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This paper reviews principles from decision psychology relevant to understanding and increasing acceptance of urban recycled water, and supplements existing literature by suggesting an additional f...

The development of seawater desalination plants to increase water reliability in coastal areas poses a threat to the health of near shore marine ecosystems and may affect the effectiveness of marine protected areas (MPAs) that have been established to meet international conservation targets. This paper applies a multi-criteria analysis approach to quantify stakeholder groups’ priorities for seawater desalination plants that have been proposed in communities adjacent to a National Marine Sanctuary. All groups placed the highest importance on minimizing environmental impacts on protected areas and endangered species that could be affected by water intake and brine discharge emphasizing the need for integrated land and sea conservation. Minimizing socio-economic impacts on coastal communities was much less important. Stakeholders also weighted reducing pressure on water levels in rivers, streams, and aquifers as more important than increasing water for residential consumption, which may foster coastal growth rather than replacing water taken from other sources. The study further revealed differences in the importance of multiple management objectives among stakeholder groups, which highlights the need to elicit distinct priorities of all groups to understand concerns and potential conflicts of desalination with existing marine users. The analysis of consistency ratios revealed that around half of all surveyed stakeholders had high inconsistencies in their responses, which suggests either a lack of understanding of desalination, or reflects the complexity of establishing desalination plants in coastal areas adjacent to a marine protected area.

Seawater desalination is increasingly being pursued to address freshwater shortages. In California, multiple coastal seawater desalination facilities have been proposed to diversify water portfolios and to increase reliability of water supply. This paper explores local residents support for a newly constructed desalination plant in Carlsbad, a small coastal community in Southern California. The plant is the first high-capacity desalination facility in California and started operation in December 2015. We found strong support for the desalination plant as 71.9% of residents reported support for the plant. Only 15.5% of respondents were undecided indicating that residents had a clear opinion on the plant. Perceptions about local water resources were significant predictors of support. Attitudes may change over time if the state of water resources and perceptions thereof change. Expected outcomes of the plant also predicted support. An increase in available drinking water was a positive predictor, while environmental and social impacts were negative predictors. Economic impacts in terms of an increase in the price of water did not influence local support. Ethnicity and age were the only socio-demographic variables that had an effect on support suggesting that the socio-demographic profile of a community may not be a good predictor of community support or rejection of this water supply technology.

This article examines coastal residents' awareness and knowledge about impacts of seawater desalination on marine ecosystems Carlsbad, California. The paper explores to what extent sociodemographics, motivational factors, and information use shape public awareness and self-assessed and factual knowledge. Data was collected using a mail survey (n=330) from a random sample of residents in Carlsbad. Both self-assessed and factual knowledge about the desalination plant and its impacts on marine ecosystem were low, with only two of 11 factual questions answered correctly by more than 50% of respondents. Gender, frequency of ocean use, and use of distinct information sources correlated positively with greater factual knowledge. Education, age, time of residency in local community, membership in an NGO, and place attachment to marine areas did not increase factual knowledge. Findings also demonstrate that knowledge shaped attitudes towards the seawater desalination plant as greater knowledge about marine impacts reduced support.

Watersheds are physical regions from which all arriving water flows to a single exit point. The shared hydrology means that other biophysical systems are linked, typically with upper-gradient regions influencing lower-gradient ones. This situation frames the challenge of managing economic and other uses of watersheds both in terms of individual activities and their influence on other connected processes and activities. Economics provides concepts and methods that help managers with decision making in the complex physical, biological, and institutional environment of a watershed. Among the important concepts and methods that help characterize watershed processes are externalities, impacts of economic activity that fall upon individuals not party to the activity, and third parties, individuals impacted without consent. Public goods and common pool resources describe categories of things or processes that by their nature are not amenable to regular market transactions. Their regulation requires special consideration and alternative approaches to markets. Benefit-cost analysis and valuation are related methods that provide a means to compare alternative uses of the same system. Each is based on the normative argument that the best use provides the greatest net benefits to society. And intergenerational equity is a value orientation that argues for preservation of watershed processes for the benefit of future generations. The need for effective watershed management methods pushed 20th-century economists to adapt their discipline to the complexity of watersheds, from which emerged subdisciplines of natural resource economics, environmental economics, and ecological economics. The field is still evolving with a growing interest in data gathering through land-based low-cost data collection systems and remote sensing, and in emerging data analysis techniques to improve management decisions.

This study investigates variables that shape coastal stakeholders’ knowledge about marine ecosystems and impacts of seawater desalination. The influence of trans-situational and situation-specific variables on self-assessed and factual knowledge among coastal residents and commercial marine stakeholders. Data were collected using a questionnaire based survey administered to a random sample of coastal residents and commercial marine stakeholders in eight communities in central California. Knowledge of biological features was higher than knowledge of physical and chemical processes. Both trans-situational and situation-specific variables were significant predictors of knowledge, in particular gender, education, and ocean use patterns. TV and social media were the only information sources that correlated negatively with knowledge. Predictors for distinct types of knowledge were different and provide insights that could help target specific ocean literacy gaps. The study also finds that commercial marine stakeholders were more knowledgeable than other coastal residents. Having an economic stake in the marine environment appears to be a strong motivation to be more educated about the ocean.

Seawater desalination has the potential to be a major 21st century source of urban potable water. In addition to advancements in the technology of desalination, public attitudes toward desalination will help shape its ultimate role in urban water supply. A growing literature on public perception of emerging water supplies has examined responses to seawater desalination in general, as well as attitudes toward new facility installation at the planning/proposal stages, and during facility operational stages. Studies from different countries topically overlap but have reached varying conclusions on public attitudes and their drivers. Demographic variables appear to be minimally helpful in predicting support for desalination, while an individual’s active use of marine resources and strong ocean attachment are consistent predictors of lack of support. Coastal residents seem aware of subsurface ocean processes and are opposed to subsurface infrastructure development that impacts these processes. Positive or negative attitudes toward the public agencies and private companies regulating or proposing/operating desalination facilities influence whether the public supports the projects themselves. While residents of affluent coastal communities demonstrate not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) attitudes, there are mixed results when the desalination facility is colocated with a coastal power plant in an industrial coastal area. Efforts to mitigate CO2 emissions from California desalination facilities did not meet with public support. Numerous areas for future research will help clarify public attitudes toward seawater desalination and could influence public policy processes for approving and setting operating conditions for new facilities.

As desalination capacity expands in the United States and elsewhere, it raises questions about environmental and societal impacts. Research in the field of ecological economics could provide insights that help regions and the public evaluate whether to pursue and approve desalination proposals, and how to configure them. This paper explores the possible role of ecological economics in addressing many of these questions. Using California as a focal point, this paper identifies issues that are emerging as the number of desalination proposals increases and installed capacity grows. It then identifies existing literature; and frames the research needs. Research needs include improving desalination's ability to operate using intermittent, renewable power sources; understanding societal economic impacts including desalination's impact on marginally employed people; ecological impacts of desalination from a variety of perspectives, and (in the case of ocean desalination) governance of near-shore environmental impacts. Desalination research already spans multiple disciplines.

This paper considers the retail water provider’s purchasing decision of a portfolio of permanent contracts from wholesalers with multiple volatile water sources. We consider the reliability of two contract types: (1) fixed annual quantities, and (2) an inflow harvest function with storage. Our four-reservoir case in Sydney (Australia) has cross-correlated inflow data. To accommodate multi-reservoir cross-correlation we adapt Portfolio Theory from finance to lognormal reservoir inflows, re-framing traditional storage theory from the wholesaler’s optimal operating policy to the retailer’s optimal purchasing policy. We find that Reliability improves with access to a source pool (cf. fixed quantities from separate sources), demonstrating the ‘insurance effect’, and the portfolio that minimises lognormal variance also minimises harvest (and thus environmental impact). Reform direction in Australian (and other international) water markets is towards multi-provider vertical disintegration, which may reduce pool opportunities and negate the insurance effect. We consider diminishing reliability returns as reservoir harvesting increases, and conclude a retail portfolio of permanent contracts from reservoirs, plus short-term contracts from alternative sources (either independently or negatively cross-correlated) efficiently secures high reliability. The challenge in incomplete water markets remains in encouraging and sustaining supply diversification that may only be needed aperiodically during extreme droughts.

High seroprevalence of dengue was found on both sides of the border., Reported autochthonous dengue fever transmission in the United States has been limited to 5 south Texas border counties since 1980. We conducted a cross-sectional serosurvey in Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico (n = 600), in 2004 to assess dengue seroprevalence. Recent dengue infection was detected in 2% (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.5%–3.5%) and 7.3% (95% CI 4.3%–10.3%) of residents in Brownsville and Matamoros, respectively. Past infection was detected in 40% (95% CI 34%–45%) of Brownsville residents and 78% (95% CI 74%–83%) of Matamoros residents. For recent infection, only weekly family income

Major transitions in a multiple-use or mosaic landscape often lead to frictions among new and existing users. In this article, we consider the problem of ecological restoration within a mosaic landscape in which restoration activities elicit feedbacks from individuals and groups that are harmed by restoration outcomes. Using game theory, we identify three potential outcomes ranked by the extent of restoration of ecosystem services and processes: nonstrategic, noncooperative strategic equilibrium, and cooperative bargaining solution. We identify conditions under which additional restoration can decrease the overall flow of ecosystem services and processes. A “strategic restorationist” will cease new restoration activities when the net effect of defensive response moves by farmers offsets gains. Imperfect information regarding expected payoffs to farmers can lead to inefficient overshooting or undershooting the optimal scale, geographical positioning, and form of restoration. Gains to all parties from cooperation might exist. As a case study and to aid model design, we consider restoration activities on California’s upper Sacramento River.

The typical categories for measuring national adaptive capacity to climate change include a nation's wealth, technology, education, information, skills, infrastructure, access to resources, and management capabilities. Resulting rankings predictably mirror more general rankings of economic development, such as the Human Development Index. This approach is incomplete since it does not consider the normative or motivational context of adaptation. For what purpose or toward what goal does a nation aspire, and in that context, what is its adaptive capacity? This paper posits 11 possible national socio-political goals that fall into the three categories of teleological legitimacy, procedural legitimacy, and norm-based decision rules. A model that sorts nations in terms of adaptive capacity based on national socio-political aspirations is presented. While the aspiration of maximizing summed utility matches typical existing rankings, alternative aspirations, including contractarian liberalism, technocratic management, and dictatorial/religious rule alter the rankings. An example describes how this research can potentially inform how priorities are set for international assistance for climate change adaptation.

Water availability limits plant growth and production in almost all terrestrial ecosystems. However, biomes differ substantially in sensitivity of aboveground net primary production (ANPP) to between-year variation in precipitation. Average rain-use efficiency (RUE; ANPP/precipitation) also varies between biomes, supposedly because of differences in vegetation structure and/or biogeochemical constraints. Here we show that RUE decreases across biomes as mean annual precipitation increases. However, during the driest years at each site, there is convergence to a common maximum RUE (RUE(max)) that is typical of arid ecosystems. RUE(max) was also identified by experimentally altering the degree of limitation by water and other resources. Thus, in years when water is most limiting, deserts, grasslands and forests all exhibit the same rate of biomass production per unit rainfall, despite differences in physiognomy and site-level RUE. Global climate models predict increased between-year variability in precipitation, more frequent extreme drought events, and changes in temperature. Forecasts of future ecosystem behaviour should take into account this convergent feature of terrestrial biomes.

This paper examines John Locke's labor theory of ownership from an ecological perspective, and explores its role in western US property rights disputes. The labor theory of ownership describes how an individual, through application of labor, can justifiably acquire a private property right to the yield of commonly-held natural resources. The presence of ecosystem processes and services beneficial to humans, coupled with equity and no-harm principles, places limits on the extent to which strong labor-based rights can be justified. Property claims to areas that have not undergone physical transformation due to human labor are less-strongly justified. Rather than continue in its inappropriate role in support of strong private property rights in the western US, the labor theory can play a new role in justifying and limiting ecosystem management regulation of private and government-owned lands and who should pay. If ecosystem management regulations prevent, reduce, or eliminate harms to ecosystem services and processes, the costs of such management can justifiably fall on private landowners and private users of public lands. If such programs augment existing ecosystem services and processes, costs should fall on the government.

This paper examines the institutional origins and functioning of the Monterey County Water Recycling Project ~MCWRP! ,a centralized tertiary-treatment facility that began operating in April, 1998, and delivers urban recycled water to growers at the mouth of the Salinas River, a site of extensive seawater intrusion to coastal aquifers. The Salinas Valley supports extensive irrigated agricultural production and several towns. The MCWRP was established with the cooperation of federal, state, regional, and local authorities. Federal sources financed roughly 70% of the initial capital costs, while local authorities own and manage the project. In turn, growers receive urban recycled water and pay acreage fees. Reasons for the success of this project include cost sharing among all beneficiaries, devolution of sufficient authority to regional and local authorities to impose alternative solutions, federal and state financial support, and development of innovative project management institutions. Future challenges could arise from increasing competition for all water supplies in the region.

▪ Abstract A new sense of urgency about environmental problems has changed the relationship between ecology, other disciplines, and public policy. Issues of uncertainty and scientific inference now influence public debate and public policy. Considerations that formerly may have appeared to be mere technicalities now may have decisive influence. It is time to re-examine our methods to ensure that they are adequate for these new requirements. When science is used in support of policy-making, it cannot be separated from issues of values and equity. In such a context, the role of specialists diminishes, because nobody can be an expert in all the aspects of complicated environmental, social, ethical, and economic issues. The disciplinary boundaries that have served science so well in the past are not very helpful in coping with the complex problems that face us today, and ecology now finds itself in intense interaction with a host of other disciplines. The next generation of ecologists must be prepared to interact with such disciplines as history, religion, philosophy, geography, economics, and political science. The requisite training must involve not only words, but core skills in these disciplines. A sense of urgency has affected not only ecology but other disciplines that influence environmental problems: they are undergoing a similar transformation of their outlook and objectives.