Author: Darwin C. Hall Publisher: JAI Press(NY) ISBN: Category : Economic development Languages : en Pages : 248
Book Description
This first volume in the series covers such topics as changing institutions and increasing scarcity, integrated resource planning, urban water rate design, and wholesale water markets.
Author: Henk Folmer Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing ISBN: 9781845425593 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 338
Book Description
The International Yearbook of Environmental and Resource Economics presents articles which are surveys of current issues in this research area where literature is abundant. As every year, we recommend the present yearbook to keep up with the developments of this literature. Michel Griffon, Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture The Yearbook provides a comprehensive overview of cutting-edge issues in environmental and resource economics. The expert contributors address some of today s most pressing environmental topics including: issues in water pricing reforms spatial environmental policy environmental equity and the siting of hazardous waste facilities strategies to conserve biodiversity corporate sustainability the double-dividend hypothesis of environmental taxes valuing environmental changes in the presence of risk. The Yearbook will provide economists, scholars and practitioners working in environmental and resource economics with a comprehensive overview of the cutting-edge issues in the field.
Author: Quentin Grafton Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 1405142340 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 520
Book Description
The Economics of the Environment and Natural Resourcescovers the essential topics students need to understandenvironmental and resource problems and their possible solutions.Its unique lecture format provides an in-depth exploration ofdiscrete topics, ideal for upper-level undergraduate, graduate ordoctoral study. Each chapter depicts the key theoretical insights,major issues, and real-life problems that motivate the subject. Inaddition, the chapters feature practical applications and casestudies, a list of annotated further reading, and extensivereferences. Offers broad treatment of issues in Environmental and ResourceEconomics. Provides in-depth exploration of a wide range of topics withits unique lecture format. Depicts key theoretical insights, major issues, and real-lifeproblems for each subject. Features case studies, annotated further reading, extensivereferences, and a detailed glossary.
Author: Robert N. Stavins Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing ISBN: 1788972066 Category : Environmental policy Languages : en Pages : 779
Book Description
Economics of the Environment, Seventh Edition is a compendium of the best, most timely articles by a dream team of environmental economists, together with an original introductory chapter by the editor. Now in its seventh edition, Economics of the Environment serves as a valuable supplement to environmental economics text books and as a stand-alone reference book of key, up-to-date readings from the field. Edited by Robert N. Stavins, the book covers the core areas of environmental economics courses as taught around the world; and the included authors are the top scholars in the field. Overall, more than half of the chapters are new to this edition while the rest have remained seminal works.
Author: Dinusha Dharmaratna Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing ISBN: 1443834262 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 280
Book Description
Water institutions establish the incentives, information, and compulsions that guide behaviour and influence economic outcomes. Water pricing policies that reflect the marginal cost of supply can bring about several positive benefits in the pipe-borne water sector including: 1) greater water use efficiency; 2) an increase in revenues that can be utilised to improve services; and 3) additional funds to enhance and expand the operation and maintenance of pipe-borne water supply systems. In order to design an appropriate pricing policy and bring about these positive changes, managers of pipe-borne water supply systems require an understanding of the determinants of water demand, supply and welfare changes. Further, the use of economic methodologies to estimate the effects of factors that influence pipe-borne water demand, supply and welfare in developing nations can assist water utility operators and policy makers to predict consumption responses to changes in water pricing. In turn, this provides important evidence for these decision makers to determine if price changes will result in higher revenues that can be used to fund critical infrastructure extension and maintenance. This is particularly important for developing nations where revenue constraints on water authorities can limit access to pipe-borne water supplies for large sections of the population. This book identifies under-pricing as the major problem faced by the Sri Lankan pipe-borne water sector. Recently, the water authority in Sri Lanka restructured its pricing strategy for pipe-borne water with the objectives of reducing water consumption and expanding the network. However, the success of the current pricing structure in achieving these objectives is uncertain. Therefore, to overcome the problems, this study examines the use of cost-reflective alternative pricing strategies for pipe-borne water distribution services. The book evaluates current and alternative pricing strategies for water against the criteria of efficiency and equity while maintaining the financial viability of the national water utility. In order to analyse the welfare impacts, understanding the demand for pipe-borne water by different user groups and the cost of pipe-borne water provision must be considered.
Author: Karen Bakker Publisher: UBC Press ISBN: 0774840099 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 442
Book Description
As the sustainability of our natural resources is increasingly questioned, Canadians remain stubbornly convinced of the unassailability of our water. Mounting evidence suggests, however, that Canadian water is under threat. Eau Canada assembles the country's top water experts to discuss our most pressing water issues. Perspectives from a broad range of thinkers � geographers, environmental lawyers, former government officials, aquatic and political scientists, and economists � reflect the diversity of concerns in water management. Arguing that weak governance is at the heart of Canada's water problems, this timely book identifies our key failings, explores debates over jurisdiction, transboundary waters, exports, and privatization, and maps out solutions for protecting our most important resource.
Author: Brendan O'Flaherty Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674252071 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 602
Book Description
This introductory but innovative textbook on the economics of cities is aimed at students of urban and regional policy as well as of undergraduate economics. It deals with standard topics, including automobiles, mass transit, pollution, housing, and education but it also discusses non-standard topics such as segregation, water supply, sewers, garbage, fire prevention, housing codes, homelessness, crime, illicit drugs, and economic development. Its methods of analysis are primarily verbal, geometric, and arithmetic. The author achieves coherence by showing how the analysis of various topics reinforces one another. Thus, buses can tell us something about schools and optimal tolls about land prices. Brendan O'Flaherty looks at almost everything through the lens of Pareto optimality and potential Pareto optimality--how policies affect people and their well-being, not abstract entities such as cities or the economy or growth or the environment. Such traditionalism leads to radical questions, however: Should cities have police and fire departments? Should tax preferences for home ownership be repealed? Should public schools charge for their services? O'Flaherty also gives serious consideration to such heterodox policies as pay-at-the-pump auto insurance, curb rights for buses, land taxes, marginal cost water pricing, and sidewalk zoning.
Author: Steven Renzetti Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 1461508657 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 196
Book Description
This book arose out of a paper that I wrote for the World Bank at the request of Ariel Dinar, the editor for the series in which this volume appears. I began that paper by pointing to the growing importance of demand-side considerations in water resources: "The provision of potable water is one of government's oldest functions with evidence of this activity stretching back thousands of years. During much of that time, water demands were taken as exogenously given and the principle task of authorities was defined as an engineering one: how to supply a given quantity of water at least cost. In recent years, however, concerns have arisen from observations of excessive water use, degraded water quality and continued inadequate service for many, especially the very poor. As a result of these and other concerns, there is a growing effort to view water resource allocation from a perspective that incorporates consumers' preferences along with supply constraints into management plans. " (Renzetti, 2000, p. 123). The purpose of this volume is to examine, in greater detail than was possible in that article, what is known regarding the economic characteristics of the demand for water. Thus, this book is meant to be an extended critical review of the state of the art.
Author: U.S. National Academy of Sciences Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 030906421X Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 243
Book Description
This book is the result of a joint research effort led by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and involving the Royal Scientific Society of Jordan, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the Palestine Health Council. It discusses opportunities for enhancement of water supplies and avoidance of overexploitation of water resources in the Middle East. Based on the concept that ecosystem goods and services are essential to maintaining water quality and quantity, the book emphasizes conservation, improved use of current technologies, and water management approaches that are compatible with environmental quality.
Author: Jonathan Chenoweth Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1351282670 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 277
Book Description
A renewed commitment to improved provision of water and sanitation emerged in the 2002 Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development. Although many of the statements in the Declaration were vaguely worded, making it hard to measure progress or success, the Plan of Implementation of the Summit, agreed by the delegates to the conference, clearly stated that: "we agree to halve, by the year 2015, the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water and the proportion of people who do not have access to basic sanitation". Given the United Nations' predicted growth in global population from 6.1 billion in 2000 to 7.2 billion by 2015, this commitment will pose formidable challenges. To meet it, by the end of just a decade and half, approximately 6.6 billion people will need to have access to safe drinking water supplies. This is more than the current population of the world, and involves not only maintaining existing levels of supply but also providing new or upgraded services to 1.7 billion people. The challenge for sanitation is equally daunting: 5.8 billion people will need to be serviced, including new access provision for 2.1 billion. Even if these ambitious targets are met, representing a major achievement for the global community, there will still be approximately 650 million people in the world without access to safe drinking water and 1.4 billion without sanitation. What is clear is the magnitude of the problem facing the international community in terms of water supply and sanitation. Continuation of the status quo and the type of progress made during the 1990s will not permit the Johannesburg targets to be met. Instead it will be necessary to promote a combination of many different, new and innovative approaches, each of which will contribute towards the overall targets. These approaches must include technological advances that identify new sources and improve the quality of those already in use; managerial techniques that increase the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery at both micro and macro scale; and fiscal approaches that tap into additional financial resources to make improvements affordable. In the past each of these aspects was seen as primarily the responsibility of government, which supported research into technology, managed supply and disposal systems and provided the funds to pay for them. This view has changed – beginning in the 1980s and increasing in the 1990s with growing moves towards privatisation of many aspects of the water sector. Underpinning this has been a shift away from seeing water as a public good that is essential for life, with subsidised supply provided as part of an overall welfare system, to a more market-oriented approach where the state, although still responsible for maintaining universal access to water services, uses market forces to meet this aim. The Business of Water and Sustainable Development aims to illustrate the range of approaches that will be necessary if the percentage of the global population having access to adequate and safe water and sanitation is to be increased in line with the brave assertions from Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development. Some of approaches will be large-scale "Western-style" improvements involving the creation of new business models, their effectiveness assessed by traditional approaches of fiscal and social analysis. Such schemes may be instigated and partly funded by governments, but are increasingly turning to the private sector for money and expertise. In contrast, many smaller communities would be better served by following another path to improved water supply and sanitation. Because of their size, location or traditions they may achieve better results through the adoption of local small-scale solutions. Non-governmental organisations have been very active in this area, but to extend their operations many are seeking to adopt a more business-like model. All water supply and waste disposal agencies, large or small, need to support and encourage continued research into technological solutions that seek out better, more sustainable ways to use our increasingly scarce supplies of good-quality fresh water.
Author: Darwin C. Hall
Author: Henk Folmer
Author: Quentin Grafton
Author: Robert N. Stavins
Author: Dinusha Dharmaratna
Author: Karen Bakker
Author: Brendan O'Flaherty
Author: Steven Renzetti
Author: U.S. National Academy of Sciences
Author: Jonathan Chenoweth