Crisis and relief in the Niger Delta (2012–13): assessment of the effects of a flood on relational capabilities

In September 2012, the Niger Delta (Nigeria) experienced a severe flood. By conducting a differences-in-differences estimation (as well as qualitative interviews), this paper studies the effects of the flood and of relief aid provided by an oil company on relational capability, a concept which covers bonding, bridging, and linking aspects of social capital (SC). We find that the flood increased bonding SC, measured as trust in the community, but reduced bridging SC, measured as participation together with unknown people in common-interest projects. The aid distributed to some people, on the other hand, was associated with higher bridging SC. The aid was not distributed according to flood damages but mostly according to social status. Our findings emphasize how a disaster can affect the repartition of bonding and bridging SC in the short term. They also highlight the need to build social cohesion in vulnerable communities from a longer-term and institutional perspective.     

The End of a Romance? A Note on the Quantitative Impacts of a ‘Brexit’ from the EU

This study suggests UK equivalent variation (EV) gains of €8.9 billion on withdrawal from the EU budget. Factoring in associated trade facilitation costs from the loss of UK access to the single market, annual UK EV losses could be as high as €14.0 billion, with the EU‐28 facing a corresponding loss of €40.4 billion. Interestingly, the extrapolated UK gain arising from withdrawal from the ‘CAP’ component of the EU budget exceeds estimated lower and upper bound trade facilitation costs exclusively on EU agrofood trade. Accordingly, the UK should realistically remain as an EU member, although continue to lobby for reductions in the CAP budget.     

Soil and water conservation technologies: a buffer against production risk in the face of climate change? Insights from the Nile basin in Ethiopia

This study investigates the impact of different soil and water conservation (SWC) technologies on the variance of crop production in Ethiopia to determine the risk implications of the different technologies in different regions and rainfall zones. Given the production risks posed by climate change, such information can be used by decision makers to identify appropriate agricultural practices that act as a buffer against climate change. Results show that SWC investments perform differently in different rainfall areas and regions of Ethiopia and that the effectiveness of technologies such as irrigation, fertilizer, and improved seeds often depends on whether these investments are coupled with SWC measures. These results underscore the importance of the selection of appropriate combinations of technologies and careful geographical targeting when promoting and scaling up SWC technologies for adaptation to climate change.     

Perception and use of landscape concepts in the procedure of Environmental Impact Assessment: Case study—Switzerland and Romania

The European Landscape Convention (ELC) defines landscape as “an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors”. Because all aspects linked to landscape are evaluated during the Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) procedure, we assessed the Swiss and Romanian experts’ perception and EIA reports regarding the landscape concept. Therefore, we analysed Swiss and Romanian experts’ perception of landscape, we evaluated concepts and methods used in environmental impact reports to assess landscape characteristics and functions, and how the ELC's aim and objectives are reflected by the EIA reports.The Canonical Correspondence Analysis performed to evaluate the experts’ perception of landscape integration in the EIA procedure showed a significant relationship among pattern of answers and experts’ professional background. Moreover, there is a significant difference between Swiss and Romanian expert's perception. Longer experience in the field and a higher level of education indicates higher awareness of landscape characteristics and properties, which demonstrates that alongside with the initial training, there is a need for developing a coherent long-life learning systems having landscape analysis as a focus.The ELC is familiar to nearly 86% of the Romanian Environmental Impact Assessment actors and nearly 29% of the Swiss experts. By contrast, most of the Romanian EIA reports analysed do not employ many concepts of the ELC, while most of the Swiss environmental reports incorporate objectives of landscape protection consistent with the Convention.Our study relies on the comparative investigation of representative case studies of Environmental Impact Assessment reports for industry, local infrastructures, tourism facilities, and wind farm projects, as well on tracking how the European Landscape Convention is reflected by the EIA reports. We found that EIA reports from both countries evaluate the visual landscape, thus, achieving subjective assessment of landscape aesthetics without focusing on social and ecological sub-systems. Quantitative elements of landscape analysis are mostly absent and it is challenging to evaluate whether environmental assessments are consistent among European Landscape Convention countries.To overcome the abstract way of evaluation of project's impact on landscape through EIA procedure, an improved landscape analysis procedure is needed and we propose developing technical guidelines, under the European Landscape Convention umbrella, in order to enhance landscape management.     

Economic impacts of conservation farming in a marginal environment: the case of ‘Landcare’ in the Philippines

In the marginal, upland regions of the Philippines, soil erosion and poverty are significant problems. The Landcare Programme has sought to address these twin problems. We assess the economic impacts of the Landcare Programme in the Province of Bohol. We first explore whether the adoption of Landcare practices, particularly those of contour farming and tree planting, in a highly degraded landscape has resulted in improved livelihood outcomes for upland farming families. Second, we analyse the potential for the piecemeal adoption of these measures to deliver tangible benefits at the watershed scale. Finally, using a benefit–cost approach, these outcomes are compared with the costs of research and extension projects that have helped achieve them. We conclude that the net economic impact of the Landcare Programme in Bohol is positive, with the primary beneficiaries being the individual households that adopt the Landcare practices. These benefits are largely generated by productive opportunities that arise once the hillsides have been stabilized. Although the downstream impacts of land-use changes associated with the Landcare Programme are positive, they are of marginal economic importance. Hence, the focus and primary justification of the Landcare Programme should be on improving the productivity and livelihoods of upland farming households.     

Assessing the synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services provided by urban floodplains: The case of the Warta River Valley in Poznań, Poland

While ecosystem services (ES) provided by green areas receive increased recognition, there is a shortage of knowledge on the role of blue spaces to contribute to the delivery of ES. The aim of this paper is to investigate ES provided by the urban floodplain of the Warta River in Poznań, Poland. To achieve this, we used a set of methods, including a field survey, spatial analysis, and analysis of source materials. The paper documents both the services of public interest, as well as ones that can be overlooked by the public due to their “hidden nature”. The results strengthen the idea that assessment of social and ecological benefits from urban floodplains should be conducted jointly to account for the different categories of ES. A complex exploration of the ES delivery may help to better weight the synergies and trade-offs between different management options and to tie the local needs with preservation the integrity and ecological stability of the whole river corridor.     

Sowing the seeds of sustainable rural livelihoods? An assessment of Participatory Forest Management through REDD+ in Tanzania

Participatory forest management (PFM) initiatives have emerged worldwide for a range of aims including to improve forest governance, enhance resource conservation and to increase rural people’s access to and benefits from forest resources. Some of these initiatives have also received climate finance support to enhance their impact on mitigation. However, their effects on forest governance and livelihoods are complex and remain poorly studied. In this article, we address this gap by analysing governance and livelihood changes in a PFM initiative in Tanzania that has received funding as a REDD+ pilot site. Based on qualitative governance analysis and quantitative livelihood panel data (2011–2014) that compares villages and households within and outside the project, we find that improvements to forest governance are substantial in project villages compared to control villages, while changes in income have been important but statistically insignificant, and driven by a regional sesame cash crop boom unrelated to enhanced forestry revenues. Focusing on whether PFM had enhanced other wealth indicators including household conditions and durable assets, our analysis shows again no significant differences between participant and control villages, although the participant villages do have, on average, a greater level of durable assets. Overall, our findings are positive regarding forest governance improvements but inconclusive regarding livelihood effects, which at least in the short term seem to benefit more from agricultural intensification than forestry activities, whose benefits might become more apparent over a longer time period. In conclusion we emphasize the need for moving towards longer term monitoring efforts, improving understandings of local dynamics of change, particularly at a regional rather than community level, and defining the most appropriate outcome variables and cost-effective systems of data collection or optimization of existing datasets if we are to better capture the complex impacts of PFM initiatives worldwide.     

Water in the city: Green open spaces,land use planning and flood management – An Australian case study

With increasing worldwide recognition of the influence of urban development on the hydrological functions of water, there is growing pressure for urban planning to play a greater role in water resources management. Planning for green open spaces in particular can play an important role, as they support important ecosystem services, including those that assist in flood management. It has been argued that interconnected and strategically planned networks of green open spaces should be planned for early in land use planning and design processes, with consideration of water-related ecosystem values and landscape functions in concert with land development, growth management and physical infrastructure planning. Although there is growing recognition of the importance of green open space planning for water sensitive cities and supportive planning measures, there are few analyses of the actual inclusion of this recognition in plans and strategies, or the presence of related actions and planning mechanisms. This paper addresses this gap by comparatively analysing the approaches taken to regional green open space planning in three Australian capital city-regions. Findings indicate the acknowledgement of relationships between flood regulation and green open space planning and various associated planning mechanisms. However, there is limited explicit integration of flood management and green open spaces planning, and significant on-ground barriers to enabling this integration to occur given the legacy of past planning decisions and the lack of information to support implementation. The paper concludes with recommendations for further research to assist planning for green open spaces as an ally to ecosystem services relating to flood management.     

ASDA: Organic Growth of a Retailer in the United Kingdom?

This article analyzes the role of glocalization in Wal-Mart's venture in the United Kingdom. In 1999, Wal-Mart acquired ASDA, a British food retailer. Glocalization refers to strategies adopted by multinational corporations to cater to local tastes and differences after entering a foreign market. The authors' main argument is the following: after Wal-Mart acquired ASDA, it did not manage to successfully impose its Wal-Martization strategies because they consisted mainly of “organic growth” strategies. Organic growth is a practice whereby a corporation overpoweringly imposes its home-based blueprint of product consumption and corporate culture on foreign cultures. As demonstrated in this analysis, Wal-Mart had to drop its Bentonville-based shopping and corporate formula and, instead, adopt the principles of glocalization.     

Farmers’ risk preferences and their climate change adaptation strategies in the Yongqiao District,China

Farmers’ risk preferences play an important role in agricultural production decisions. This study characterizes risk preferences among farmers in Yongqiao and determines how these risk preferences are related to their choices regarding climate change adaptation strategies. We find that most farmers in the study area were aware of climate change. They were taking measures to protect their livelihoods against perceived changes to the local climate. The risk experiment result shows that the representative subject was risk averse, and women were more risk averse than men. The relationships between farmers’ risk preferences and different climate change adaptation choices were different. Farmers’ risk aversion was negatively and significantly related with adaptation strategies on planting new crop varieties and adopting new technology, but it had a significantly positive effect on purchasing weather index crop insurance. The results also indicate that the level of education, farming experience, farm size, household income and perception of climate change impacts influence farmers’ adaptation decisions.     

Vacant industrial premises and local development: A survey,analysis and policy assessment of the problem in Stoke‐on‐Trent

Summary

This paper presents the results of some survey work carried out in 1985 and in late 1987 on the subject of vacant industrial premises (VIPs) in the Stoke‐on‐Trent area. The issue of VIPs is briefly discussed at the outset and attention is drawn to the virtual information void that exists as regards the topic. The main core of the paper discusses the results of a survey of VIPs conducted in Stoke‐on‐Trent in 1985 and 1987. A typology of VIPs is suggested and, using a components of change approach, trends in the mid‐1980s are analysed. Detailed consideration is made of individual components ‐ including premises persistently vacant and reoccupations ‐ and several themes are developed. These include questions of the local distribution of VIPs components; the problems of returning premises to use; and the policy issues involved. The survey results reveal that over 3 million ft² of vacant industrial floorspace was available in early 1985 but that the figure had fallen to less than 2 million ft² by late 1987.     

How to assess the impact of hope on a change in the use of land on market value?

This article is devoted to common yet quite specific approaches to valuation practice tasks that are involved in determining the market value of real properties in areas of possible land use changes. An intrinsic element of market value in such areas is the hope value, for which an option pricing model is used quite frequently.The authors propose a specially adapted Samuelson-McKean model for this task, which allows market value indication to be determined not only with the built-in development option, but also the dynamics of its components value in the current highest and best use and hope value – depending on the location of the given property. The greatest advantage of the Samuelson-McKean model is that it can be treated as universal for analyzing the range of possible indications of market value seeing as how its main task is to find a compromise between the interests of the buyer and the seller, which is the goal of any fair transactions and decisions.     

How do planners manage risk in alternative land development models? An institutional analysis of land development in the Netherlands

While risk is a key concern in property development, it tends to be discussed by planners only relative to the effects of regulatory planning on private sector risk. Yet planning encompasses a broad range of activities that go beyond its function of regulating private sector development. Despite active approaches to land development being commonly used across different planning contexts, frameworks for analysing public sector strategies to address risk are rarely discussed. We attempt to redress this deficit by investigating the actions of public sector development actors with regard to risk across three different land development models: public land development, land development by public-private partnership, and land readjustment. Using recent Dutch experience, we conduct an institutional analysis of each land development model in order to highlight the effects of alternative governance structures on risk as a particular transaction attribute, from the perspective of public sector planning. Our findings indicate the importance of highlighting the role of public risk in alternative models of land development where there may be a tendency to adopt institutional arrangements without due regard to this, and point to possible future applications of institutional analysis at the particular, rather than the general, level.     

Supply responses of peasant cultivators in the Sudan—a rational expectations model

Abstract

Most attempts to increase agricultural production rely on incentives to the farmer, especially regarding market prices, and a positive response by him. In this paper the latter is analysed with reference to two major oilseed export crops in the Sudan, groundnuts and sesame, under small peasant farming conditions. The methodology used to study the behaviour of farmers is based on Rational Expectations techniques and the data used are drawn from official time series material. The results obtained show that small farmers are responsive to price changes for these crops by adjusting crop areas. The implications of the results are of importance to policy makers in that peasant production can be stimulated by ensuring that the producers obtain sufficient price incentives to do so. An immediate priority is an in‐depth study of the competitiveness of the marketing system to provide adequate information on which to base remedial measures to ensure that the price mechanism transmits the appropriate signals to the farmers. A further important policy aspect is the need to change the reliance of the small peasant sector on shifting agriculture to maintain soil fertility, because of the increasing population pressure on land. In the longer term farmers should adjust to real price rises not by increasing the amount of land cultivated but by raising the productivity of their holdings in a new system of sedentary agriculture.     

Power,capital, and the poverty of farmers’ land rights in China

This article is intended to conduct a three-dimensional examination of China’s rural land rights and the complex dynamic among political power, economic capital, and farmers’ rights during the past seventy years. First, the study takes a close look at the historical changes in the nature, scope, and ownership of land property in rural China during four significant time periods from 1949 to 2019. Second, it uses Ronald Coase’s theory on property rights in dissecting the four paradoxes and dilemmas in China’s rural land ownership, including the extent of clarity and stability of land property rights, the “three rights system” (the rights to ownership, contracting and operation of land) and three stagnations in defining and exercising such three rights, the simultaneous shortage and waste of land resources, as well as the restrictions on land transactions and the requirement to protect collective property. With examples derived from selected evidence, the article documents how both political power and economic capital have worked together to deprive farmers’ land rights. It concludes with a critical analysis of the current status of China’s rural economy, the problem of applying Western economic theories to China’s reality, as well as the theoretical definition, legal protection and policy parameters of land property rights in China.     

Experts’ perceptions of the sloping land conversion program in the Loess Plateau,China

China’s Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) is the world’s largest payment for ecosystem services program for improving ecological conditions and farmers’ livelihood. Communicating the SLCP outcomes across diverse stakeholder groups in ecological, socio-economic, political and institutional contexts can facilitate the effective implementation of the new round of the SLCP. Experts from various fields involved in the SLCP have developed good connections with governments, agencies, and farmers; therefore they can play an invaluable role in informing urgent policy changes. This study is based upon 24 interviews with the SLCP experts with the aims of assessing their perceptions of ecological, economic, political and social impacts of the SLCP on the Loess Plateau of China, and then gathering their policy recommendations to ensure that the new round of the SLCP would be implemented efficiently. Content analysis based on the grounded theory is used in present study. Judging from expert-based consensual statements from this study’s interviews, the main concerns about the first round of the SLCP on the Loess Plateau are that the dramatic increase in the farmer’s income and livelihood is mainly from off-farm sources rather than the SLCP subsidy, that equitable government compensation is dependent on the outcome of the SLCP, that the aggressive SLCP causes soil drought which have negative effects on ecological restoration, and that the stakeholders’ interaction could be improved. Based on the analyses of the experts’ interviews, the recommendations are summarised as follows: strengthening the farmers’ environmental awareness and vocational skills, establishing multi-source financial supports and flexible compensation mechanisms, establishing participatory planning that requires stakeholder involvement especially farmers and insisting that scientific studies on the ecological restoration of the Loess Plateau must be shared with local governments and farmers.     

Amazon forest on the edge of collapse in the Maranhão State,Brazil

The year 2019 in Brazil was marked by environmental setbacks, which catalyzed the increase of illegal deforestation and fire rates in the Brazilian Amazon. In the Amazon region of Maranhão state, original forest cover diminished from 25 % (24,700 km²) in 2016 to 24 % (23,967 km²) in 2019, and 6,038 km² of remaining forests were degraded by fires and/or illegal logging – processes related to high levels of violence against indigenous and rural communities. Almost half of all deforested areas in the region (36,060 km²) are considered a global restoration hotspot, however secondary vegetation remains unprotected and 8,294 km² were cleared between 2014 and 2018. Due to uncontrolled deforestation and fragmentation, Maranhão has no more forest core areas (outside protected areas) with the minimum size to ensure sustainable forest management practices for timber production. New policies at the state level must promote old-growth and secondary forest conservation and restoration. However, the trends point to the opposite direction: the Ecological-Economic Zoning (ZEE) allows the reduction of forest protection and the State Forest Policy reinforces federal legislation setbacks. The Amazon region of Maranhão state has forest aptitude, and forest and agroforestry product chains would bring social and environmental benefits, making them the best opportunity for sustainable economic development in the region. Therefore, the forest must be re-planted for the benefit of people and nature.