This case study provides an overview of the debate ensuing from the United Kingdom (UK) aiming to leave the European Union (EU) and, with it, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The UK Government has announced its intentions to formulate a novel agricultural policy following the principle that public funding should be restricted to the provision of public goods. However, the acceptance, interpretation, and application of this principle is the subject of intense debate.
This study demonstrates how different payment mechanisms can stimulate the efficient delivery of key, high-value ecosystem services that are either not produced, or are under-produced, by the normal operation of the market. Two payment mechanisms are considered: payments from the public sector to private businesses and payments between private businesses.
This case study explores some of the large-scale programmes through which China has responded to a national land system sustainability emergency. The authors review 16 sustainability programmes, which invested US$378.5 billion (in 2015 US$), covered 623.9 million hectares of land, and involved more than 500 million people. The study finds overwhelming evidence that these programmes’ interventions improved the sustainability of China’s rural land systems and contributed to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but the impacts are nuanced and adverse outcomes have occurred.
This case study advocates for the incorporation of natural and nature-based infrastructure (NNBI) methodologies into coastal infrastructure projects in the United States to ensure the dual goals of the safety of coastal communities and the sustainment and restoration of ecosystem functions along coasts.
This case study quantifies ecosystem services in several land use scenarios, relative to actual land use change, over a nine-year period. These scenarios were developed in an effort to maintain agricultural production while improving water quality and increasing water quantity in the watershed of the Miyun Reservoir—the only source of surface water currently available for domestic use in Beijing, China.
This report details a framework established by the United States Department of Interior (DOI) to evaluate the success of 162 of its resilience-focused projects. Building on a previous report that developed performance metrics to measure changes in ecological resilience resulting from the projects, this report focuses on the incorporation of metrics to address socio-economic impacts resulting from the DOI-sponsored projects. These metrics will be used to evaluate projects both individually and across larger scales, with the aim to inform best practices, address knowledge gaps, sustain and enhance improvements in coastal resilience, and further community competence and empowerment.
This case study applies an ecosystem services framework to understand how human activities affect the flow of benefits, including models that quantify services provided by corals, mangroves, and seagrasses. This information is then used within an extensive engagement process to design a national spatial plan for Belize's coastal zone. This process makes Belize's coastal spatial plan the first of its kind.
This report represents the first phase of the Department of the Interior (DOI) assessment effort for Hurricane Sandy projects. It was developed for DOI by a metrics expert group of physical and ecological scientists and socioeconomic experts who recommended performance metrics for measuring changes in resilience resulting from the DOI-sponsored projects. It identifies natural and artificial coastal features most affected by Hurricane Sandy along the northeast coast, including marshes, beaches, and estuaries, and recommends metrics that would indicate resilience changes in those features.
This case study analyses multiple ecosystem services provided by the landscape of the Urban Community of Bordeaux, France, between 1990 and 2006 as a result of land use and cover change (LUCC).
This study examines the relationships among attitudes to climate change, risk perceptions, and coping behavioral intentions in different townships of Yunlin County in Taiwan, which has relatively high vulnerability to the consequences of climate change.