This paper introduces a new methodology for evaluating water resources management scenarios considering different aspects of their hydrological ecosystem services. The temporal variations of supplied ...water to different demands are assessed as provisioning hydrological ecosystem services. Then, three agricultural drought management policies have been defined for each water supply-demand alternative to reduce the irrigation water and cultivated area of the agricultural demand nodes during droughts. In addition to the net primary productivity criterion (NPP) and economic profit, the ecological condition of the system has been evaluated as an ecosystem services-based criterion. To prioritize and select the best water resources management (WRM) scenario(s), a game theory-based hierarchical evidential reasoning (ER) technique with multiple decision-makers has been used. The proposed methodology has been applied to the Urmia Lake basin, which is the largest saline lake in the Middle East. The grade-based values of the criteria have been used to compare the WRM scenarios. The results show that a scenario that includes supplying 100% of the lake's water demand has the highest priority. This scenario also suggests reducing the cultivated area of dominant crops and using deficit irrigation practices.
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•Hierarchical structure of stakeholders is considered in decision making process.•Ecosystem services-based criteria are used for evaluating management scenarios.•Quantifying provisioning and regulating services helps to select reliable scenarios.•Evidential reasoning approach incorporates quantitative and qualitative criteria.•The methodology can be applied to other case studies to evaluate ecosystem services.
Establishing forest plantations is an important solution to the growing conflict between an increasing human population and mounting pressure to protect the natural forests, as plantations also ...harbor great potential for providing multiple ecosystem services (ESs). However, because of the trade-offs between multiple ESs and the conflicts between different stakeholders, the sustainable management of plantations has been exceedingly challenging. Especially in recent years, with China's emphasis on ecological civilization construction and sustainable development, forestry departments have begun to focus on long-term ecological benefits, which conflict with farmers' attention to short-term economic gains. In this study, we quantified 15 field-based ES indicators from the data measured in Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) plantations aged 4 to 32 years. Corresponding to the concerns of two different stakeholders (forestry departments and farmers), we calculated ES-multifunctionality with different thresholds under four management scenarios: equal weight, production only, production multifunctionality, and supporting multifunctionality. Our results suggested pronounced stand age effects on both individual ESs and ES-multifunctionality of plantations. For individual ESs, stand age had a greater impact on provisioning services than on supporting services. High degree of trade-offs existed between plantation provisioning ESs and soil nutrient supporting ESs, and between water relevant ESs and the other ESs. With respect to ES-multifunctionality, the values under different scenarios were all augmented with stand age, but to differing degrees. The values for supporting multifunctionality were higher than those of production multifunctionality and production only before 21 years of stand development, but completely reversed once the fir plantations reached an age of 25 years. Finally, several stage-based plantation management recommendations are proposed to minimize conflicts between different stakeholders. Our results combined measures of temporal stability and multifunctionality, thereby providing valuable and timely insight into the multifunctional stability of plantations represented by Chinese fir.
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•There is pronounced stand age effect on ESs and ES-multifunctionality of plantation.•Stand age has a greater impact on provisioning services than on supporting services.•The development of all ESs is more balanced in a 32-years-old plantation.•There are 2 distinct stages of variation in ES-multifunctionality under 4 scenarios.•Stage-based management recommendations for multifunctional stability are proposed.
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•GIS-based Bayesian Network to assess the probability of marine cumulative impacts.•Cumulative impacts are evaluated under four potential management and climate scenarios.•Higher ...cumulative impact scores against rising sea surface temperature and nutrient load.•Remarkable reduction of the overall vulnerability through the establishment of new MPAs.•The approach can be considered as an operational tool for adaptive marine management.
Oceans are changing faster than even observed before. Unprecedented climate variability is interacting with long-term trends, all against a backdrop of rising anthropogenic use of marine space. The growth of maritime activities is taking place without the full understanding of complex interactions between natural and human-induced changes, leading to a progressive decline of biodiversity and degradation of marine ecosystems. Against this complex interplay, marine managers and policy makers are increasingly calling for new approaches and tools allowing a multi-scenario assessment of environmental impacts arising from the complex interaction between natural and anthropogenic drivers, also in consideration of multiple marine plans objectives. Responding to this need, for the Adriatic Sea we developed a GIS-based Bayesian Network to evaluate the probability (and related uncertainty) of cumulative impacts under four ‘what-if’ scenarios representing different marine management options and climate conditions. We addressed issues concerning consequences of potential planning measures, as well as management programmes required to achieve environmental status targets, as required by relevant EU acquis. Results from the scenario analysis highlighted that an integrated approach to maritime spatial planning is required, combining more sustainable management options of marine spaces and resources with climate adaptation strategies. This approach to planning would allow to reduce human pressures on the marine environment and rise resilience of natural ecosystems to climate and human-induced disturbances, which would result in an overall decrease of cumulative impacts.
Open waste burning emissions constitute a significant source of air pollution affecting human health in India. In regions where cleaner fuels have displaced solid biofuel usage, open waste burning is ...rapidly becoming one of the largest sources of airborne human class-I-carcinogens and particulate matter. As the establishment of waste management infrastructure in rural India is likely to take years, we explore whether health-relevant emissions can be reduced by legalizing the burning of dry non-biodegradable waste in improved devices. We measure the emission factors of 76 VOCs, CH4, CO, and CO2 from different types of waste burned in two different improved devices, a burn basket and a local water heater. Based on our experiments, we create four “what-if” intervention scenarios to assess the improvement of air quality due to the emission reductions that can be accomplished by four management strategies. We find that substituting the traditional, more polluting water heating fuels with dry plastic waste across rural India can reduce primary emissions (e.g., −29 Ggy−1 for benzene) and ozone formation potential (−2960 Ggy−1) from open waste burning. When dry waste is used in lieu of more polluting fuels, and its burning serves a purpose, the net class-I-carcinogen benzene emissions, would be halved compared to the present. The change in emissions for the class-I carcinogen 1,3-butadiene would become net negative. This happens because the emissions avoided when part of the solid biofuel currently used in rural India is replaced by plastic waste (4.1 (1.2–4.1) Ggy−1) exceed the waste burning emissions of this compound (3 (1.2–3.7) Ggy−1) by so much, that residential sector emission reductions offset all waste burning emissions including those of landfill fires. Our study demonstrates that India's air quality can be improved by permitting and promoting the use of dry packaging waste in lieu of traditional biofuels and by promoting improved burning devices.
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•Open burning is the only alternative to littering plastic waste in rural India.•Open burning of wet, mixed waste is a large source of air pollution.•Legalizing the burning of dry plastic waste can half emissions.•Replacing residential solid fuels with plastic waste results in the lowest emissions.
•New biodiversity indicators are considered on managing protected areas.•Close-to nature alternatives are used to achieve conservation thresholds.•Scenario modelling is a powerful tool to analyse ...changes on forest management.•Multicriteria techniques are suitable to deal with conflicting objectives.•A shift from segregated to integrated management is proposed.
Multifunctional forest management is a strategy increasingly shared by forest managers. In the drive towards multifunctionality, different policies are widely being developed to integrate timber production and biodiversity conservation into forest management. To achieve this aim, both segregated and integrated approaches have been used. Segregated approaches aim to provide different ecosystem services (ES) separately in stratified forest areas based on land-use zoning, whereas integrated or integrative approaches promote land-use sharing management. This type of approach has also led to the design of close-to-nature silvicultural alternatives, where different ES can be satisfied simultaneously. In the context of this new paradigm, we carried out a study to compare segregated versus integrated management strategies in Valsaín forest in Central Spain. Part of Valsaín forest was declared a protected area in 2013 and the whole forest could be declared a National Park in 50 years’ time. For the purposes of the study, we analyzed new biodiversity indicators and compared them to the traditional forest management indicators. The scenario modelling was resolved using Multi-Criteria Decision-Making techniques. Our results showed greater trade-offs between the two types of indicators when considering the forest as a whole rather than a zoning approach. Therefore, a shift from segregated to integrated management will be proposed once the whole area of Valsaín forest is declared as National Park.
This paper presents a methodology to assess the effects of management strategies of environmental flows on the hydrological alteration of river basins on a daily scale. It comprises the collection ...and analysis of data, the implementation and calibration of a water allocation model; the computation of the natural flow regime; and the estimation, normalization, and aggregation of hydrological alteration indicators to obtain a global indicator of the hydrological alteration. The methodology was applied to a case study in the Iberian Peninsula: The Orbigo River basin, which belongs to the Duero River basin district. For that, three management scenarios were defined: the current scenario, a scenario without any environmental flow and the scenario with the environmental flows initially projected for the period 2022–2027. These scenarios were modelled with the SIMGES water allocation model, which is calibrated in the study site, and the hydrological alterations in four river stretches with different locations and characteristics were assessed. The implications of each environmental flow scenario on the demand reliabilities were also analysed. The global indicator of hydrological alteration obtained in the projected scenario was greater (better) than those of the other two scenarios, but the reliabilities of the water demands were worse. The methodology proposed in this work can be helpful to design environmental flow regimes considering both the effects on the hydrological alteration and the implication on the water demand reliabilities.
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•Methodology to quantify the effects of environmental flows on hydrological alteration•Application of a calibrated water allocation model in the Orbigo River basin (Spain)•Estimation, normalization, and aggregation of hydrological alteration indicators•Assessment of effects of environmental flow scenarios on water demand reliabilities•Helpful tool to design management strategies of environmental flow regimes
Mediterranean areas are characterized by complex hydrogeological systems, where management of freshwater resources, mostly stored in karstic, coastal aquifers, is necessary and requires the ...application of numerical tools to detect and prevent deterioration of groundwater, mostly caused by overexploitation.
In the Taranto area (southern Italy), the deep, karstic aquifer is the only source of freshwater and satisfies the main human activities. Preserving quantity and quality of this system through management policies is so necessary and such task can be addressed through modeling tools which take into account human impacts and the effects of climate changes.
A variable-density flow model was developed with SEAWAT to depict the “current” status of the saltwater intrusion, namely the status simulated over an average hydrogeological year. Considering the goals of this analysis and the scale at which the model was built, the equivalent porous medium approach was adopted to represent the deep aquifer.
The effects that different flow boundary conditions along the coast have on the transport model were assessed. Furthermore, salinity stratification occurs within a strip spreading between 4km and 7km from the coast in the deep aquifer. The model predicts a similar phenomenon for some submarine freshwater springs and modeling outcomes were positively compared with measurements found in the literature.
Two scenarios were simulated to assess the effects of decreased rainfall and increased pumping on saline intrusion. Major differences in the concentration field with respect to the “current” status were found where the hydraulic conductivity of the deep aquifer is higher and such differences are higher when Dirichlet flow boundary conditions are assigned. Furthermore, the Dirichlet boundary condition along the coast for transport modeling influences the concentration field in different scenarios at shallow depths; as such, concentration values simulated under stressed conditions are lower than those simulated under undisturbed conditions.
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•The occurrence of saltwater intrusion in a karstic, coastal aquifer is assessed in the context of management issues.•Groundwater quality of freshwater springs, mainly impacted by seawater intrusion, is assessed.•The effects of different kinds of boundary conditions on groundwater flow are compared.•Different scenarios are simulated to assess the effects of natural forcing and human interactions.
•A stakeholder-based decision support system is proposed for managing water resources.•The methodology incorporates the quantitative characteristics of stakeholders.•An agent-based simulation model ...is employed to evaluate water management scenarios.•Scenarios are evaluated considering several environmental, socio-economic criteria.•To evaluate the methodology, it is applied to Tehran metropolitan area in Iran.
Based on the Social Choice Theory (SCT), a new Decision Support System (DSS) is presented and employed to rank-order management alternatives (i.e. scenarios) in the water resources management system of Tehran metropolitan area, Iran. In the framework of the presented DSS, the quantitative characteristics of the stakeholders are taken into account to develop a decentralized decision-making method. An agent-based simulation model is employed to evaluate the outcomes of implementing each management scenario by calculating nine distinct environmental, social, and economic criteria over a 25-year simulation period. It is shown that the best scenarios selected by the DSS have merits to enhance the sustainability of the water resources in the study area, and to shift the stakeholders’ network towards cooperation and collaboration.
•We analyzed how the number of labor inspectors relates to occupational accidents.•Territorial distribution of labor inspectors and work injuries in Ecuador is described.•Four management scenarios ...emerge according to injuries incidence and inspector rates.•Management actions and strategies are proposed to promote occupational safety and health.
The role of labor inspectors is to monitor the correct application of occupational health and safety regulations. This function can have preventive effects on the occurrence of accidents at work. To analyze this possible relationship, this study describes the evolution of labor inspectors' number and geographical distribution and the occurrence of work accidents in Ecuador over five years (2015–2019). The results show that the number of accidents for every 10,000 workers has decreased while the number of inspectors has remained stable. In addition, contrary to expectations, the results indicate that, in general, the number of inspectors is not associated with the number of accidents, except in 2019, in which this relationship was positive, suggesting that other factors external to the inspection may influence the occurrence of accidents such as the productive sector or the size of the company. In addition, the country's provinces were classified into quadrants according to the work accident incidence (high-low) and the number of inspectors (high-low), allowing the analysis of common characteristics of each quadrant. Finally, practical implications are classified into three management scenarios about the inspection activity, and suggestions for future research are proposed.
In the context of water scarcity, soil erosion, and biodiversity decline, the Mediterranean basin urges to manage its nearly hundred coastal watersheds in a coordinated manner. To this end, we ...propose an integrated approach to model socio-ecologic scenarios with Sustainable Land Management (SLM) options at the watershed scale to strengthen the functioning of multiple Ecosystem Services (ES). This is tested in the Mijares watershed in eastern Spain. As a first step, we propose using integrated modeling technology to quickly assess areas of ecosystem goods and services supply and demand within the case study. To this end, we applied ARIES, an AI-driven online modeling platform widely used in the ES community. Then, we use this information to identify suitable SLM options documented in the WOCAT global database for providing the identified ES. Lastly, to adjust the results to the social-ecological context, we carry out consulting and participatory processes with key stakeholders to incorporate local knowledge of ES and capabilities to adopt SLM measures into the final proposal. As a result of this work, we can model various SLM scenarios, easing decision-making toward more integrated and sustainable land management in the watershed. Given the reproducibility of the used methodologies, our approach can be adopted in other Mediterranean contexts.
•We present an innovative approach to strengthen the functioning of ES through SLM.•We select the study case of the Mijares watershed in E Spain to exemplify its use.•Quantifiable changes on ES result from modeling SLM options based on stakeholder engagement.•Results are accessible to stakeholders and policy-makers.
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