1,720,995 research outputs found
Life Cycle Cost and Return on Investment as complementary decision variables for urban flood risk management in developing countries
Full text linkHerein we investigate Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and Return on Investment (ROI) as potential decision variables for evaluating the economic performance (ROI) and financial feasibility (LCC) of a set of flood mitigation strategies over time. The main novelty of this work is the application of LCC and ROI analyses at the urban level to an asset portfolio of flood-prone buildings. Reduced flood damage is treated probabilistically as avoided costs (LCC analysis) and returns (ROI analysis), respectively. The proposed methodology is applied to the case of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which suffers severe riverine flooding on a sub-annual basis. Specifically, LCC and ROI of five mitigation scenarios that include large-scale catchment rehabilitation, settlement set-backs and waste management are compared with the current situation. The main result is that the highest-performing flood mitigation option includes both conventional interventions and ecosystem rehabilitation.</p
Variation in the use of intermittently open estuaries by birds : a study of four estuaries in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
No full textIncludes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-99).The main objective of this study was to describe the use of intermittently open estuaries (IOEs) along a section of the Eastern Cape coast by waterbirds, and the factors that influence avifaunal community composition in space and time. The study area consisted of four IOEs of varying sizes within a 40 km stretch of coastline in the warm temperate coastal biogeographical region of South Africa
From cost-effectiveness to economic-efficiency in conservation planning: the importance of considering the economic benefits of conservation
No full textIncludes bibliographical references.Providing an economic case for establishing new protected areas and demonstrating how conservation enhances human well-being is becoming necessary to reinforce moral arguments for biodiversity protection. Accordingly; this study aimed to assess whether the spatial distribution of priority areas changes in accordance with gains in economic-efficiency when ecosystem service benefits are explicitly considered. Using the site-selection software Marxan, priority areas for South Africa were identified under four scenarios, two of which incorporated a spatial cost benefit analysis of the opportunity costs and ecosystem service benefits associated with conservation. Additional scenarios assessed how reserve design and costs changed when communal-land agriculture and resource use were weighted to account for the social costs of conservation. Opportunity costs were spatially variable and greatest in regions where mixed commercial farming was practiced. Economic benefits exceeded costs in the western interior, northern regions and along the eastern coastline. These areas contracted when ecosystem service benefits were more conservatively estimated by applying the principle of additionality. There was minimal to moderate spatial agreement between the scenarios (0.12 100) were applied, the reserve systems became dispersed (R = 0.91 (for weighting factor of 10), R = 0.52 (for weighting factor of 1000)) in the former homelands and more costly overall (difference of R2.95B between the extremes). Considering the economic benefits of conservation changes the spatial distribution of priority areas and improves their economic efficiency. Disregarding economic benefits may compromise the implementation potential of priority areas, particularly when the economic benefits of competing land-uses are brought to the table. Furthermore, it is important to explicitly consider the social costs of conservation and consider resettlement or compensation costs among the trade-offs
Using tropical forests to combat global climate change without comprimising local livelihoods
No full textGoing Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
The welfare value of inland small-scale floodplain fisheries of the Zambezi River Basin
No full textIncludes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (p. 113-127).The study assessed the welfare value of fisheries in reducing income poverty and economic vulnerability in the Kafue and the Lower Shire floodplains under the hypothesis that inland small-scale floodplain fisheries significantly reduce poverty and vulnerability in fishing households. The welfare value was also analysed in the context of management regimes of the two floodplain fisheries. The relationship between inter-annual fish production, agricultural production and local rainfall was also evaluated
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
The economics, institutions and conservation benefits of community-based avitourism in South Africa
No full textIncludes bibliographical references (p. 97-104)
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