Barcelona (AGBAR) installed a reverse osmosis system. Both water treatment plants are regulated by the regional Catalan Water Agency, Agència Catalana de l’Aigua (ACA). Thus in this case, the scale of the management institutions—the water providers and the regulatory agency—closely match the scale of the ecosystem services, allowing for the value of the ecosystem services to be taken into account by decision making authorities. The AGBAR treatment plant also extracts groundwater from a coastal aquifer that is experiencing seawater intrusion, and further compounding the salinity problem in its water supply.
Now treatment managers are confident that they will comply with European public health standards, but at a cost. The new treatment technology consumes vast amounts of energy and is expensive to operate. Now more than ever, the cost of water treatment will depend on water quality (Fig. 1). This creates an explicit link between economic costs and the ecological
integrity of the river ecosystem. Since various ecosystem functions provide services that potentially can reduce treatment costs, the challenge is to understand the spatial and temporal variations of these ecosystem services so as to take full advantage of their provision. If ecosystem services are integrated into water treatment decisions, it will be possible to meet the same water quality standards at much lower costs because we can rely on the ecosystem services instead of energy intensive treatment. Furthermore, investments in ecosystem management can help restore the ecological integrity of the watershed, in addition to
potentially generating financial benefits.
Figure 1. Prior to the adoption of desalination
water treatment, fluctuations in salinity did not
influence water treatment costs. As of 2009, two treatment plants installed membrane desalination plants. This has significantly increased the cost of treatment. Future fluctuations in salinity will be directly correlated with treatment costs (left panel). This creates a new explicit link between ecosystem conditions and economic costs. It also provides a useful analytical framework with which to study the benefits of ecosystem service
provision. Depending on the relation between ecosystem variability and treatment costs, the response to changed water quality in the future may be highly non-linear with significant threshold effects (right panel)
As mentioned, this research is inspired by the experience in New York City where water managers saved millions by investing in strategic land use management in the Catskill watershed. While this research follows the spirit of the New York case, it adds three important features that may contribute to more valuable or generalizable results. First, the technological context is vastly different. New York did not have a filtration plant to begin with, and knowledge about ecosystem services was used to avoid the construction of such a system. In contrast, our research examines the management of ecosystem services when water managers are already using the most advanced treatment technology available. Second, we will study ecosystem services in the context of restoration, not conservation. This allows us to quantify the tangible savings derived from improving surface water quality instead of speculating on the avoided costs that resulted from land conservation. Lastly, the technological and environmental conditions at our research site are more representative of urban water challenges globally. Most treatment facilities have already installed the filtration systems that New York avoided. This led to criticisms that the New York model was not replicable. Our research site reflects conditions that water managers are likely to face in the future, whereby poor water sources will be treated with newer and more costly technologies. In this respect, our case study should be more valuable to a wider audience of researchers interested in both in ecosystem services and municipal water treatment.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Learning Excel Plug-ins for Data Analysis
This weekend I read through "Statistics, Data Analysis and Decision Modeling" by James R. Evans and David L. Olson. The book caught my attention because of its emphasis on Excel. The authors review Excel plug-ins that are particularly helpful and easy to use.
I recently obtained more data on salinity in the Llobregat River, and would like to start analyzing the data in Excel before moving onto other software. While my most recent statistics course has made me more comfortable in R, I would like to max out Excel first. Everyone has Excel on their computers, and if I want to communicate my analysis, or facilitate collaborative learning with others, it makes sense to work on a platform that everyone is familiar with.
I took a special look at the chapters on forecasting and optimization. The plug-in "solver" can compute some simple linear and non-linear optimization problems. Going over the examples gave me some ideas about how to set up an optimization problem relevant to my dissertation, with simple constraints. Over time, my work may evolve into something more complex, but it makes sense to start with something straightforward. At the same time, there is no need to go over the top with mathematical complexity. As demonstrated by this book, programmers have developed impressive tools that are easy to use and communicate.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Presentation by Dr. Narcis Prat on Water Management in Barcelona
Dr. Narcis Prat from the University of Barcelona has recently posted an excellent power point presentation concerning water management in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region. The presentation comes precisely one year after a major drought in Catalonia, which threatened to generate severe water restrictions. The government imported freshwater on ships and trains in preparation of the drought. Then, in May 2008, it started to rain and the drought was called off.
For a visually powerful description of how water is managed in Catalonia, check out his presentation here.
For a visually powerful description of how water is managed in Catalonia, check out his presentation here.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Environmental modelling
This weekend I started to read Environmental Modeling: An introduction by Jo Smith and Pete Smith. I picked up at the library when I was looking for a book by Carl Walters, on adaptive management, which I also hope to read this week. It caught my attention for being straightforward and easy to digest. So far I have enjoyed it very much, since it has given me new ideas about how to approach my dissertation on the Llobregat River. The material is clearly explained, and the examples provide intuition for the statistical calculations made. The authors also point out the problems, biases or misinterpretations that frequently are made when using environmental models to address real world problems.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
PhD Qualifying Exam: Area of Specialty (Question 6)
How might restoration endpoints be identified and what are the political implications for using different methods for identifying and choosing those endpoints?
The selection of restoration endpoints is inherently a political exercise. Some restoration ecologists resist this political interpretation (Packard), and instead argue that their selections are grounded in science. However our understanding of ecosystem fluctuation, evolution and non-equilibrium ecology, suggest that the selection of any particular reference condition is simply the outcome of some political process.
In the United States, restoration movements have sought to restore disturbed sites to their ecological conditions found prior to European settlement. A purely scientific approach to restoration uses apolitical tools from the natural sciences to reconstruct what ecosystems were like in the past. This reconstruction of ecosystems has been the specialty of the field of historical ecology (Eagan & Howell).
This selection of “pre-European settlement” as an endpoint obviates the impacts of native peoples on this continent, but more fundamentally, it ignores that ecosystems are in constant flux and change. The choice to restore a prairie to its conditions in 1800 have no greater scientific merit that the selection of the year 1700, 1500 or 500. Plus, this selection of a particular endpoint implies a desire to freeze time. As if the year in which humans began to modify the ecosystem, coincidentally, Nature had already found its ideal state.
Already, conservation biology is moving away from static ideas and instead framing their work context of evolution and change (Meffe). This more nuanced ecological understanding is common among scholars despite the simple messaging from environmental groups that reinforce static ecological pictures. “Save the rainforests” implies we aim to prevent any change at all. Similarly, the restoration of a habitat to its pre-European conditions suggests that we would have preferred that the ecosystem remained unchanged for 200 or 300 years.
Non-equilibrium ecology has also seriously challenged assumptions about equilibrium states (Neumann) and these ideas are being substituted with theories of sudden changes or punctuated equilibrium (Gould). These new ideas within the field of ecology further destabilize simplistic ideas about finding singular restoration endpoints because there is no stable equilibrium to which any system should return.
Recognizing that no scientifically defensible restoration endpoint exists, suddenly throws questions about restoration into the political realm. Science can still be used to weigh the advantages and disadvantages to different scenarios, but science will not reveal answers about what the ecosystem should look like in the future. Restoration science becomes descriptive, not normative. The normative decisions about what should be are devolved to the users and inhabitants of that ecosystem. No doubt this observation can be disturbing for ecologists since it places them in an unfamiliar position of not finding the “right” answer about what an ecosystem should look like. It may be even more troubling that the future of a place ecologists care about would be determined by the collective will of individuals that may include those who ‘do not care’ or at least have very different values with respect to an ecosystem’s future.
An openly political approach to identifying restoration endpoints dethrones the physical sciences, and elevates the social sciences. No doubt, historical ecology remains useful for informing decisions about restoration, but it is equally important to understand the environmental history of the site, since it is environmental history which explains how politics has shape resource use.
Environmental historians describe how landscape changes are the outcomes of historical struggles between competing resource users. Furthermore, the victors in these resource struggles often succeed in rewriting the ecological narrative of how a particular ecosystem operates or what has ‘always been’. This revisionist history gives existing resource users disproportionate power, especially if ecosystem managers rely on apolitical strategies to make restoration choices.
Environmental history can provide critical insight to help managers and the public make more informed decisions about what the ecosystems should look like in the future. For example, following the Mississippi floods of 1993, agricultural interests lobbied to rebuild levees and restore floodplain agricultural. In this context ‘restoration’ meant the farmers would re-appropriate agricultural rights on the floodplain. However a careful look into the environmental history of Mississippi River reveals that fishers had used the natural lakes along the floodplain long before levee agriculture. Furthermore, the fishing communities were violently removed from these lakes by agricultural interests who had stronger financial and political influences (Schneider). This case reveals how different restoration endpoints often are the reflection of political interests rather than an unbiased scientific truth. Other authors have similarly found that environmental narratives can dominate discourse and decisions about restoration. Cronon is well known for his description of wilderness in the American West and Spirn describes the competing narratives that argued for ‘restoring’ Olmstead’s Emerald Necklace in Boston, which was an a human constructed park built on narratives of its own. Given that particular stories about the past can dominate the public psyche, we should be suspect of assertions about restoration that claim to be objective or unbiased.
Adopting an apolitical or scientific approach for selecting restoration endpoints risks reinforcing existing patterns of resource use that probably benefit historical victors of resource struggle. Instead of relying on the scientific or apolitical approach, we should acknowledge that ecological restoration is fundamentally about human choices. Both natural science and social science should be used to inform our decisions. The inhabitants and neighbors of each site should decide what type of ecosystem they would like to co-exist with. Certainly, the science can help orient our decision making because some species probably will not survive in all climates. But fundamentally, it is a political decision.
Finally, understanding restoration as a political issue raises important questions about process and participation. This makes the work on participatory watershed management (Henne, Sabatier) even more critical for watershed managers, since the science alone will not reveal what watershed conditions should look like, rather these decisions should be the outcomes of democratic processes.
The selection of restoration endpoints is inherently a political exercise. Some restoration ecologists resist this political interpretation (Packard), and instead argue that their selections are grounded in science. However our understanding of ecosystem fluctuation, evolution and non-equilibrium ecology, suggest that the selection of any particular reference condition is simply the outcome of some political process.
In the United States, restoration movements have sought to restore disturbed sites to their ecological conditions found prior to European settlement. A purely scientific approach to restoration uses apolitical tools from the natural sciences to reconstruct what ecosystems were like in the past. This reconstruction of ecosystems has been the specialty of the field of historical ecology (Eagan & Howell).
This selection of “pre-European settlement” as an endpoint obviates the impacts of native peoples on this continent, but more fundamentally, it ignores that ecosystems are in constant flux and change. The choice to restore a prairie to its conditions in 1800 have no greater scientific merit that the selection of the year 1700, 1500 or 500. Plus, this selection of a particular endpoint implies a desire to freeze time. As if the year in which humans began to modify the ecosystem, coincidentally, Nature had already found its ideal state.
Already, conservation biology is moving away from static ideas and instead framing their work context of evolution and change (Meffe). This more nuanced ecological understanding is common among scholars despite the simple messaging from environmental groups that reinforce static ecological pictures. “Save the rainforests” implies we aim to prevent any change at all. Similarly, the restoration of a habitat to its pre-European conditions suggests that we would have preferred that the ecosystem remained unchanged for 200 or 300 years.
Non-equilibrium ecology has also seriously challenged assumptions about equilibrium states (Neumann) and these ideas are being substituted with theories of sudden changes or punctuated equilibrium (Gould). These new ideas within the field of ecology further destabilize simplistic ideas about finding singular restoration endpoints because there is no stable equilibrium to which any system should return.
Recognizing that no scientifically defensible restoration endpoint exists, suddenly throws questions about restoration into the political realm. Science can still be used to weigh the advantages and disadvantages to different scenarios, but science will not reveal answers about what the ecosystem should look like in the future. Restoration science becomes descriptive, not normative. The normative decisions about what should be are devolved to the users and inhabitants of that ecosystem. No doubt this observation can be disturbing for ecologists since it places them in an unfamiliar position of not finding the “right” answer about what an ecosystem should look like. It may be even more troubling that the future of a place ecologists care about would be determined by the collective will of individuals that may include those who ‘do not care’ or at least have very different values with respect to an ecosystem’s future.
An openly political approach to identifying restoration endpoints dethrones the physical sciences, and elevates the social sciences. No doubt, historical ecology remains useful for informing decisions about restoration, but it is equally important to understand the environmental history of the site, since it is environmental history which explains how politics has shape resource use.
Environmental historians describe how landscape changes are the outcomes of historical struggles between competing resource users. Furthermore, the victors in these resource struggles often succeed in rewriting the ecological narrative of how a particular ecosystem operates or what has ‘always been’. This revisionist history gives existing resource users disproportionate power, especially if ecosystem managers rely on apolitical strategies to make restoration choices.
Environmental history can provide critical insight to help managers and the public make more informed decisions about what the ecosystems should look like in the future. For example, following the Mississippi floods of 1993, agricultural interests lobbied to rebuild levees and restore floodplain agricultural. In this context ‘restoration’ meant the farmers would re-appropriate agricultural rights on the floodplain. However a careful look into the environmental history of Mississippi River reveals that fishers had used the natural lakes along the floodplain long before levee agriculture. Furthermore, the fishing communities were violently removed from these lakes by agricultural interests who had stronger financial and political influences (Schneider). This case reveals how different restoration endpoints often are the reflection of political interests rather than an unbiased scientific truth. Other authors have similarly found that environmental narratives can dominate discourse and decisions about restoration. Cronon is well known for his description of wilderness in the American West and Spirn describes the competing narratives that argued for ‘restoring’ Olmstead’s Emerald Necklace in Boston, which was an a human constructed park built on narratives of its own. Given that particular stories about the past can dominate the public psyche, we should be suspect of assertions about restoration that claim to be objective or unbiased.
Adopting an apolitical or scientific approach for selecting restoration endpoints risks reinforcing existing patterns of resource use that probably benefit historical victors of resource struggle. Instead of relying on the scientific or apolitical approach, we should acknowledge that ecological restoration is fundamentally about human choices. Both natural science and social science should be used to inform our decisions. The inhabitants and neighbors of each site should decide what type of ecosystem they would like to co-exist with. Certainly, the science can help orient our decision making because some species probably will not survive in all climates. But fundamentally, it is a political decision.
Finally, understanding restoration as a political issue raises important questions about process and participation. This makes the work on participatory watershed management (Henne, Sabatier) even more critical for watershed managers, since the science alone will not reveal what watershed conditions should look like, rather these decisions should be the outcomes of democratic processes.
PhD Qualifying Exam: Area of Specialty (Question 5)
Researchers studying urban ecology have made the distinction between ecology in the city vs. ecology of the city. Do you consider this a useful distinction? In which of these areas would your proposed study fall?
Ecology is the study of biota and its biophysical environment. The field is young in comparison to its older sibling, Biology, which studies the behavior of species or cells. Ecology takes a step back to observe how species are interacting with each other and their habitat.
Ecology in Cities
In recent decades, a small group of rogue ecologists have chosen to practice ecology in urban environments. Roads, bridges, parking lots, abandoned mills, business districts and rail lines may sound like peculiar sites for ecological praxis. Yet these built environments have harnessed a devout following of urban ecologists, undeterred by rust, concrete, smog, or city sounds. These vanguard urban ecologists have generated a new sub-field in ecology that seeks to understand how species survive, behave, and reproduce in urban landscapes. They apply core principles from the natural sciences to study urban ecosystems and their practice can be understood as Ecology in Cities.
There are several good reasons why we need to understand species behavior in urban environments. In the summer, trees provide shade and reduce the heat island effect. They also are aesthetically pleasing, and if disease were to wipe them out, surly local residents would be upset about losing this amenity (and property values). Similarly, birds are great to hear in the morning, and squirrels are an entertaining feeding attraction.
The urban environment has also offered opportunities to test ecological theories. Landscape ecologists such as Forman and Mendelson have tested Wilson & MacAurthur’s theory of island biogeography. And the insight from landscape ecology provides practical guidance for urban ecosystem management. Urban ecologists have also observed how theories of adaptation and selection are reinforced. Pigeons are very successful urban species, and ecologists have found that they are related to bird species that previously inhabited cliffs. This partially explains why they have adapted well to cities, since tall buildings provide precisely the urban form/habitat they prefer.
Urban ecologists who practice Ecology in Cities are more likely to appreciate the impacts of humans on their study site, but there remains a degree of separation between the social and biophysical worlds. These urban ecologists still seek to understand the basic laws that govern urban species. Nature is still “out there” somewhere.
And yet the findings offered by this school of urban ecologists raises additional questions about the co-evolution of ecological and human species. In the pigeon example, human environments became the ideal habitat for a particular species. Humans in essence, helped the selection of pigeons over other bird species. Therefore in urban environments, and potentially elsewhere too, our ecological companions are products of human choices. If humans are the drivers of selection, then is it accurate to distinguish ecological systems from human systems? While not their intention, the urban ecologists that study Ecology in Cities
illustrated how species co-evolve with cities and human modified environments, and helped question the divide that they still respect.
Ecology of Cities
Social scientists from geography, environmental history and political ecology have blurred the nature vs human divide even further. Cronon deconstructed the concept of wilderness, and other geographers and political ecologists have followed suit by arguing that the no place on planet earth is unaffected by human influences. As such, “Nature is dead” (Castree).
This fusion of human and ecological systems into a singular unit of analysis gave birth to a form of Urban Ecology that studies the Ecology of Cities. Similar to how Ecology broke from Biology by broadening its scope of analysis, practitioners of Ecology of Cities took a step back even further by incorporating human systems as part of the socio-ecological environment. The city is studied as if were its own organism that consumes energy, materials, and water. The city has its own metabolism and excretes waste.
The Ecology of the City takes additional steps in breaking down the divisions between the human and biophysical environments by studying them in unison. This holistic approach is familiar to environmental historians. For example, in Grey Brechin’s historical account of urban growth in San Francisco he describes the flows of money, gold, and water that fed the growth of the City by the Bay. Even more eloquently, William Cronon observed how the agricultural and transportation pattern the Midwest, including the types of seed planted, was determined by the rise of Chicago.
The geographer Paul Robbins offers another example of Ecology of Cities in his study of the suburban lawn. Robbins boldly melds ecological and human systems by suggesting that the lawns themselves control human behavior. While his argument is counter-intuitive at first, he convincingly shows that the biological characteristics of turf grass, ie. the chemicals it needs and the cutting care it relies upon -- ultimately dictates how humans interact with the lawn and their neighborhood. The lawn calls out to be mowed. And people respond, dutifully mowing their lawns on weekends in the late Spring, precisely when the lawn wants to be trimmed.
Ecology in Cities & Ecology of Cities
The distinction between the Ecology in Cities and the Ecology of Cities is useful because it helps break down disciplinary barriers. It is a step toward integration and a movement away from reductionism. The Ecology of Cities adds intriguing complexity to our analysis of urban ecosystems and helps us see that biophysical systems are not independent from historical decisions, human choices or cultural perceptions.
Appreciating this distinction is especially important in an era of interdisciplinarity and sustainability. Everywhere there are calls for improved integration across fields. There is strong impulse to generate new understanding by overlapping and combining knowledge from different arenas. There is a pressure to be more integrative and holistic.
This call for integration and appreciation of the integral role of humans in ecosystems has been well received by some conservation biologists (Armsworth et al. 2007). They are starting to recognize that it is time to include humans into their analysis of ecosystems. For too long conservation biology has focused narrowly on their favorite species or ecosystem and only referred to humans in passing, or as the source of destruction. Armsworth et al (2007) suggested that conservation biologists incorporate humans into the ecosystem, and therefore make the move from Ecology in Cities to Ecology of Cities.
And while most agree that the synthesis proposed by practitioners of Ecology of Cities is valuable, I am humbled by the implications of this daunting task. Meaningful integration of human and biophysical systems is an enormous undertaking. The assumption is that it will provide more clarity into the phenomenon observed. However more clarity is not guaranteed. While I agree that this integration is useful and necessary, I am wary of how it will materialize.
To appreciate the complexity implicit with this integration, we can look to the difficulties ecologists have encountered when combining physical and ecological models. These difficulties persist despite the rigidity of the physical laws and relationships more common in the physical sciences.
Carl Walters from the University of British Columbia has studied ecological modeling and adaptive management in coastal and river ecosystems and he provides an excellent review of the difficulties associated with modeling the biophysical world. He points out that river manager’s need four types of models to understand river systems: a geomorphologic model, a hydrological model, a physical-chemical model for water quality, and an ecological model. Each model operates different time and spatial scales, with different resolutions, units of analysis and degrees of uncertainty. Adding new parameters often leads to compounding errors multiplicatively, and therefore decreasing the utility of the model. Thus Walters is skeptical that these models can be meaningfully integrated without field experimentation. He warns that researchers trust their models too much, and they are over ambitious in what they think they can achieve. Walters laments that for every complex relationship that is nearly impossible to explain, there is a researcher who will claim the capacity to model the relationship if only granted enough money. Walter’s observations about the difficulty in combining different biophysical models is useful warning for interdisciplinary graduate students who may underestimate the difficulty in integrating knowledges from the biophysical world with the social sciences.
Where does my research fall?
I will draw from the knowledge generated by both types of Urban Ecologists, but the direction I will pursue follows the spirit of those who study the Ecology of the City. My dissertation will have at least two components. I expect to begin with an environmental history of salt pollution in the Llobregat River. Similar to Cronon, Brechin and White, this segment will follow the tradition of urban ecologists concerned with the ecology of the city. The environmental history will trace the evolution of potassium mining, pollution and the urban settlements near the Llobregat side by side. I seek to uncover how people shaped the river, but also how the river shaped human choices and perceptions in the past and today.
Following the environmental history, my dissertation will study how the management of ecosystem services may help river and water treatment managers seeking to remediate river pollution. The particular circumstances in the Llobregat River, whereby salt pollution in the river increases water treatment costs, provide a convenient link between the biophysical and human systems. This part of my research will reflect more similarities to the research of Ecology of Cities since it bridges both human and ecological systems.
Research concerning ecosystem services seeks to break down barriers between social and biophysical sciences and to make the connections between these systems more explicit. In this sense, research on ecosystem services is consistent with the Ecology of Cities approach. And yet, the field of ecosystem services has chosen to push together the human and ecological systems very close, but refused to mesh them together entirely. After all, most researchers in ecosystem services were trained in the biological of physical sciences. These researchers are grounded in a distinct philosophical and epistemological tradition that makes it very difficult for them to accept all of the claims made by political ecologists who advance the study of urban systems as one single system. Furthermore, the methods and tools used in ecosystem service science resemble those from their peers, traditional Ecologists, who study Ecology in Cities.
Therefore researchers in ecosystem services resist wiping away all distinctions between natural and human worlds as some political ecologists have proposed. Researchers in ecosystems services are unlikely to give non-human things agency, nor are they likely to believe that “Nature is Dead”. In many respects they are holding on to the differences between the two fields. Researchers of ecosystem services are therefore an interesting amalgam of both urban ecololgists, that drawn on the tools from Ecology in the City, yet seek to advance the cause of those who subscribe to studying Ecology of the City.
In sum, the distinction between Ecology in Cities and Ecology of Cities is useful because it shows different levels of integration between human and ecological systems. Placing my work on environmental history and ecosystem services within this continuum clarifies how I will contribute to Urban Ecology. It shows that while my tendency is to advance the integration proposed by study of Ecology of Cities, there are still limits to this integration. These limits to integration are driven by both technical challenges in creating meaningful understandings that cross disciplinary boundaries, as well as by philosophical and epistemological beliefs about how to conduct research, and the extent to which the biophysical world is a human construct.
Ecology is the study of biota and its biophysical environment. The field is young in comparison to its older sibling, Biology, which studies the behavior of species or cells. Ecology takes a step back to observe how species are interacting with each other and their habitat.
Ecology in Cities
In recent decades, a small group of rogue ecologists have chosen to practice ecology in urban environments. Roads, bridges, parking lots, abandoned mills, business districts and rail lines may sound like peculiar sites for ecological praxis. Yet these built environments have harnessed a devout following of urban ecologists, undeterred by rust, concrete, smog, or city sounds. These vanguard urban ecologists have generated a new sub-field in ecology that seeks to understand how species survive, behave, and reproduce in urban landscapes. They apply core principles from the natural sciences to study urban ecosystems and their practice can be understood as Ecology in Cities.
There are several good reasons why we need to understand species behavior in urban environments. In the summer, trees provide shade and reduce the heat island effect. They also are aesthetically pleasing, and if disease were to wipe them out, surly local residents would be upset about losing this amenity (and property values). Similarly, birds are great to hear in the morning, and squirrels are an entertaining feeding attraction.
The urban environment has also offered opportunities to test ecological theories. Landscape ecologists such as Forman and Mendelson have tested Wilson & MacAurthur’s theory of island biogeography. And the insight from landscape ecology provides practical guidance for urban ecosystem management. Urban ecologists have also observed how theories of adaptation and selection are reinforced. Pigeons are very successful urban species, and ecologists have found that they are related to bird species that previously inhabited cliffs. This partially explains why they have adapted well to cities, since tall buildings provide precisely the urban form/habitat they prefer.
Urban ecologists who practice Ecology in Cities are more likely to appreciate the impacts of humans on their study site, but there remains a degree of separation between the social and biophysical worlds. These urban ecologists still seek to understand the basic laws that govern urban species. Nature is still “out there” somewhere.
And yet the findings offered by this school of urban ecologists raises additional questions about the co-evolution of ecological and human species. In the pigeon example, human environments became the ideal habitat for a particular species. Humans in essence, helped the selection of pigeons over other bird species. Therefore in urban environments, and potentially elsewhere too, our ecological companions are products of human choices. If humans are the drivers of selection, then is it accurate to distinguish ecological systems from human systems? While not their intention, the urban ecologists that study Ecology in Cities
illustrated how species co-evolve with cities and human modified environments, and helped question the divide that they still respect.
Ecology of Cities
Social scientists from geography, environmental history and political ecology have blurred the nature vs human divide even further. Cronon deconstructed the concept of wilderness, and other geographers and political ecologists have followed suit by arguing that the no place on planet earth is unaffected by human influences. As such, “Nature is dead” (Castree).
This fusion of human and ecological systems into a singular unit of analysis gave birth to a form of Urban Ecology that studies the Ecology of Cities. Similar to how Ecology broke from Biology by broadening its scope of analysis, practitioners of Ecology of Cities took a step back even further by incorporating human systems as part of the socio-ecological environment. The city is studied as if were its own organism that consumes energy, materials, and water. The city has its own metabolism and excretes waste.
The Ecology of the City takes additional steps in breaking down the divisions between the human and biophysical environments by studying them in unison. This holistic approach is familiar to environmental historians. For example, in Grey Brechin’s historical account of urban growth in San Francisco he describes the flows of money, gold, and water that fed the growth of the City by the Bay. Even more eloquently, William Cronon observed how the agricultural and transportation pattern the Midwest, including the types of seed planted, was determined by the rise of Chicago.
The geographer Paul Robbins offers another example of Ecology of Cities in his study of the suburban lawn. Robbins boldly melds ecological and human systems by suggesting that the lawns themselves control human behavior. While his argument is counter-intuitive at first, he convincingly shows that the biological characteristics of turf grass, ie. the chemicals it needs and the cutting care it relies upon -- ultimately dictates how humans interact with the lawn and their neighborhood. The lawn calls out to be mowed. And people respond, dutifully mowing their lawns on weekends in the late Spring, precisely when the lawn wants to be trimmed.
Ecology in Cities & Ecology of Cities
The distinction between the Ecology in Cities and the Ecology of Cities is useful because it helps break down disciplinary barriers. It is a step toward integration and a movement away from reductionism. The Ecology of Cities adds intriguing complexity to our analysis of urban ecosystems and helps us see that biophysical systems are not independent from historical decisions, human choices or cultural perceptions.
Appreciating this distinction is especially important in an era of interdisciplinarity and sustainability. Everywhere there are calls for improved integration across fields. There is strong impulse to generate new understanding by overlapping and combining knowledge from different arenas. There is a pressure to be more integrative and holistic.
This call for integration and appreciation of the integral role of humans in ecosystems has been well received by some conservation biologists (Armsworth et al. 2007). They are starting to recognize that it is time to include humans into their analysis of ecosystems. For too long conservation biology has focused narrowly on their favorite species or ecosystem and only referred to humans in passing, or as the source of destruction. Armsworth et al (2007) suggested that conservation biologists incorporate humans into the ecosystem, and therefore make the move from Ecology in Cities to Ecology of Cities.
And while most agree that the synthesis proposed by practitioners of Ecology of Cities is valuable, I am humbled by the implications of this daunting task. Meaningful integration of human and biophysical systems is an enormous undertaking. The assumption is that it will provide more clarity into the phenomenon observed. However more clarity is not guaranteed. While I agree that this integration is useful and necessary, I am wary of how it will materialize.
To appreciate the complexity implicit with this integration, we can look to the difficulties ecologists have encountered when combining physical and ecological models. These difficulties persist despite the rigidity of the physical laws and relationships more common in the physical sciences.
Carl Walters from the University of British Columbia has studied ecological modeling and adaptive management in coastal and river ecosystems and he provides an excellent review of the difficulties associated with modeling the biophysical world. He points out that river manager’s need four types of models to understand river systems: a geomorphologic model, a hydrological model, a physical-chemical model for water quality, and an ecological model. Each model operates different time and spatial scales, with different resolutions, units of analysis and degrees of uncertainty. Adding new parameters often leads to compounding errors multiplicatively, and therefore decreasing the utility of the model. Thus Walters is skeptical that these models can be meaningfully integrated without field experimentation. He warns that researchers trust their models too much, and they are over ambitious in what they think they can achieve. Walters laments that for every complex relationship that is nearly impossible to explain, there is a researcher who will claim the capacity to model the relationship if only granted enough money. Walter’s observations about the difficulty in combining different biophysical models is useful warning for interdisciplinary graduate students who may underestimate the difficulty in integrating knowledges from the biophysical world with the social sciences.
Where does my research fall?
I will draw from the knowledge generated by both types of Urban Ecologists, but the direction I will pursue follows the spirit of those who study the Ecology of the City. My dissertation will have at least two components. I expect to begin with an environmental history of salt pollution in the Llobregat River. Similar to Cronon, Brechin and White, this segment will follow the tradition of urban ecologists concerned with the ecology of the city. The environmental history will trace the evolution of potassium mining, pollution and the urban settlements near the Llobregat side by side. I seek to uncover how people shaped the river, but also how the river shaped human choices and perceptions in the past and today.
Following the environmental history, my dissertation will study how the management of ecosystem services may help river and water treatment managers seeking to remediate river pollution. The particular circumstances in the Llobregat River, whereby salt pollution in the river increases water treatment costs, provide a convenient link between the biophysical and human systems. This part of my research will reflect more similarities to the research of Ecology of Cities since it bridges both human and ecological systems.
Research concerning ecosystem services seeks to break down barriers between social and biophysical sciences and to make the connections between these systems more explicit. In this sense, research on ecosystem services is consistent with the Ecology of Cities approach. And yet, the field of ecosystem services has chosen to push together the human and ecological systems very close, but refused to mesh them together entirely. After all, most researchers in ecosystem services were trained in the biological of physical sciences. These researchers are grounded in a distinct philosophical and epistemological tradition that makes it very difficult for them to accept all of the claims made by political ecologists who advance the study of urban systems as one single system. Furthermore, the methods and tools used in ecosystem service science resemble those from their peers, traditional Ecologists, who study Ecology in Cities.
Therefore researchers in ecosystem services resist wiping away all distinctions between natural and human worlds as some political ecologists have proposed. Researchers in ecosystems services are unlikely to give non-human things agency, nor are they likely to believe that “Nature is Dead”. In many respects they are holding on to the differences between the two fields. Researchers of ecosystem services are therefore an interesting amalgam of both urban ecololgists, that drawn on the tools from Ecology in the City, yet seek to advance the cause of those who subscribe to studying Ecology of the City.
In sum, the distinction between Ecology in Cities and Ecology of Cities is useful because it shows different levels of integration between human and ecological systems. Placing my work on environmental history and ecosystem services within this continuum clarifies how I will contribute to Urban Ecology. It shows that while my tendency is to advance the integration proposed by study of Ecology of Cities, there are still limits to this integration. These limits to integration are driven by both technical challenges in creating meaningful understandings that cross disciplinary boundaries, as well as by philosophical and epistemological beliefs about how to conduct research, and the extent to which the biophysical world is a human construct.
PhD Qualifying Exam: Methods (Question 4)
What insights can economic analysis of alternate environmental management policies (regulatory, incentive-based, and voluntary) provide for the watershed planning process?
Economic analysis of alternative environmental policies is designed to facilitate decision making for improved social welfare. A watershed planning process, similar to other areas of public decision-making, can draw from economic theory to identify appropriate courses of action. While the ultimate goal of economic analysis is to improve social welfare, there are specific contexts in which economic analysis is particularly useful.
To reallocate resources for efficiency improvements
Economic analysis helps identify inefficient resource use, and potentially can propose different allocations to improve total social welfare. Improved allocation of resources is essential in order to meet human needs and wants. Furthermore, the scarcity of our global resources, which can be contrasted with growth in human populations, makes efficiency essential to maintain or improve human welfare. As mentioned earlier, a driving principle in economics is the ideal of Pareto Optimality whereby we seek to improve the welfare of at least some individuals without decreasing the welfare of others. Frequently this is obtained through the exchange of goods and services that exploit our different individual preferences in order to create transactions that benefit all parties involved.
Many environmental problems are concrete manifestations of inefficient resource allocations. Economics can clarify that the pollution generates undesirable costs that should be averted so that resources can be used elsewhere. Therefore when a lake is polluted, or drinking water supplies are contaminated, economic arguments in favor of environmental remediation are not merely acts of kindness, but rather driven by arguments against the inefficiency of pollution.
In some circles, especially in the realm of critical theory, efficiency has been criticized for obtaining dogma status or for trampling on concerns of equity, rights, or diversity (Scott, Rawls, Young). While the goal of efficiency does not justify ignoring other social issues, neither should we dismiss efficiency improvements as a worthwhile social goal.
To establish appropriate rules of exchange
Economic analysis can help assess how different norms of exchange, rules, or institutional frameworks may yield different outcomes. Existing resource allocations (land, capital) as well as the existing institutions that govern resource exchange (regulatory, incentive-based, and voluntary) are the products of historical struggle (Costanza, Ostrom, Schneider). Often, the arrangements we have inherited are deemed inappropriate on either efficiency or equity grounds. In these cases, economic analysis is essential for evaluating the impacts of various institutional arrangements that contextualize production and distribution.
In a watershed planning process, there is usually considerable debate about what the rules of engagement should be. Under which circumstances should society give private firms the right to pollute? How should pollution be managed? How should public agencies intervene? And what are the rights of pollution victims? These are not easy questions to answer since society must live with some degree of resource use and pollution. Few would argue for a zero pollution society since that would imply a rejection of all technology and contemporary goods. However if we accept some level of resource use and pollution, the question then becomes, how much? What is the appropriate level of pollution? To answer these questions, we must: (a) understand social preferences and (b) then establish appropriate rules of exchange, norms, or institutions, in order to bring us closer to our social preferences.
Therefore, economic analysis can help establish the appropriate rules of engagement between actors in a watershed, and can estimate the different outcomes that are likely to occur under different scenarios (regulatory, incentive-based, and voluntary). When existing norms of engagement are inappropriate, economic analysis can provide institutional innovation to devise new rules that may lead to better outcomes. In recent years, economists have been exploring institutional arrangements that combine command-and-control policies with incentive-based mechanisms. For example, the cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, involves a command-and-control cap, followed by a trading system among polluters in order to maximize pollution reduction at the lowest possible cost. This is an example of the institutional innovation generated by economists that can be useful for improving social welfare.
To compare of alternative courses of action
Ideas are always competing for attention and the chance to be implemented. In the face of this competition, any decision making processes must be able to evaluate the competing alternatives in order to make sound choices. Economics provides analytical tools, both conceptual and quantitative, that facilitate this comparison of alternatives.
When evaluating alternative courses of action, it is useful to have a common unit or metric for comparison. The field of economics proposes that we evaluate alternatives based on the social utility generated from each option. This social utility is quantified and monetized into a common unit of exchange. While this process of monetization is controversial, it still provides a starting point for assessment.
Most choices involve trade-offs. If we want recreation areas for hikes and picnics, we may need to forgo urban development for low income housing. If we want clean water supplies free of carcinogenic compounds, we may need to contribute additional greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Economic analysis clarifies these tradeoffs. It helps us balance competing demands and helps us chose the policies that most closely approximate social preferences.
Cost-benefit analysis is one way to weigh these competing interests. When costs and benefits are distributed unevenly throughout society, economic analysis can help identify the winners and losers, and potentially quantify the magnitude of these gains and losses. This information, while always incomplete, is essential information for making decisions about alternatives.
Economic analysis can also help uncover new alternatives that watershed managers did not consider at the outset. I hope this is the case with my own dissertation whereby conducting an analysis on the watershed scale and by integrating economic knowledge with our understanding of ecosystems, I will be able to identify new courses of action that can improve environmental quality and reduce water treatment costs.
Finally, economic analysis can help us avoid making costly mistakes. It has been asserted that decision making without analysis can lead to systematic bias and error (Costanza). Errors can be costly, either to us directly or for future generations. Incorrect valuations or expectations about the future may constrain future choices, or limit the resources available to us tomorrow. Economic analysis helps us study these future scenarios, although this sort of analysis is by no means exclusive to the realm of economics.
Thus economics provides a common language in which to evaluate alternatives. And while this common language is not perfect, it is a starting point upon which to make systematic evaluations of proposed strategies for moving forward.
Methods for estimating social preferences
Economics also provides methods to ascertain social preferences. In watershed planning processes, these methods are especially useful since many of the goods and services related to watershed planning are not valued by markets. In these cases, economics offers methods for estimating how society values these goods and services. Common methods in environmental economics include: hedonic valuations, that decompose the value of marketed goods into various components in order to extract the additional value of a non-marketed good; contingent valuation studies that directly inquire into individuals willingness to pay for a non-marketed good or service, and travel cost studies, which measure the expenses travelers pay to visit areas of biological value or natural beauty in order to ascertain how much they value these sites.
Here I have described only four ways in which economic analysis contributes to watershed planning. Yet all of these insights from economics: (1) the improvement of resource allocation for efficiency; (2) the establishment of appropriate rules of engagement; (3) comparing alternative courses of action; and (4) methods for estimating social preferences; are designed to improve decision making and social welfare. These contributions, while limited in many respects, nevertheless can help clarify the complex and competing demands associated with watershed management.
Economic analysis of alternative environmental policies is designed to facilitate decision making for improved social welfare. A watershed planning process, similar to other areas of public decision-making, can draw from economic theory to identify appropriate courses of action. While the ultimate goal of economic analysis is to improve social welfare, there are specific contexts in which economic analysis is particularly useful.
To reallocate resources for efficiency improvements
Economic analysis helps identify inefficient resource use, and potentially can propose different allocations to improve total social welfare. Improved allocation of resources is essential in order to meet human needs and wants. Furthermore, the scarcity of our global resources, which can be contrasted with growth in human populations, makes efficiency essential to maintain or improve human welfare. As mentioned earlier, a driving principle in economics is the ideal of Pareto Optimality whereby we seek to improve the welfare of at least some individuals without decreasing the welfare of others. Frequently this is obtained through the exchange of goods and services that exploit our different individual preferences in order to create transactions that benefit all parties involved.
Many environmental problems are concrete manifestations of inefficient resource allocations. Economics can clarify that the pollution generates undesirable costs that should be averted so that resources can be used elsewhere. Therefore when a lake is polluted, or drinking water supplies are contaminated, economic arguments in favor of environmental remediation are not merely acts of kindness, but rather driven by arguments against the inefficiency of pollution.
In some circles, especially in the realm of critical theory, efficiency has been criticized for obtaining dogma status or for trampling on concerns of equity, rights, or diversity (Scott, Rawls, Young). While the goal of efficiency does not justify ignoring other social issues, neither should we dismiss efficiency improvements as a worthwhile social goal.
To establish appropriate rules of exchange
Economic analysis can help assess how different norms of exchange, rules, or institutional frameworks may yield different outcomes. Existing resource allocations (land, capital) as well as the existing institutions that govern resource exchange (regulatory, incentive-based, and voluntary) are the products of historical struggle (Costanza, Ostrom, Schneider). Often, the arrangements we have inherited are deemed inappropriate on either efficiency or equity grounds. In these cases, economic analysis is essential for evaluating the impacts of various institutional arrangements that contextualize production and distribution.
In a watershed planning process, there is usually considerable debate about what the rules of engagement should be. Under which circumstances should society give private firms the right to pollute? How should pollution be managed? How should public agencies intervene? And what are the rights of pollution victims? These are not easy questions to answer since society must live with some degree of resource use and pollution. Few would argue for a zero pollution society since that would imply a rejection of all technology and contemporary goods. However if we accept some level of resource use and pollution, the question then becomes, how much? What is the appropriate level of pollution? To answer these questions, we must: (a) understand social preferences and (b) then establish appropriate rules of exchange, norms, or institutions, in order to bring us closer to our social preferences.
Therefore, economic analysis can help establish the appropriate rules of engagement between actors in a watershed, and can estimate the different outcomes that are likely to occur under different scenarios (regulatory, incentive-based, and voluntary). When existing norms of engagement are inappropriate, economic analysis can provide institutional innovation to devise new rules that may lead to better outcomes. In recent years, economists have been exploring institutional arrangements that combine command-and-control policies with incentive-based mechanisms. For example, the cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, involves a command-and-control cap, followed by a trading system among polluters in order to maximize pollution reduction at the lowest possible cost. This is an example of the institutional innovation generated by economists that can be useful for improving social welfare.
To compare of alternative courses of action
Ideas are always competing for attention and the chance to be implemented. In the face of this competition, any decision making processes must be able to evaluate the competing alternatives in order to make sound choices. Economics provides analytical tools, both conceptual and quantitative, that facilitate this comparison of alternatives.
When evaluating alternative courses of action, it is useful to have a common unit or metric for comparison. The field of economics proposes that we evaluate alternatives based on the social utility generated from each option. This social utility is quantified and monetized into a common unit of exchange. While this process of monetization is controversial, it still provides a starting point for assessment.
Most choices involve trade-offs. If we want recreation areas for hikes and picnics, we may need to forgo urban development for low income housing. If we want clean water supplies free of carcinogenic compounds, we may need to contribute additional greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Economic analysis clarifies these tradeoffs. It helps us balance competing demands and helps us chose the policies that most closely approximate social preferences.
Cost-benefit analysis is one way to weigh these competing interests. When costs and benefits are distributed unevenly throughout society, economic analysis can help identify the winners and losers, and potentially quantify the magnitude of these gains and losses. This information, while always incomplete, is essential information for making decisions about alternatives.
Economic analysis can also help uncover new alternatives that watershed managers did not consider at the outset. I hope this is the case with my own dissertation whereby conducting an analysis on the watershed scale and by integrating economic knowledge with our understanding of ecosystems, I will be able to identify new courses of action that can improve environmental quality and reduce water treatment costs.
Finally, economic analysis can help us avoid making costly mistakes. It has been asserted that decision making without analysis can lead to systematic bias and error (Costanza). Errors can be costly, either to us directly or for future generations. Incorrect valuations or expectations about the future may constrain future choices, or limit the resources available to us tomorrow. Economic analysis helps us study these future scenarios, although this sort of analysis is by no means exclusive to the realm of economics.
Thus economics provides a common language in which to evaluate alternatives. And while this common language is not perfect, it is a starting point upon which to make systematic evaluations of proposed strategies for moving forward.
Methods for estimating social preferences
Economics also provides methods to ascertain social preferences. In watershed planning processes, these methods are especially useful since many of the goods and services related to watershed planning are not valued by markets. In these cases, economics offers methods for estimating how society values these goods and services. Common methods in environmental economics include: hedonic valuations, that decompose the value of marketed goods into various components in order to extract the additional value of a non-marketed good; contingent valuation studies that directly inquire into individuals willingness to pay for a non-marketed good or service, and travel cost studies, which measure the expenses travelers pay to visit areas of biological value or natural beauty in order to ascertain how much they value these sites.
Here I have described only four ways in which economic analysis contributes to watershed planning. Yet all of these insights from economics: (1) the improvement of resource allocation for efficiency; (2) the establishment of appropriate rules of engagement; (3) comparing alternative courses of action; and (4) methods for estimating social preferences; are designed to improve decision making and social welfare. These contributions, while limited in many respects, nevertheless can help clarify the complex and competing demands associated with watershed management.
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