Increasing agricultural productivity can have ambiguous effects on forest protection in theory: it can expand the scope of farming, which is detrimental to the forest, but it can also induce farmers to intensify their production. The authors examine these predictions using county-level data from five waves of the Brazilian Census of Agriculture. The authors identify productivity shocks using the expansion of rural electrification in Brazil during 1960-2000. The authors show that electrification increased crop productivity, and farmers subsequently both expand farming through frontier land conversion, but also shift away from land-intensive activities and into capital- and labor-intensive activities. The net effect depends on the county’s land use prior to the increase in agricultural productivity, but it reduces deforestation in the typical county in the sample.
This paper documents an emerging strategy to manage natural assets such as woodlands, wetlands, and creeks in urban areas as part of a sustainable infrastructure strategy. Specifically, the paper explores Canadian local government experience through the Municipal Natural Assets Initiative (MNAI) to identify, value, and account for natural assets’ contribution to municipal government service delivery, services that would otherwise need to be delivered by engineered assets. Evidence from MNAI suggests that a structured, asset management-based approach holds great promise to tackle the twin challenges of declining urban infrastructure quality and declining ecosystem health and could have applicability well beyond Canada.
Effective flood risk management is critical to protect people and their livelihoods from flooding and to limit future losses. Nature-based measures and their ability to address flood risk are receiving increasing attention. Until recently, most flood risk management involved conventional engineering measures. These measures are sometimes referred to as “hard” engineering or “gray” infrastructure. Examples include building embankments, dams, levees, and channels to control flooding. Recently the concept of “nature-based solutions”, “ecosystem-base adaptation”, “eco-DRR” or “green infrastructure” has emerged as a good alternative or complement to traditional gray approaches. Nature-based solutions make use of natural processes and ecosystem services for functional purposes, such as decreasing flood risk or improving water quality. The objective of this document is to present five principles and implementation guidance for planning, such as evaluation, design, and implementation of nature-based solutions for flood risk management as an alternative to or complementary to conventional engineering measures.
