In several arid and semi-arid Mediterranean basins, water deficits in irrigated agriculture during drought events are relieved by illegal abstractions from aquifers. Illegal abstractions are largely tolerated by the authorities and are regarded by farmers as a reliable and inexpensive form of...

The European Union's (EU) Water Framework Directive (WFD) is implemented as an instrument to obtain good ecological status in waterbodies of Europe. The directive recognises the need to accommodate social and economic considerations to obtain cost-effective implementation of the directive. In...

Water environments provide many benefits for humans. In Finland, thousands of inland lakes serve a very rich and important environment for many activities and a number of ecosystem services. These services can be threatened due to other human activities but also for natural reasons. The natural...

The EC Water Framework Directive and more explicitly the EC Marine Strategy Framework Directive has brought new requirements of integrating economic approaches into policy-making. The primary aim of the study is to gain a greater insight into the factors that might influence the use and...

Paired comparison (PC) choice experiments offer researchers and policy-makers an alternative nonmarket valuation method particularly apt when a ranking of the public's priorities across policy alternatives is paramount. Similar to contingent valuation, PC choice experiments estimate the total...

This paper is about the impact of international climate policy on greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction. We focus on the time before the official GHG emission reduction phase according to Kyoto (before 2008) and the hard and soft law elements of the agreement. We find that expectations on...

In this paper, we analyse whether biodiversity can enhance the developmental process in developing countries (DCs) by increasing tourism receipts in a trade-based endogenous growth framework. The model is based on the underlying assumption that a rich biodiversity provides a comparative...

Resource-based compensation aims to offset the public's welfare loss associated with environmental or resource injuries. Compensatory payments are frequently scaled using Equivalency Analysis (EA). EA's focus on ensuring equity in utility terms for the victim may lead to an inefficient outcome...

Energy has moved to the forefront in societal and economic development. Our homes and real estate are more and more dependent on electricity. In order to reach the full potential for new consumer-oriented market mechanisms and in order to fulfil climate policy targets we need more information on...

This paper contributes to the debate on the effectiveness of carbon trading schemes when contrasted with carbon taxes in reducing environmental externalities. An experimental survey explored individual's behavioural response to a personal carbon trading (PCT) scheme or a carbon tax (CT), both...