Search

Conservation investments are increasingly being implemented through payments for ecosystem services (PES) for the protection and restoration of ecosystem services around the world. Previous studies suggested that social norms have substantial impacts on environmental behaviors of humans, including enrollment of PES programs. However, it is still not well understood how social norms are affected by the design of PES programs and how the evolution of social norms may affect the efficiency of conservation investments. In this paper, we developed an agent-based simulation model to demonstrate the evolution and impacts of social norms on the enrollment of agricultural land in a PES program. We applied the model to land plots that have been enrolled in China's Grain-to-Green Program (GTGP) to examine reenrollment in an alternative payment program when the current payments ceased. The study was conducted in Wolong Nature Reserve where several thousand plant and animal species, including giant pandas, may benefit from the reenrollment. We found that over 15% more GTGP land can be reenrolled at the same payment if social norms were leveraged by allowing more than 10 rounds of interactions among landholders regarding their reenrollment decisions. With only three rounds of interactions, an additional 7.5% GTGP land was reenrolled at the same payment due to the effects of social norms. In addition, the effects of social norms were largest at intermediate payments and were smaller at much higher or much smaller payments. Even in circumstances where frequent interactions among landholders about their enrollment decisions are not feasible, policy arrangements that divide households into multiple waves for sequential enrollment can enroll over 11% more land at a given payment level. The approach presented in this paper can be used to improve the efficiency of existing PES programs and many other conservation investments worldwide. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The two major aims of watershed management are regional economic development and watershed ecosystem protection. In this paper, constructed wetland (CW) technology is employed to examine watershed ecosystem protection under a certain regional economic load. The Chaohu Lake watershed in China was chosen as the target study area and fuzzy random variables used to describe the uncertainties. Then, a bi-level optimization model for watershed-scale CW planning was developed and applied to the Chaohu Lake watershed with the aim of protecting ecosystem health. To solve the model, a fuzzy random simulation-based nested simulated annealing algorithm was designed. The results showed that there was a “finite sum game” relationship between economic development and ecosystem health within the Chaohu Lake watershed. Under a probability and possibility of 0.9, to achieve the ecological goal F 1 = 70, it was estimated that a 348.19 (ha) CW needed to be constructed. The impacts of environmental policies and economic development on the watershed ecosystem were found to be significant. One of the key practical results indicated that: in the Chaohu Lake watershed, the water environmental treatment of rivers should take precedence over that of lakes; a result which could be of assistance to local government policy making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's Shandong Lubei eco-industrial park was approved for construction in 2003, just after the first national eco-industrial demonstration parks were confirmed by China's State Environmental Protection Administration in 2002. It has therefore been recognized around the world as a successful example of an industrial symbiosis system. The park's success results from the harmonious and coordinated relationships among its members. Analyzing the ecological characteristics of these relationships and identifying the resulting advantages provide a basis for improving the park's efficiency and examining other parks. In this paper, we analyzed the flows of sulfur in the Lubei park (as an example of typical flows) using ecological network analysis to describe this industrial symbiosis system. The integrated analysis of the utility resulting from direct and indirect exchanges of byproducts and wastes can reflect the ecological relationships among members within the system. Based on these ecological relationships, members can be divided into producers, primary consumers, and secondary consumers; the integral flow weight for each level of the hierarchy can then be compared to reveal the system's overall ecological structure. By examining the exchanges of resources within the system, we can describe the ecological connotations of the symbiosis and how these ecological relationships influence the overall development and resource flows within the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]