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Economics plays a double role in the field of water management, firstly as a powerful analytical tool supporting water allocation and policy decisions, and secondly in the form of policy instruments (water pricing, markets, etc.). This Special Issue presents a platform for sharing results connecting excellent interdisciplinary research applied to different regional and sectoral problems around the world. The 22 peer-reviewed papers collected in this Special Issue have been grouped into five broad categories: Water valuation and accounting; Economic instruments; Cost effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis; andWater productivity and Governance. They are briefly presented

© 2017 Elsevier B.V. Values have been identified as important factors to estimate preferences within water governance and to assess the political legitimacy of water governance in a given time and location. The present study applies an interdisciplinary ‘value landscapes approach’ to water governance in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, using conflicts around the construction of the Paraguay-Paraná Waterway as a case study. Using material from interviews with major stakeholders in the region, the results demonstrate that supporters of the waterway hold similar ‘value landscapes’ around economic values of water, efficiency, order, and economic development, while opponents' ‘value landscapes’ centre on cultural and non-economic values of water, social justice, solidarity, conservation and tradition. This suggests that persistent conflicts around the Paraguay-Paraná Waterway are only an expression of much deeper value conflicts that are also relevant to other water governance issues. Moreover, values expressed through the planned construction of the Paraguay-Paraná Waterway disproportionately reflect values of powerful stakeholder groups such as the agribusiness sector, which significantly undermines its political legitimacy.

The present study investigates the prospects for a large-scale implementation of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes in the Brazilian Pantanal wetland. Despite increasing environmental threats associated with development pressures and the growing interest of public and private organizations, no PES schemes are currently in place in the Pantanal. Through an exploratory scenario analysis, this article determines the prospects for PES in the area. The findings suggest that a large-scale implementation is unlikely, as this would require much higher levels of environmental awareness among local decision makers and low substitution rates of ecosystem services by technology. Furthermore, strong socioeconomic inequality between inhabitants of the Pantanal lowlands and wealthy farmers of the neighboring uplands means that potential suppliers of ecosystem services would face very high opportunity costs to participate in PES schemes. The research findings are also relevant to other environmentally sensitive regions experiencing rapid economic growth and weak environmental regulation.

Despite the increasing scholarly attention that Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) are receiving, little is yet known about the process of price setting. This is key knowledge that relates directly to the economic efficiency of an instrument that is spreading widely worldwide. Through a meta-analysis of payments for forest watershed services in Latin America, this study finds that there exists a very substantial difference between the price that buyers pay and that sellers receive for ecosystem services and that this difference is not due to transaction costs. Instead, it reveals a substantial subsidising component. Our results would suggest that this discrepancy in prices might be due to the ‘start-up’ effect and that as programmes mature, this effect may attenuate. However, the entry of new buyers does not make over for the subsidization of schemes and would require the implementation of specific mechanisms to adjust prices. According to our results, one of such possible mechanisms would be to increase participation on price setting processes, allowing for more price negotiation between parties rather than the predominant top-down approach.

Latin America has been a pioneer in the implementation of payments for ecosystem services (PES) and numerous schemes are now in place. However, existing reviews of this experience are mostly theoretical and/or qualitative. This paper presents a comprehensive, systematic and up-to-date compilation and review of the literature on Payments for Water Ecosystem Services (PWS) in Latin America, in which 310 PWS transactions within 40 different schemes are analysed. Firstly, we quantitatively describe and discuss their key characteristics. Secondly, we identify information gaps that need to be filled to allow a more accurate analysis. Finally, we contrast PES theory versus the reported evidence. Results are discussed in the form of key messages and a conceptual model to support better design, implementation and monitoring is proposed. Among other things, our meta-study shows that there is a certain mis-match between how PES schemes are presented in theory and how they are actually practiced or reported in the literature. This mis-match concerns issues at the core of the PES principles, namely service-action conditionality, service definition and payment negotiation.

Complex, social-environmental issues can be classified as ‘wicked problems’ because they are incorrigible and hugely challenging for policy makers. Here we re-evaluate what makes problems wicked and assess various theoretical and pragmatic approaches that have been advanced to tackle them. We do so with the aim of contributing new insights to theory through answering the following research questions: What strategies to tackle wicked environmental problems are prominent in the literature?; To what extent do they provide pathways for tackling the defining characteristics of wicked environmental problems?; and, How are these strategies reflected in examples of practice? Our examples look at how emergent strategies have percolated, explicitly or implicitly, in the management of four problems in Scotland: (1) Securing sustainability and resilience of landscape and land-use systems through spatial planning; (2) Addressing population health through livestock disease control; (3) Mitigating climate change through woodland planting; and, (4) Mitigating rural diffuse pollution in freshwater systems. We present a consolidated set of characteristics of wicked problems against which we map strategies to tackle wicked problems proposed by a body of literature identified through a literature review and analysed using a thematic, qualitative approach. We identify fifteen strategies and show that most of these are, within the Scottish context, evident in practice. The extent to which the actual discourse has influenced praxis and how effective it has been is more difficult to determine but we conclude that, within a context of ‘incorrigible’ problems, small steps have been made towards taming an untameable beast.

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) is the core legislative instrument in the European Union for the protection of water resources. Adopted in 2000, its objectives were to achieve “good status” for water bodies by 2015 and prevent any further deterioration. However, the European Commission and some stakeholders are rather dissatisfied with the implementation of the Directive so far, in particular with the use of exemptions to the environmental objectives. Exemptions are of paramount importance: they may constitute a significant obstacle to the achievement of the WFD’s objectives as they enable member states to lower the ambition of the Directive and to delay the achievement of good status, thereby undermining the environmental goal of the WFD. Critical voices observe an excessive reliance on exemptions, poor justifications, and great variations in their use. Based on an analysis of 120 policy documents and 15 semi-structured interviews, this article provides explanations for the politics of exemptions in EU water management. It shows that different viewpoints and interpretations on the WFD’s objectives and exemptions were already present in the negotiation phase of the Directive, but remained undefined on purpose. Moreover, dysfunctional decision-making procedures in the Common Implementation Strategy and the lack of political support in WFD implementation were significant obstacles to an agreement on this important issue. Finally, decisions on WFD implementation in member states were often driven by pragmatism. The article explains how the negotiations of the WFD and the EU-level discussion on the implementation of the Directive undermined environmental goals in EU governance; its findings are also relevant for policy fields other than water.

Firms have traditionally viewed biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES) as external constraints on their activities because of regulations and laws imposed on them. Companies have started accounting for ES to improve management practices and even restore natural capital. Accounting for ES may be undertaken for different purposes, depending on whose needs and aspirations it aims to satisfy. Accounting for ES in a standardised, comparable and transparent manner has become a critical challenge for mainstreaming ES in business decision-making and applications. A lack of standardisation means that ES cannot be consistently accounted for from the perspective of a whole business, a business unit, its supply chains or its products and projects. This prevents ES accounting from being 'mainstreamed'. Ecosystem services-based approaches are a way of understanding the complex relationships between nature and humans in order to support decision-making, with the aim of reversing the declining status of ecosystems and ensuring the sustainable use/ management/conservation of resources.

A key element of the European Water Framework Directive is the role that economic tools and principles have been assigned in achieving its objectives. This has raised important research and implementation questions that have set the water agenda in Europe in the last ten years and will continue to do so. This paper examines these key questions and reviews the progress that has been made in addressing them. Key research-policy challenges ahead are identified. These include addressing “wicked” problems, such as the operationalisation of the ecosystem service approach; challenging assumed principles for cost-effectiveness and disproportionality; and effectively co-constructing knowledge with stakeholders.

a b s t r a c t The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) has become widely accepted as a framework for understanding and assessing the benefits that ecosystems provide to human well-being. Its classification of services into the categories of provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural, has been increasingly widely adopted. However, several authors have recently argued that the MA’s definition and classification of services may not be the most appropriate for monetary assessments. This paper seeks to understand in greater depth the sources of problems arising from the use of the MA’s definition and classification of services for economic valuation. Firstly, we review and disentangle the critical literature to date. Secondly, we undertake a practical examination of existing primary valuation studies, which we analyse according to the MA classification and then compare with an output based-classification. We use water ecosystem services provided by tropical forests as an example for our analysis. Our results provide further evidence of the risk of double counting and the problems related to the secondary use of valuation estimates, as a consequence of service overlapping and service ambiguity.

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) aims to deliver good ecological status (GES) for Europe's waters. It prescribes the use of economic principles, such as derogation from GES on grounds of disproportionate costs of mitigation. This paper proposes an application of the proportionality principle to mitigation of phosphorus (P) pollution of 544 Scottish lochs at national and local water body scales. P loading estimates were derived from a national diffuse pollution screening tool. For 293 of these lochs (31% of the loch area), GES already occurred. Mitigation cost-effectiveness was assessed using combined mitigation cost curves for managed grassland, rough grazing, arable land, sewage and septic tank sources. These provided sufficient mitigation (92% of national P load) for GES to be achieved on another 31% of loch area at annualised cost of £2.09 m/y. Mitigation of the residual P loading preventing other lochs achieving GES was considered by using a "mop-up" cost of £200/kg P (assumed cost effectiveness of removal of P directly from lochs), leading to a total cost of £189 m/y. Lochs were ranked by mitigation costs per loch area to give a national scale marginal mitigation cost curve. A published choice experiment valuation of WFD targets for Scottish lochs was used to estimate marginal benefits at national scale and combined with the marginal cost curve. This gave proportionate costs of £5.7 m/y leading to GES in 72% of loch area. Using national mean marginal benefits with a scheme to estimate changes in individual loch value with P loading gave proportionate costs of £25.6 m/y leading to GES in 77% of loch area (491 lochs).

This paper evaluates and discusses the draft Hydrological Basin Plan (HBP) for the Guadalquivir river basin and its related Programme of Measures (PoM). The HBP focuses on demand management using technical and economic measures, particularly through investment in water efficiency measures. In addition, it seeks to eliminate urban point source pollution. By 2015, a sustainable water resource demand is projected if the current area of irrigated land is not expanded and if the urban waste water treatment work is completed according to Directive 91/271/CEE. It is expected that costs of implementation will be high. The total investment of the PoM is estimated to be €978 per capita per year; this investment has an annual equivalent cost of €143 per capita per year. However, it is estimated that 67% of the total investment can be recovered with special impact in increase in the cost of irrigation water by 160% and the cost of urban water by 60%. Finally, this paper ends with a discussion on the most critical poi...

Maintaining a river system’s minimum water flow is a pre-condition for achieving the “good ecological status” prescribed by the European Water Framework Directive (WFD). In areas of water scarcity the reuse of treated water for agricultural irrigation is seen as a promising option to reduce the quantitative pressure on the resource. As part of assessing the viability of reclaimed water use in agriculture, and in accordance with the economic principles underpinning the WFD, a comprehensive economic analysis of this irrigation option is needed. This paper contributes to fill this knowledge gap by producing a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of the use of reclaimed water in agriculture. The costs and benefits of reclaimed water use on an experimental mandarin farm in the south-east of Spain are compared with those of using surface water and a mixture of water sources. The novelty of this study is that non-market benefits are incorporated in the CBA. We thereby account for the increase in welfare that the environmental services of this supply option provide to society at large. These kind of “intangible” benefits are often ignored, but only the combination of market and non-market costs and benefits can produce a balanced assessment of water management options and lead to an efficient and sustainable allocation of the resource. Our results suggest that at the private and social level, when environmental benefits are included, the use of a mixture of water sources, including reclaimed water, seems the best option. However, at low mandarin prices (lower than 0.23 €/kg) the exclusive use of reclaimed water seems the most beneficial option.

Water scarcity and drought are social and economic problems in large parts of the world that will intensify due to climate change. The existing literature on the costs of drought is scarce, fragmented and heterogeneous and there is a need for comprehensive cost estimations to help design an effective policy response. This is particularly the case in Europe, which is currently developing its drought strategy. The severe drought that affected Barcelona in 2007/2008 is used here as a case study to illustrate the costs of this type of extreme event. We assess direct losses of the affected economic sectors, indirect costs to the rest of the economy and non-market welfare losses caused by environmental damage and household water restrictions. Additionally, we also look at the cost of the measures implemented to address the drought and discuss the implications in terms of their cost-effectiveness. Our results indicate a total cost of this drought event of 1,605 million Euros (0.48% of the regional GDP) and highlight the need for more accurate cost estimations at the European level. The study also points to the need to promote water saving measures and to increase the structural adaptive capacity of systems subjected to water scarcity.

The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) prescribes that all water bodies in Europe should achieve ‘good ecological status’ (GES). Maintaining a certain water flow is a pre-condition for the achievement of GES in areas of water scarcity. In such areas, reclaimed waste water is seen as a promising measure to keep river flow at a sufficient level. The contingent valuation method is applied here to estimate the non-market environmental benefits of using reclaimed water to maintain river flow levels in the Segura River Basin in south-eastern Spain. The assessment of the economic benefits of specific measures gives policy makers more information than a cost-effectiveness analysis alone, which is currently the most commonly used tool to assess potential measures under the WFD. The results show that the implementation of this measure produces significant non-market benefits that are larger than the investment and operational costs of reclaimed water treatment plants.

The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires the good ecological status of surface water bodies, which implies the improvement of both their physicochemical condition, as well as their flow and continuity. The WFD prescribes the assessment of environmental and resource costs and benefits associated with implementing these improvements. The recent literature focuses almost exclusively on the assessment of the economic values related to quality aspects. However, in much of southern Europe, fulfilling the WFD goals will greatly depend on maintaining sufficient water flow, as well. This study aims to fill this gap by assessing the non-market value of allocating enough water to the environment to ensure environmental services are sustained when water is scarce. The non-market value of guaranteeing water supply for secondary household uses is also estimated. Using the Guadalquivir River Basin in Spain as a case study, a choice experiment is applied with scenarios characterized by varying water flow levels and accompanying environmental impacts, and a different frequency of household water restrictions. The results show that the population derives significant benefits not only from the direct use of water, but that also holds non-use values related to the ecological status, although the latter has a considerably lower impact on consumer surplus. Additionally, we conclude that the costs of implementing the water saving measures currently included in the Program of Measures seem to be proportionate to its benefits in this case.

The Environmental Liability Directive (ELD) establishes a framework of liability based on the 'polluter-pays' principle to prevent and remedy environmental damage. The ELD requires the testing of appropriate equivalency methods to assess the scale of compensatory measures needed to offset damage. The aim of this paper is to contribute to fill the existing knowledge gap on the application of the value equivalency approach for damage compensation in this context. We analyze the toxic spill damaging the Doñana National Park (Spain) in 1998. The welfare losses associated with the resource damage are estimated using non-market valuation and compared to the value of the compensatory measures taken after the accident. Our results show that the in-kind compensation may have been insufficient to offset the welfare losses. We conclude that a more comprehensive knowledge of the human welfare effects caused by environmental damage is of substantial importance to determine compensatory remediation, as insufficient information in this respect can lead to erroneous decisions causing loss to society. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the still scarce literature on Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) in the context of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) in water scarce areas illustrated through a case study in Southern Spain. CEA is the preferred method to select policy measures to achieve the good ecological status of water bodies as prescribed by the WFD. It generates a ranking of the measures, according to the ratio between the equivalent annual cost and the reduction of impacts, to select the measures to be included in the Program of Measures (PoM). Here, the water-saving measures discussed in the public participation process for the elaboration of the PoM for the Guadalquivir River Basin are analysed using CEA. A methodological approach, including uncertainty for cost and efficiency of measures is proposed. A comparison between pressure and impact analysis of the effectiveness of measures shows that, in the context of the WFD, CEA should be based on the impact of the measures rather than on the pressure reduction, as the latter can lead to a misleading ranking of the water-saving measures.

The EU Water Framework Directive represents a major change in the management of water resources and sets ambitious ecological objectives for all European waters. In the Directive, the economic assessment of the non-market environmental benefits of water quality improvements plays a crucial role. Studies valuing these benefits are now appearing in the literature, applying stated preference valuation techniques. However, these techniques are often criticized for providing only narrow mono-criterion information to the decision-making process. The research presented here builds on a recent line of investigation that combines monetary stated preference tools, in this case a choice experiment, with multi-criteria analysis, in this case the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). We argue that the AHP can contribute to a better understanding and interpretation of the choice experiment results by exploring the criteria involved in respondents' trade-off between the attributes. The AHP provides relevant insights for the application of use-based water quality ladders in the valuation of environmental benefits in the context of the WFD. Results also show the importance of the spatial dimension of preferences for water quality.

Typical convergent validity tests of benefit transfer based on stated preference data assume that willingness to pay (WTP) estimates have been accurately measured, and that differences in WTP arise from differences in observable and unobservable characteristics between the study and the policy sites. In this paper, we conduct a convergent validity test assuming equality of underlying preferences, but allow for the possibility that transfer errors arise from differences in the way that respondents process information in the preference elicitation tasks. Using data from an identical survey instrument applied to the population of two river basins in Spain, we obtain marginal and total WTP estimates for ecological improvements of water bodies and the corresponding transfer errors across sites. Results of equality constrained latent class (ECLC) models that infer attribute non-attendance (ANA) are compared to results from mixed logit (MXL) models in WTP space. We find large absolute and relative differences in marginal and total WTP between sites for the MXL models, and significantly reduced transfer errors for the ECLC models. This paper therefore provides further evidence that AN-A can significantly affect environmental values derived from attribute-based stated preference methods and is the first to investigate the implications for benefit transfer., This research was partially funded by the Scottish Government Rural Affairs and the Environment Portfolio Strategic Research Programme 2011-2016, Theme 1 (Environmental Change: Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity). The data used in this article were collected as part of the Collaboration Agreement between the University of Cordoba (Spain) and the Spanish Ministry of the Environment for the Development of Water Demand Analysis and Assessment of Environmental and Resource Benefits of the Water Framework Directive, and the AquaMoney project of the EU VI Framework Programme (SSPI-022723, Development and Testing of Guidelines for the Assessment of Environmental and Resource Costs and Benefits of the Water Framework Directive, www.aquamoney.org).

Preface 1. Introduction Iain J. Gordon, Julia Martin-Ortega and Robert C. Ferrier 2. What defines ecosystem services-based approaches? Julia Martin-Ortega, Didac Jord... Capdevila, Klaus Glenk and Kirsty L. Holstead Part I. Addressing Global Challenges: 3. Assessing climate change risks and prioritising adaptation options using a water ecosystem services-based approach Samantha J. Capon and Stuart E. Bunn 4. Operationalizing an ecosystem services-based approach for managing river biodiversity Catherine M. Febria, Benjamin J. Koch and Margaret A. Palmer 5. Water for agriculture and energy: the African quest under the lenses of an ecosystem services-based approach Maher Salman and Alba Martinez Part II. Applying Frameworks for Water Management and Conservation under an Ecosystem Services-Based Approach: 6. Using ecosystem services-based approaches in integrated water resources management: perspectives from the developing world Madiodio Niasse and Jan Cherlet 7. Implementation of the European Water Framework Directive: what does taking an ecosystem services-based approach add? Kirsty L. Blackstock, Julia Martin-Ortega and Chris J. Spray 8. How useful to biodiversity conservation are ecosystem services-based approaches? Craig Leisher Part III. Assessing Ecosystem Services: 9. The first United Kingdom's National Ecosystem Assessment and beyond Marije Schaafsma, Silvia Ferrini, Amii R. Harwood and Ian J. Bateman 10. Using an ecosystem services-based approach to measure the benefits of reducing diversions of freshwater: a case study in the Murray-Darling basin, Australia Neville D. Crossman, Rosalind H. Bark, Matthew J. Colloff, Darla Hatton MacDonald and Carmel A. Pollino 11. An ecosystem services-based approach to integrated regional catchment management: the South East Queensland experience Simone Maynard, David James, Stuart Hoverman, Andrew Davidson and Shannon Mooney 12. Policy support systems for the development of benefit sharing mechanisms for water related ecosystem services Mark Mulligan, Silvia Benitez, Juan Sebastian Lozano and Jorge Leon 13. Assessing biophysical and economic dimensions of societal value: an example for water ecosystem services in Madagascar Ferdinando Villa, Rosimeiry Portela, Laura Onofri, Paulo A. L. D. Nunes and Glenn-Marie Lange 14. Rapid land use change impacts on coastal ecosystem services: a South Korean case study Hojeong Kang, Heejun Chang and Min Gon Chung Part IV. Broadening the Perspective: 15. Ecosystem services-based approaches to water management: what opportunities and challenges for business? Joel Houdet, Andrew Johnstone and Charles Germaneau 16. Key factors for successful application of ecosystem services-based approaches to water resources management: the role of stakeholder participation Jos Brils, Albert F. Appleton, Nicolaas van Everdingen and Dylan Bright 17. Cultural ecosystem services, water and aquatic environments Andrew Church, Rob Fish, Neil Ravenscroft and Lee Stapleton 18. The psychological dimension of water ecosystem services Victor Corral-Verdugo, Martha Frias-Armenta, Cesar Tapia-Fonllem and Blanca Fraijo-Sing 19. The interface between human rights and ecosystem services Stephen J. Turner 20. Water ecosystem services: moving forward Julia Martin-Ortega, Robert C. Ferrier and Iain J. Gordon.

7.1 INTRODUCTION The European Water Framework Directive (2000) provided a step-change in the way European waters are characterised, monitored, and managed. The Directive provides a framework to integrate multiple water environments and to coordinate a range of water-relevant legislation, while advocating for public participation and economic efficiency in water management. However, in the decade since the publication of the Directive, implementation has been problematic. As the Directive moves into its second implementation cycle, the European Commission and the member states are beginning to consider how it could be delivered using the concept of ecosystem services (Martin-Ortega 2012). Therefore, this chapter considers what an ecosystem services-based approach might add to the different stages required as part of the River Basin Management Planning process in Europe, and whether the approach might improve the implementation of the Water Framework Directive. 7.1 THE WATER FRAMEWORK DIRECTIVE 7.2.1 Purpose The objectives of the Water Framework Directive are to stop deterioration, improve the state of aquatic ecosystems, and promote the sustainable use of water by achieving ‘good ecological status’ in defined river basins (Box 7.1 collects the seven facts upon which the European Commission justifies and underpins the implementation of the Water Framework Directive). Under this norm, good ecological status is a composite assessment that measures the current state against the ‘reference condition’ for that type of water body (essentially, the state of the ecosystem before the impact of human pressures). Where the water body is at less than good status, measures (actions) must be taken. To achieve the good ecological status, cost-effective Programmes of Measures need to be set up. Where this is technically unfeasible or economically disproportionate then the objective can be reduced to moderate status or deferred to a later cycle (2021, 2027). Thus the plans provide an overview of the state of the ecosystem, the pressures on the ecosystem, and the actions that will be taken to remove the pressures and mitigate their impacts in an economically efficient way.

Understanding water ecosystem services requires both an elucidation of the interrelationships between hydrology, landscapes and ecology, and a contextualization of how water influences human livelihoods and wellbeing and how ecosystems themselves are affected by human activities. Ecosystem services-based approaches, as defined in this book, aim to understand these complex relationships to support more efficient and sustainable decision-making. Society needs to recognize the requirement to balance and manage the benefits derived from water resources, rather than simply managing the resource itself (United Nations Environmental Programme 2009). These benefits come from the realization of a whole range of provisioning, regulating, and cultural services provided by ecosystems. This way of interpreting water systems and water resources represents a change from traditional sectoral control policies and approaches to delivering an integrated view of natural resource management. In this book the editors and authors took up the challenge, ten years after the publication of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), of reflecting on what has been achieved, what lessons have been learnt, and how to improve the application of ecosystem services-based approaches for managing water ecosystems in the future. By proposing a structured definition of ecosystem services-based approaches (in Martin-Ortega et al .) and exploring the forefront of their application at the conceptual level and through a series of national and regional case studies from across the world, the authors have completed a comprehensive vision of the current knowledge and challenges of applying ecosystem services-based approaches to address water challenges. In this concluding chapter we reflect upon the key messages that have emerged from the discussions contained in this book and on the way forward. We organize this discussion around the four parts in which the book is structured. 20.1 HOW CAN ECOSYSTEM SERVICESBASED APPROACHES HELP ADDRESS MAJOR GLOBAL CHALLENGES? Capon et al ., Febria et al ., and Salman and Martinez explore how ecosystem services-based approaches have been, and can be, applied to address three of the critical global challenges that humanity currently face, namely climate change, biodiversity loss, and meeting the growing population's food and energy demands (notably in the developing world).

Artículo escrito por un elevado número de autores, solo se referencian el que aparece en primer lugar, el nombre del grupo de colaboración, si le hubiere, y los autores pertenecientes a la UAM, Participatory scenario planning (PSP) is an increasingly popular tool in place-based environmental research for evaluating alternative futures of social-ecological systems. Although a range of guidelines on PSP methods are available in the scientific and grey literature, there is a need to reflect on existing practices and their appropriate application for different objectives and contexts at the local scale, as well as on their potential perceived outcomes. We contribute to theoretical and empirical frameworks by analyzing how and why researchers assess social-ecological systems using place-based PSP, hence facilitating the appropriate uptake of such scenario tools in the future. We analyzed 23 PSP case studies conducted by the authors in a wide range of social-ecological settings by exploring seven aspects: (1) the context; (2) the original motivations and objectives; (3) the methodological approach; (4) the process; (5) the content of the scenarios; (6) the outputs of the research; and (7) the monitoring and evaluation of the PSP process. This was complemented by a reflection on strengths and weaknesses of using PSP for the place-based social-ecological research. We conclude that the application of PSP, particularly when tailored to shared objectives between local people and researchers, has enriched environmental management and scientific research through building common understanding and fostering learning about future planning of social-ecological systems. However, PSP still requires greater systematic monitoring and evaluation to assess its impact on the promotion of collective action for transitions to sustainability and the adaptation to global environmental change and its challenges, Funding for the case studies was provided by: the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the University of Saskatchewan, the German Ministry of Education and Research (FKZ 01UU0904AD), the European Commission 7th Framework Program (projects HERCULES grant agreement 603447, COMET-LA grant agreement 282845, COMBIOSERVE grant agreement 282899 and COBRA grant agreement 249667), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the Rural Economy and Land Use Program (project RES-224-25-0088), the Australian Department of Environment, the Australian Government’s Natural Resource Management (NRM), Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Research Program, the Wet Tropics Cluster NRM Groups, the Reef Catchments NRM, the Terrain NRM, the DFATCSIRO Research for Development Alliance, the Spanish Ministry for the Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs (projects 079/ RN08/02.1 and 018/2009), the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (project CGL2011-30266), the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development, a Sofja- Kovalevskaja Award granted by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the U.S. National Science Foundation, a David Smith Fellowship, the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme (project NE/I00324X/1), the Bonnechere River Watershed Project, The Ontario Trillium Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund-Spain, the Autonomous Organization of National Parks (Spain), and the Ministry of Education for a University Teacher Training fellowship

Agricultural environmental regulation often fails to deliver the desired effects because of farmers adopting the related measures incorrectly or not at all. This is due to several barriers to the uptake of the prescribed environmentally beneficial farm management practices, most of which have been well established by social science research. Yet it is unclear why these barriers remain so difficult to overcome despite numerous and persistent attempts at the design, communication and enforcement of related agricultural policies.This paper examines the potential of fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) as a tool to disentangle the underlying reasons of this persistent problem. We present the FCM methodology as adapted to the application in a Scottish case study on how environmental regulation affects farmers and farming practice and what factors are important for compliance or non-compliance with this regulation. The study compares the views of two different stakeholder groups on this matter using FCM network visualizations that were validated by interviews and a workshop session. There was a farmers group representing a typical mix of Scottish farming systems and a non-farmers group, the latter comprising process professionals from the fields of design, implementation, administration, consulting on and enforcement of agricultural policies.Between the two groups, the FCM process reveals a very different perception of importance and interaction of factors and strongly suggests that the problem lies in an institutional failure rather than in a simple unwillingness of farmers to obey the rules. FCM allows for a structured process of identifying areas of conflicting perceptions, but also areas where strongly differing groups of stakeholders might be able to gain common ground. In this way, FCM can help to identify anchoring points for targeted policy development and has the potential of becoming an effective tool in agricultural policy design and, due to its inherently visual nature, communication. Our results show the utility of FCM by pointing out how Scottish environmental regulation could be altered to increase compliance with the rules and where the reasons for the identified institutional failure might be sought. Agricultural environmental regulation often fails to deliver the desired effects because of farmers adopting the related measures incorrectly or not at all. This is due to several barriers to the uptake of the prescribed environmentally beneficial farm management practices, most of which have been well established by social science research. Yet it is unclear why these barriers remain so difficult to overcome despite numerous and persistent attempts at the design, communication and enforcement of related agricultural policies.This paper examines the potential of Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) as a tool to disentangle the underlying reasons of this persistent problem. We present the FCM methodology as adapted to the application in a Scottish case study on how environmental regulation affects farmers and farming practice and what factors are important for compliance or non-compliance with this regulation. The study compares the views of two different stakeholder groups on this matter using FCM network visualizations that were validated by interviews and a workshop session. There was a farmers group representing a typical mix of Scottish farming systems and a non-farmers group, the latter comprising process professionals from the fields of design, implementation, administration, consulting on and enforcement of agricultural policies.Between the two groups, the FCM process reveals a very different perception of importance and interaction of factors and strongly suggests that the problem lies in an institutional failure rather than in a simple unwillingness of farmers to obey the rules. FCM allows for a structured process of identifying areas of conflicting perceptions, but also areas where strongly differing groups of stakeholders might be able to gain common ground. In this way, FCM can help to identify anchoring points for targeted policy development and has the potential of becoming an effective tool in agricultural policy design and, due to its inherently visual nature, communication. Our results show the utility of FCM by pointing out how Scottish environmental regulation could be altered to increase compliance with the rules and where the reasons for the identified institutional failure might be sought.

This study tests the transferability of the nonmarket values of water conservation for domestic and environmental purposes across three south European countries and Australia applying a common choice experiment design. Different approaches are followed to test the transferability of the estimated values, aiming to minimise transfer errors for use in policy analysis, comparing both single- and multicountry transfers, with and without socio-economic adjustments. Within Europe, significant differences are found between implicit prices for environmental water use, but not for domestic water use. In the Australian case study, alleviating restrictions on domestic water use has no significant value. Pooling the three European samples improves the transferability of the environmental flow values between Europe and Australia. Results show that a reduction in transfer error is achieved when controlling for unobserved and observed preference heterogeneity in the single- and multicountry transfers, providing additional support for the superiority of socio-economic adjustment procedures in value transfer., This study was carried out as part of the European Directorate-General Research Framework Programme 6 funded project AquaMoney (SSPI-022723). This article has been processed and accepted for publication under the previous editorial team of Allan Rae, Ross Cullen and Geoff Kerr.

This paper presents an application of integrated methodological approach for identifying cost-effective combinations of agri-environmental measures to achieve water quality targets. The methodological approach involves linking hydro-chemical modelling with economic costs of mitigation measures. The utility of the approach was explored for the River Dee catchment in North East Scotland, examining the cost-effectiveness of mitigation measures for nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) pollutants. In-stream nitrate concentration was modelled using the STREAM-N and phosphorus using INCA-P model. Both models were first run for baseline conditions and then their effectiveness for changes in land management was simulated. Costs were based on farm income foregone, capital and operational expenditures. The costs and effects data were integrated using 'Risk Solver Platform' optimization in excel to produce the most cost-effective combination of measures by which target nutrient reductions could be attained at a minimum economic cost. The analysis identified different combination of measures as most cost-effective for the two pollutants. An important aspect of this paper is integration of model-based effectiveness estimates with economic cost of measures for cost-effectiveness analysis of land and water management options. The methodological approach developed is not limited to the two pollutants and the selected agri-environmental measures considered in the paper; the approach can be adapted to the cost-effectiveness analysis of any catchment-scale environmental management options.

There is evidence that damaged peatlands can negatively affect the delivery of water related ecosystem services. There is interest in peatland restoration to meet different regulatory targets, including the Water Framework Directive (WFD). A comprehensive assessment of the economic benefits of restoration is missing. This paper synthesises hydrological and bio-geochemical knowledge on peatland restoration, as well as insights in the monetary valuation of water quality improvements in freshwater systems. This is used to identify challenges in valuing water quality related benefits from peatland restoration. The paper concludes that there is strong evidence for rapid ecological responses to peatland restoration related to reduced suspended sediment loads, and sufficient evidence that re-wetting will prevent further decline in water quality. Two main challenges arise for valuation: (1) incomplete evidence of effects of restoration on final ecosystem services and benefits, and (2) the spatial and temporal differences in peatlands' responses. We suggest developing valuation scenarios on a case-by-case basis, using best available evidence of the changes associated with restoration described by a categorization of peatland status similar to the ecological status ladders developed for the WFD. These would need to be tested with the public and should include an element of uncertainty in services provision.

Recent evidence suggests that the degree of degradation of peatlands is substantial, and that there is a significant potential to enhance the delivery of a wide range of ecosystem services by investing in peatland restoration. However, little is known about the social welfare impacts of peatland restoration and in particular how to spatially target restoration activities to maximise net benefits from investments in restoration. This paper investigates the steps required to conduct a spatially explicit economic impact assessment of peatland restoration, and highlights and discusses key requirements and issues associated with such an assessment. We find that spatially explicit modelling of the biophysical impacts of restoration over time is challenging due to non-linear effects and interaction effects. This has repercussions for the spatially explicit assessment of costs and benefits, which in itself is a demanding task. We conclude that the gains of investing in the research needed to conduct such an assessment can be high, both in terms of advancing science and in terms of providing useful information for decision makers.

The European Water Framework Directive encourages pricing policy reforms in order to protect the environmental quality of water and promote its efficient use. This paper deals with two aspects of efficiency, namely economic and environmental efficiency, analyzed for different pricing methods. Volumetric pricing methods are compared with other indirect schemes (‘per area’, on ‘input’, on ‘output’ and ‘quota’) under three different water saving scenarios. The Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique is used to assess the eco-efficiency of an eventual water pricing reform in the irrigated agricultural system of Capitanata, in Italy. Overall, findings point out that a pricing system based on ‘per area’ and ‘output’ will lead to the highest eco-efficiency, although this is not valid under any water pricing charge. The enforcement of water saving via pricing does not imply a higher eco-efficiency, mainly in the case of environmental efficiency. The use of the DEA approach appears useful in the assessment of water pricing policies where conflictive economic and environmental goals arise. It provides a methodology to support policy makers in the design of water policy pricing aimed at the enhancement of efficiency, both economic and environmental

The identification and treatment of protest response in stated preference (SP) research such as contingent valuation is an underdeveloped area. Protest related to the polluter pays principle (PPP) is expected to pose an important hurdle to the application of SP research in environmental liability claims, for instance under the European Environmental Liability Directive. Our main objective is to test the effect of PPP induced protest votes on welfare measures for lost passive use value using different treatment procedures. We argue for a more reliable and defensible indicator of willingness to pay (WTP) in environmental liability litigation cases than current standard removal practices in cases where protest votes affect sample representativeness. Analyzing the impact of PPP-based protest response on WTP values with the help of a Full Information Maximum Likelihood sample selection model, a significant correlation is found between the decision to participate in the CV market and the WTP bids. Self-censoring biases average WTP and is correlated with factors such as respondent use of the resource and disposition towards its future protection. Simply removing protest response from the sample is indefensible and results in a biased estimation of WTP. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.

The improvement in the water quality resulting from the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive is expected to generate substantial non-market benefits. A wide spread estimation of these benefits across Europe will require the application of benefit transfer. We use a spatially explicit valuation design to account for the spatial heterogeneity of preferences to help generate lower transfer errors. A map-based choice experiment is applied in the Guadalquivir River Basin (Spain), accounting simultaneously for the spatial distribution of water quality improvements and beneficiaries. Our results show that accounting for the spatial heterogeneity of preferences generally produces lower transfer errors. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.

Since the release of the Millennium Ecosystem Approach (MEA), the number of studies valuing ecosystem services has grown. As a consequence of this growing literature, different interpretations exist on the classification of services as derived from MEA, and several studies have argued that this may not be the most appropriate framework when the aim of the analysis is economic valuation. The present paper contributes to this debate by reviewing and comparing these critical views in order firstly to clarify the existing confusion in the terminology and interpretations; and secondly to shed some light on a desirable classification and conceptualization of ecosystem services for valuation. To illustrate this, we present an examination of existing primary valuation studies of water related services provided by tropical forests, which we analyze under the MEA classification framework and compare it with an output-based classification, in which the service is defined in terms of its benefits (outputs) to humans. Our results support the idea that an output-based classification should provide more accurate values and could help avoid certain problems such as double accounting and potential underestimation of services values.

The drought affecting Catalonia between 2007 and 2008 was the most severe of the last century and serves as a case study for the assessment of the economic costs of such an event. The main focus is the drought affecting the so-called Ter-Llobregat system which serves the Metropolitan area of Barcelona, where most of the population is concentrated (approximately 5.5 million people). The 2007-2008 drought is a good illustrative case study due to its extreme severity and the availability of economic information both on the impacts (damages) and the measures taken. Moreover, important communication campaigns were put into place and led to significant reduction of the demand and the set up of mechanisms for public participation for future water management. Direct costs of the affected sectors, indirect costs of the Catalan economy and non-market welfare losses due to the worsening of the environmental quality and restrictions on water supply to households due to scarcity conditions are reported here. The total losses are estimated at 1,661,000,000 Euros (for a one year period), almost 1% of Catalonian´s GDP. The results of this study point out the need for further research on the estimation of the costs of drought (especially at European level) that needs to be embedded into the assessment of the costs of adaptation to climate change.

Water management is subject to conflicting economic and environmental objectives, and policymakers require a clear overview of the different outcomes derived from different water management options. The aim of this paper is to assess the efficiency of several irrigation water pricing policies with a special focus on their environmental implications. Irrigation is chosen here as a crucial sector of water use in large parts of southern Europe, where pressure on the resource is expected to increase due to climate change. A novel methodological approach for performing an ex ante analysis of alternative water pricing policies is proposed here, where environmental and technical performance are simultaneously considered. This approach takes place in two steps: the first is a simulation of alternative water policies through a mathematical programming model, and the second is the analysis of results by using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique. A case study is applied in Puglia (southern Italy), where irrigation is the primary factor of strategic relevance for policymakers regarding water management. Our results show that on the one hand alternative pricing policies perform similarly in terms of technical efficiency and environmental efficiency. On the other hand, inefficiency appears to depend mainly on technical rather than environmental concerns. According to the assigned weights, through the DEA technique, the highest improvement for inefficient options may be obtained by better labour use. We conclude that the proposed approach may be a comprehensive and versatile framework for water policy analysis, offering a tool for supporting the decision-making process.

[ENG]The reuse of treated water for agricultural irrigation is considered a promising option in regions facing water scarcity problems and there is an increasing number of reuse projects going on in southern European countries. The aim of this paper is to estimate the non-market benefits that society attaches to the use of reclaimed wastewater for agricultural purposes, as part of the economic assessment needed to evaluate the viability of this water management option. For this purpose, a contingent valuation study has been developed in the Segura River Basin in south-eastern Spain, interviewing 352 individuals from a representative sample of the basin’s population. Results show that the use of reclaimed wastewater for irrigation has significant non-market environmental benefits (mean willingness to pay of €5.13 per month per household, which adds up to a total annual value of €23.3 million). In terms of volume, these benefits represent €0.31 m–3. Therefore, it can be concluded that the non-market benefits of using reclaimed wastewater for agriculture justify its implementation, as they overcome the average treatment costs of €0.16-0.26 m–3. Additionally, the analysis of preference heterogeneity suggests that the use of reclaimed wastewater in agriculture is more acceptable to people if they are made aware of their current payment for water sanitation. The inclusion of these non-market benefits in the overall assessment of water policy options will lead to better informed and more efficient water management decisions.[ESP] El uso de aguas depuradas en la agricultura es considerado una opción prometedora para aquellas zonas que presentan problemas de escasez y de ahí el creciente número de proyectos de reutilización del agua llevados a cabo en los países del sur de Europa. El objetivo de este trabajo es estimar los beneficios no de mercado que la sociedad otorga al uso de aguas depuradas para uso agrícola, como parte de la valoración económica necesaria para conocer la viabilidad de estas opciones de gestión del agua. Para lograr este objetivo se ha realizado un estudio de valoración contingente en la Cuenca del Río Segura, sureste de España, utilizando una muestra representativa de la población de 352 individuos. Los resultados muestran que el uso de agua depurada para regadío genera beneficios ambientales más allá de los beneficios de mercado (disposición a pagar media de 5,13 € por mes y hogar que supondrán 23,3 millones € anuales). En términos de volumen, los beneficios de no mercado relacionados con el uso de las aguas regeneradas en agricultura (0,31 € m–3) justifican su implementación al sobrepasar los costes promedio de tratamiento del agua (0,16- 0,26 € m–3). Además, el análisis de la heterogeneidad de la demanda sugiere que el empleo de estas aguas regeneradas sería socialmente más aceptado si los consumidores son informados sobre el pago actual de los servicios de saneamiento del agua. La inclusión de estos beneficios no comerciales en la valoración de la política hídrica global contribuirá a una gestión hídrica mejor informada y más eficiente. This study is part of the research project ref. RTA 2006-00094, which was financed by the INIA, the EU FEDER Funds, the European project on Sustainable Use of Irrigation Water in the Mediterranean Region (SIRRIMED) (FP7-KBBE-2009-3) No. 245159 and the RIDECO Project (Consolider-Ingenio 2010- CSD2006-0067).

El daño ambiental producido por el vertido tóxico de 1998 en las inmediaciones del Parque de Doñana es analizado bajo la óptica de la nueva Directiva de Responsabilidad Ambiental (DRA), que obliga al operador de la actividad contaminadora a compensar por las pérdidas provisionales. El objetivo es analizar el papel de la valoración económica en la medida de la compensación en el marco de la DRA y extraer algunas lecciones para futuras aplicaciones. Los resultados apuntan a que los servicios proporcionados por el Corredor Verde realizado tras el accidente no han compensado el daño. Se pone de manifiesto la necesidad de profundizar en el análisis de valores de no uso, el control de las respuestas protesta y el planteamiento de escenarios de valoración específicos para las pérdidas provisionales.

Food systems worldwide are vulnerable to Phosphorus (P) supply disruptions and price fluctuations. Current P use is also highly inefficient, generating large surpluses and pollution. Global food security and aquatic ecosystems are in jeopardy if transformative action is not taken. This paper pivots from earlier (predominantly conceptual) work to develop and analyse a P transdisciplinary scenario process, assessing stakeholders potential for transformative thinking in P use in the food system. Northern Ireland, a highly livestock-intensive system, was used as case study for illustrating such process. The stakeholder engagement takes a normative stance in that it sets the explicit premise that the food system needs to be transformed and asks stakeholders to engage in a dialogue on how that transformation can be achieved. A Substance Flow Analysis of P flows and stocks was employed to construct visions for alternative futures and stimulate stakeholder discussions on system responses. These were analysed for their transformative potential using a triple-loop social learning framework. For the most part, stakeholder responses remained transitional or incremental, rather than being fundamentally transformative. The process did unveil some deeper levers that could be acted upon to move the system further along the spectrum of transformational change (e.g. changes in food markets, creation of new P markets, destocking, new types of land production and radical land use changes), providing clues of what an aspirational system could look like. Replicated and adapted elsewhere, this process can serve as diagnostics of current stakeholders thinking and potential, as well as for the identification of those deeper levers, opening up avenues to work upon for global scale transformation.

The main objective is to assess preference heterogeneity related to the spatial distribution of water quality improvements throughout a river basin. In a choice experiment, the river basin's hydrogeographical units and the levels of water quality improvement are included as attributes in the experimental design. Changes in water quality throughout the river basin are visualized with maps and modeled simultaneously in relation to where respondents live, in a random utility model. Not accounting for spatial preference heterogeneity results, in this case study, in an underestimation of welfare when aggregating willingness-to-pay values from subbasins to the river basin as a whole.