1,721,189 research outputs found
The decision to invest in nature-based solutions from an environmental economic and financial perspective: a systematic review.
No full textDue to climate change, cities are facing major environmental challenges, like the urban heat island effect, loss of biodiversity and ecosystems, and flood risk. Nature-based solutions (NBS) harness the power of nature to adapt to and mitigate global warming’s adverse outcomes. Yet, cities are confronted with barriers to the implementation of NBS. The benefits of NBS do not result in direct revenues or cash flows. Moreover, city budgets often do not have the required resources to provide for extensive urban infrastructure. Alternative ways of financing are therefore being sought, including value capturing, impact financing and crowdfunding via initial coin offerings (ICO). However, it is unclear whether such alternative financing affects the economic feasibility of the underlying investments. In the existing literature, there are several studies that apply economic evaluation techniques to analyze the feasibility of investments in NBS. However, there is no structured overview of how economic feasibility studies can encourage investment in NBS. To fill this gap, this paper examines how the economic feasibility of NBS is currently assessed, whether and how non-monetary benefits are addressed, as well as uncertainty issues, and to what extent policy measures are proposed to encourage investment in NBS. In doing so, we adopt a systematic review approach by applying the framework of Reporting Standards for Systematic Evidence Syntheses (ROSES). This framework allows for a structured, transparent, and replicable review of the scientific literature. We contribute to the existing literature by providing an overview of how current studies value non-monetary benefits, integrate flexibility and adaptive management options, and assess alternative financing instruments to capture the benefits of NBS and stimulate the investment decision.FWO S006422
What drives the designation of protected areas? Accounting for spatial dependence using a composite marginal likelihood approach
No full textPrevious research indicates that policymakers make biodiversity conservation decisions with the goal of mini-mizing opportunity costs, as opposed to balancing conservation benefits and opportunity costs. However, such research used coarse biodiversity data and did not consider spatial dependence in observed conservation de-cisions. The present study estimates conservation choice models for two European countries (Spain and Italy) that, for the first time, include fine-resolution indicators of biodiversity conservation benefits and opportunity costs, and that account for spatial dependence using a pairwise composite marginal likelihood approach. For the preferred model specifications, we find that a 1% increase in species richness levels is associated with increases in the probability of protection of 0.59% and 0.22% in Spain and Italy, respectively. We also find evidence of spatial correlation and that accounting for it substantially affects the elasticity effects implied by the logit regression models. Although our findings confirm that protected area designations are consistently negatively associated with the potential for productive land-uses, local biodiversity levels may have played a larger role in protected area location decisions than suggested previously.Anne Nobel and Sebastien Lizin are funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (11G2319N and 12G5418N respectively)
Conference presentation EURECA-PRO Conference 2023: Beyond Green Spaces - Relating Specific Types of Urban Green Infrastructure to Neighborhood Satisfaction
No full textConference presentation EURECA-PRO Conference 2023: Beyond Green Spaces - Relating Specific Types of Urban Green Infrastructure to Neighborhood Satisfaction
No full textThe evolution of the most important research topics in organic and perovskite solar cell research from 2008 to 2017: A bibliometric literature review using bibliographic coupling analysis
No full textDocument bibliographic coupling analysis was applied to a dataset of 23,953 journal papers in order to provide an overview of topics that were present in the academic literature on organic solar cells (OSCs) and perovskite solar cells (PvSCs) during the period of 2008-2017. Ten yearly networks were constructed by linking documents based on shared references, and clusters of closely connected papers were identified as the representations of topics in OSC and PvSC research. Next, 1,437 document titles were read in order to label the 80 most relevant clusters, together containing 11,352 papers. The resulting cluster labels show that research focused on bulk heterojunction polymer/fullerene solar cells in the beginning of the studied period, that OSC material development topics became more important in the middle of the decade, and that continued efforts to improve power conversion efficiencies spurred the rise of new concepts like PvSCs, fullerene-free OSCs, and ternary OSCs in the later years. While traditional literature reviews are valuable for in-depth reviews of specific topics, bibliometric reviews based on document bibliographic coupling are better suited for broad research synthesis. By leveraging the relationships present within the body of literature, they can objectively present the topic structure of large research domains.The authors acknowledge the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO - Vlaanderen) for support of their work through the projects S002818N (PF), 12G5418N (SL), and G0B6715N (WM). The Research Foundation Flanders had no involvement in the conduct of the research and the preparation of the article. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors
ICEP2023 Social influence and reduction of animal protein consumption among young adults: a socio-psychological model
No full textAccounting for substitution and spatial heterogeneity in a labeled choice experiment
No full textMany environmental valuation studies using stated preferences techniques are single-site studies that ignore essential spatial aspects, including possible substitution effects. In this paper substitution effects are captured explicitly in the design of a labeled choice experiment and the inclusion of different distance variables in the choice model specification. We test the effect of spatial heterogeneity on welfare estimates and transfer errors for minor and major river restoration works, and the transferability of river specific utility functions, accounting for key variables such as site visitation, spatial clustering and income. River specific utility functions appear to be transferable, resulting in low transfer errors. However, ignoring spatial heterogeneity increases transfer errors.FWO grant number 12G5415
Conference presentation Urban Transitions 2022: In plain sight - Green views and urbanites' neighborhood satisfaction
No full textThe past decades have generated both theoretical and empirical support for a positive relationship between exposure to nature and mental well-being. However, exposure to nature is diverse: it could stem from actually spending time in green spaces, but also from simply being able to observe greenery from inside one's residence. The extent to which green views as a specific type of nature exposure contribute to satisfaction and well-being in urban areas has received scarce attention in the literature. The objective of this paper is therefore to shed light on whether having satisfactory green views from an urban residence is positively associated with the residents' overall neighborhood satisfaction. We used a large probability sample (n=32,552) of Flemish city dwellers and ran four binary logistic regression models estimating different levels of neighborhood satisfaction. Each model statistically controls for the general perceived amount of greenery in the neighborhood, 47 other self-reported neighborhood attributes, and respondent characteristics. The results show that being less satisfied with the green views from one's residence is associated with lower probabilities of being (very) satisfied with the neighborhood, independent of the general perceived amount of greenery in the neighborhood. While other aesthetic (beautiful buildings, clean streets) and social (feeling at home, pleasant talking to neighbors, safety) neighborhood attributes were found to be most strongly associated with neighborhood satisfaction, satisfaction with green views still ranks seventh among 35 variables with statistically significant associations, whereas general perceived amount of greenery in the neighborhood ranks nineteenth. In conclusion, our findings support the hypothesis that simply viewing greenery improves neighborhood satisfaction. In densely built-up urban landscapes it might be difficult to introduce new green spaces such as parks, but small-scale green infrastructure such as green roofs and walls could offer a flexible solution to increase the amount of natural views
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