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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2017) | Viewed by 88601

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Prof. Dr. Rosa Duarte

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Department of Economic Analysis, Faculty of Economics and Business Studies, Universidad de Zaragoza and Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragón (UNIZAR-CITA), Gran Vía 2, 50005 Zaragoza, Spain
Interests: multisectoral modelling, input–output, ecological economics, water economics, structural and tecnological change
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Prof. Dr. Vicente Pinilla

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Department of Applied Economics, Universidad de Zaragoza and Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragón (UNIZAR-CITA), Gran Vía 2, 50005 Zaragoza, Spain
Interests: economic history, environmental history, agricultural history, wine economics, water economics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Economic growth has profoundly modified the relationships among societies, economies, and natural resources. On the one hand, natural resources are a fundamental determinant of economic development and ‘natural capital’ is crucial for the sound performance of the systems of production, consumption, investment, savings, and welfare. However, increasing economic dependence on natural resource exploitation appears to be an obstacle to growth and development in certain low- and middle-income countries across the world. On the other hand, economic growth has generated severe impacts on the environment. There is an abundance of literature addressing these impacts from a long-term perspective: Climatic change, energy transition, water scarcity, atmospheric emissions, forest resource depletion, biodiversity loss, ecological biomass flows, and materials use. Today, the dependence of growth on natural resources and the impact that certain patterns of economic growth have on the environment have become crucial, also having strong implications in terms of social and intergenerational inequality. As a consequence, the road to sustainable development demands, more than ever, multidisciplinary research and discussion on these complex relationships, so that the socioeconomic and environmental challenges may be faced.

Within this context, this Special Issue aims to take an in-depth look at the interactions between economic systems and the environment, from a broad perspective. Theoretical and empirical contributions highlighting both the potential of natural resources for economic growth and their risks, as well as the implications of development for the health of the environment (land, water, air, materials, etc.) are welcome. This Special Issue seeks to provide evidence of the potential relationships that can be found on different temporal, spatial and institutional scales. In this regard, we are interested in a wide range of visions and methodologies: Historical perspectives, theoretical discussions, micro and macro approaches, international and regional comparisons, case studies, multiregional and multisectoral approaches and scenario analysis, among others.

Dr. Rosa Duarte
Prof. Vicente Pinilla
Guest Editors

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Keywords

Natural Capital
Natural Resource Economics
Ecological Economics
Resource Curse
Environmental Impacts
Environmental Footprints
Environmental Inequality

Published Papers (13 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 2413 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Resource Dynamism of the Rwandan Economy: An Emergy Approach

by Evariste Rutebuka, Lixiao Zhang, Ernest Frimpong Asamoah, Mingyue Pang and Emmanuel Rukundo

Sustainability 2018, 10(6), 1791; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10061791 - 29 May 2018

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 4934

Abstract

Africa is experiencing unprecedented economic growth that requires planners to understand the interactions between the social, economic, and ecological systems to ensure its sustainable development. The present paper uses the emergy method to analyse the Rwandan economy from 1975 to 2016. Emergy-based sustainability indicators were used to analyse and compare two distinct periods of economic growth: the pre- and post-Tutsi genocide periods. The results revealed that, by 2016, the total emergy use had increased by approximately 74% of the emergy recorded in 1975. The increase in total emergy use was associated with an increase in imports with contributions from 6.5 to 46.2% and the renewable resource contribution decrease from 93.5 to 53.8%. The emergy analysis, which covered 41 years, categorises Rwanda as a non-renewable resource-poor country. The total emergy use of the pre-genocide period was significantly lower than the post-genocide period. Based on the 2016 emergy self-support of 54% and the emergy sustainability index of 2.52, Rwanda has the highest import dependence compared to other developing countries listed in this paper and tends toward a developed country like Canada, Portugal, and so on. An imperative decision needs to be made in terms of the management of the economic system of Rwanda, as imports are becoming the highest impetus of the Rwandan economy but are also the top major cause of a long-run sustainability downfall. Thus, the present study recommends a scrutinised selection system of imports by increasing raw materials, particularly non-renewable resources, and by subsequently increasing the internal transformation to be exported. This recommendation is also applicable to other developing countries with similar non-renewable resource statuses. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural Resources Economics)

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25 pages, 539 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Natural Resources Curse in the Long Run? Bolivia, Chile and Peru in the Nordic Countries’ Mirror

by Cristián Ducoing, José Peres-Cajías, Marc Badia-Miró, Ann-Kristin Bergquist, Carlos Contreras, Kristin Ranestad and Sara Torregrosa

Sustainability 2018, 10(4), 965; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10040965 - 26 Mar 2018

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 10191

Abstract

The new estimates of the Maddison Project show that GDP per capita ratio at purchasing power parity (ppp) between Bolivia and Finland has changed from 0.68 ca. 1850 to 0.16 in 2015; similarly, that between Chile and Norway from 0.65 to 0.28. The aim of this article is to present a review of the literature and available quantitative evidence to understand how these extreme differences became possible between countries with similarly enormous natural resource endowments. Specifically, the article seeks to: (a) identify some stylized facts that may help understand the divergence between Andean and Nordic countries; (b) identify key historical processes that explain the divergent effect of natural resource abundance in Andean and Nordic economies. In order to achieve these objectives, four topics are covered: GDPpc, population, trade and taxation. The analysis comprises three Nordic countries (Finland, Norway and Sweden) and three Andean countries (Bolivia, Chile and Peru) from the mid-Nineteenth Century to present day. The sample size, time span covered and thematic approach provide new evidence regarding previous work. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural Resources Economics)

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26 pages, 844 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Natural Capital, Domestic Product and Proximate Causes of Economic Growth: Uruguay in the Long Run, 1870–2014

by Silvana Sandonato and Henry Willebald

Sustainability 2018, 10(3), 715; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10030715 - 06 Mar 2018

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 6670

Abstract

The debate on the relationship between natural resources abundance and economic growth is still open. Our contribution to this field combines a long-run perspective (1870–2014) with the study of a peripheral country in the world economy (Uruguay). The purpose is to build a historical series of natural capital and contrast its level and evolution with the level and growth of GDP, as well as the proximate causes of its economic growth (produced and human capital, exports and terms of trade). We show that natural capital has tended to decline in importance in the economy, while simultaneously becoming more diversified. Although this evolution is consistent in historical terms, we do not find a causal relationship between the abundance of natural resources and economic performance. Instead of a direct relationship, the proximate causes appear to have been important in explaining the evolution of natural capital when we consider three stages of economic growth: physical capital and terms of trade during the agro-exporter model; human capital and exports during the period of import substitution industrialization; and terms of trade from the 1970s afterwards. These factors cause natural capital but not the other way around, leading us to conclude that an abundance of natural capital is an endogenous process. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural Resources Economics)

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25 pages, 4203 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Social Perception of Rural Tourism Impact: A Case Study

by Victoria Sanagustin-Fons, Teresa Lafita-Cortés and José A. Moseñe

Sustainability 2018, 10(2), 339; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10020339 - 29 Jan 2018

Cited by 20 | Viewed by 12065

Abstract

Rural tourism is based on the natural and cultural resources in an area that make it unique, with people as the main drivers. The main objective of this paper is to know the social perception about rural tourism impact in the Cinco Villas region (Aragon, Spain), analysing its evolution and effect on the territory. The theoretical approach is based on concepts such as rural tourism and its different elements from the perspective of sustainable local endogenous development. The research method chosen is the study case based on the Cinco Villas region. A combination of qualitative and quantitative instruments was used to research and achieve the aims of this study. A documentary analysis of the last ten years based on secondary data from institutional database sources was conducted. Primary data have been compiled from two different sources: semi-structured interviews with political leaders and tourism business people and participatory observation in focus groups. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural Resources Economics)

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13 pages, 634 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Income, Economic Structure and Trade: Impacts on Recent Water Use Trends in the European Union

by Rosa Duarte, Vicente Pinilla and Ana Serrano

Sustainability 2018, 10(1), 205; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10010205 - 16 Jan 2018

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3795

Abstract

From the mid-1990s to the recent international economic crisis, the European Union (EU27) experienced a significant economic growth and a flat population increase. During these years, the water resources directly used by the EU countries displayed a growing but smooth trend. However, European activities intensively demanded water resources throughout the whole global supply chain. The growth rate of embodied water use was three times higher than the growth in water directly used by these economies. This was mainly due to the large upsurge of virtual water imports in the EU (e.g., about 25% of the change in water imports in the world was directly linked to the increasing imports in the EU27 countries). In this context, we analyze water use changes in the EU27 from 1995 to 2009, combining the production and consumption perspectives. To that aim, we use the environmentally extended input-output approach to obtain the volume of water embodied in domestic production and in trade flows at the sector and country levels. In the empirical analysis, we utilize multi-regional input-output data from the World Input Output Database. In addition, by means of a structural decomposition analysis we identify and quantify the factors explaining changes in these trends. We focus both on the role of domestic production and trade and estimate the associated intensity, technology and scale effects. This analysis is done for different clusters, identifying singular patterns depending on income criteria. Our results confirm the boost of demand growth in that period, the positive but negligible effect of structural change, and the decline in water intensity which, however, was not enough to compensate the effects on water associated to the economic expansion in the period. These findings also point at a gradual substitution of domestic water use for virtual water imports. More concretely, in most countries the food industry tended to reduce its backward linkages with the domestic agricultural sector, increasing the embodied water in agricultural imports from non-European regions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural Resources Economics)

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15 pages, 3265 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Status of and Perspectives on River Restoration in Europe: 310,000 Euros per Hectare of Restored River

by Ewelina Szałkiewicz, Szymon Jusik and Mateusz Grygoruk

Sustainability 2018, 10(1), 129; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10010129 - 08 Jan 2018

Cited by 49 | Viewed by 5782

Abstract

The purpose of the present research was to analyze the available data on river restoration projects in Europe. As the framework of our study, we conducted a structured international survey. We asked selected entities and experts from among those responsible for river restoration in European countries about the details and costs of European Union river restoration projects. We examined 119 river restoration projects that were implemented in Europe between 1989 and 2016; during the collection of data, some of the projects were still ongoing. Based upon the collected data we observed that the number of river restoration projects has been increasing since 1989, which expresses society’s growing interest in improving the quality of aquatic environments. We revealed that 56% of these European river restoration projects have been implemented by dedicated entities and stakeholders, not as part of any structured, larger-scale river restoration policy. This indicates that most European countries do not have integrated plans for river restoration. Our analysis showed that 52% of the projects analyzed have been designed and implemented without the participation of local stakeholders. It also showed that the budgets for river restoration projects did not differ significantly across various time horizons from 1989 to 2016. In our study, the average cost of restoring 1 ha of an European river was 310,000 euros (EUR). Considering these projects’ permanent assets and including their amortization, we calculated the average unit price of a river restoration’s value in terms of ecosystem meta-service to be 7757 EUR·ha⁻¹·year⁻¹. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural Resources Economics)

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854 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Role of Bioeconomy Sectors and Natural Resources in EU Economies: A Social Accounting Matrix-Based Analysis Approach

by Patricia D. Fuentes-Saguar, Alfredo J. Mainar-Causapé and Emanuele Ferrari

Sustainability 2017, 9(12), 2383; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9122383 - 20 Dec 2017

Cited by 38 | Viewed by 6009

Abstract

The bio-based economy will be crucial in achieving a sustainable development, covering all ranges of natural resources. In this sense, it is very relevant to analyze the economic links between the bioeconomic sectors and the rest of the economy, determining their total and decomposed impact on economic growth. One of the major problems in carrying out this analysis is the lack of information and complete databases that allow analysis of the bioeconomy and its effects on other economic activities. To overcome this issue, disaggregated social accounting matrices have been obtained for the highly bio-based sectors of the 28 European Union member states. Using this complex database, a linear multiplier analysis shows the future key role of bio-based sectors in boosting economic development in the EU. Results show that the bioeconomy has not yet unleashed its full potential in terms of output and job creation. Thus, output and employment multipliers show that many sectors related to the bioeconomy are still underperforming compared to the EU average, particularly those with higher value added; although, they are still crucial sectors for the wealth creation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural Resources Economics)

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1861 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Decoupling Food from Land: The Evolution of Spanish Agriculture from 1960 to 2010

by Manuel González de Molina, David Soto Fernández, Juan Infante-Amate, Eduardo Aguilera, Jaime Vila Traver and Gloria I. Guzmán

Sustainability 2017, 9(12), 2348; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9122348 - 16 Dec 2017

Cited by 25 | Viewed by 5473

Abstract

For a large extent of historiography, the history of Spanish agriculture during the twentieth century is a story of success. However, this narrative has been built on monetary analysis, and it does not usually take into account the effects on rural society and agroecosystems. The aim of this paper is to analyze what has happened from a biophysical perspective to ascertain whether transformations linked with industrialization of agriculture have also been positive. For this, we have integrated the results—some unpublished and others already published—of a broader research project about different aspects of food production from a biophysical perspective in Spain, applying methodologies pertaining to the Social Metabolism. Our research seeks to provide a new narrative, emerging through the consideration of environmental aspects of the process, providing a more complex vision of the process of industrialization in European agriculture. The results show that the industrialization of Spanish agriculture has brought about profound changes in land uses and in the functionality of the biomass produced, increasing pressure on croplands and, paradoxically, facilitating the abandonment of an important proportion of pasture and croplands. This has led to the subordination of a very significant portion of Spanish agroecosystems to the feed demands of intensive livestock farming. This process has been based on the injection of large quantities of external energy. Agricultural production has undergone significant growth since the 1960s, but this has been insufficient to deal with the growing demand created by the change in the Spanish diet and the increasing trend to focus on livestock farming. The process of globalization has allowed both roles to be reconciled, although in recent decades Spain has accentuated its role as a net importer of biomass from a biophysical perspective, with very significant impacts on third party countries, particularly in Latin America. From a biophysical perspective, the industrialization of Spanish agriculture has entailed negative consequences that threaten the sustainability of Spanish agroecosystems and also negatively affect the sustainability of other territories. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural Resources Economics)

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238 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Resources for Sustainable Economic Development: A Framework for Evaluating Infrastructure System Alternatives

by Faye Duchin

Sustainability 2017, 9(11), 2105; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9112105 - 16 Nov 2017

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3743

Abstract

We are at an early stage of a massive global build-up of public infrastructure. Long lifetimes, high money costs and resource-intensity, and the rippling effects of the built environment on all aspects of daily life call for informed public conversation about the available choices before they become a fait accompli. Substantial literatures address the phenomenon in terms of economic development, resource scarcities, impacts on climate and ecosystems, technological options, human rights, funding sources, system governance, inter-governmental agreements. This paper describes a modeling framework that integrates some of these concerns about the differential impacts of large-scale centralized infrastructure systems, smaller-scale decentralized systems, and hybrid combinations. Building on existing collaborations between economists and engineers, the paper proposes a case-study research strategy to organize new types of technical information to supplement existing databases of the world economy. The paper describes needed model extensions to estimate money costs, resource requirements, resource recovery potential, and jobs and livelihoods under alternative infrastructure assumptions. The agenda supports the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by identifying and evaluating globally relevant alternative infrastructure designs. The SDG process, in turn, provides both the global network and the concern to promote local development to which the proposed effort aims to contribute. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural Resources Economics)

3443 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Uncovering the Green, Blue, and Grey Water Footprint and Virtual Water of Biofuel Production in Brazil: A Nexus Perspective

by Raul Munoz Castillo, Kuishuang Feng, Klaus Hubacek, Laixiang Sun, Joaquim Guilhoto and Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm

Sustainability 2017, 9(11), 2049; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9112049 - 08 Nov 2017

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 7831

Abstract

Brazil plays a major role in the global biofuel economy as the world’s second largest producer and consumer and the largest exporter of ethanol. Its demand is expected to significantly increase in coming years, largely driven by national and international carbon mitigation targets. However, biofuel crops require significant amounts of water and land resources that could otherwise be used for the production of food, urban water supply, or energy generation. Given Brazil’s uneven spatial distribution of water resources among regions, a potential expansion of ethanol production will need to take into account regional or local water availability, as an increased water demand for irrigation would put further pressure on already water-scarce regions and compete with other users. By applying an environmentally extended multiregional input-output (MRIO) approach, we uncover the scarce water footprint and the interregional virtual water flows associated with sugarcane-derived biofuel production driven by domestic final consumption and international exports in 27 states in Brazil. Our results show that bio-ethanol is responsible for about one third of the total sugarcane water footprint besides sugar and other processed food production. We found that richer states such as São Paulo benefit by accruing a higher share of economic value added from exporting ethanol as part of global value chains while increasing water stress in poorer states through interregional trade. We also found that, in comparison with other crops, sugarcane has a comparative advantage when rainfed while showing a comparative disadvantage as an irrigated crop; a tradeoff to be considered when planning irrigation infrastructure and bioethanol production expansion. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural Resources Economics)

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264 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Values-Based Approach to Exploring Synergies between Livestock Farming and Landscape Conservation in Galicia (Spain)

by Paul Swagemakers, Maria Dolores Dominguez Garcia, Amanda Onofa Torres, Henk Oostindie and Jeroen C. J. Groot

Sustainability 2017, 9(11), 1987; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9111987 - 31 Oct 2017

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 5389

Abstract

The path to sustainable development involves creating coherence and synergies in the complex relationships between economic and ecological systems. In sustaining their farm businesses farmers’ differing values influence their decisions about agroecosystem management, leading them to adopt diverging farming practices. This study explores the values of dairy and beef cattle farmers, the assumptions that underpin them, and the various ways that these lead farmers to combine food production with the provision of other ecosystem services, such as landscape conservation and biodiversity preservation. This paper draws on empirical research from Galicia (Spain), a marginal and mountainous European region whose livestock production system has undergone modernization in recent decades, exposing strategic economic, social and ecological vulnerabilities. It applies a Q-methodology to develop a values-based approach to farming. Based on a sample of 24 livestock farmers, whose practices promote landscape conservation and/or biodiversity preservation, the Q-methodology allowed us to identify four ‘farming styles’. Further analysis of the practices of the farmers in these groups, based on additional farm data and interview material, suggests that all 24 farmers valorize landscape and nature and consider cattle production and nature conservation to be compatible within their own farm practices. However, the groups differed in the extent to which they have developed synergies between livestock farming and landscape conservation. We conclude by discussing how rural development policy in Galicia could strengthen such practices by providing incentives to farmers and institutionally embedding a shift towards more diversified farming and product development. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural Resources Economics)

809 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Natural Resource Economics, Planetary Boundaries and Strong Sustainability

by Edward B. Barbier and Joanne C. Burgess

Sustainability 2017, 9(10), 1858; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9101858 - 17 Oct 2017

Cited by 60 | Viewed by 9663

Abstract

Earth systems science maintains that there are nine “planetary boundaries” that demarcate a sustainable, safe operating space for humankind for essential global sinks and resources. Respecting these planetary boundaries represents the “strong sustainability” perspective in economics, which argues that some natural capital may not be substituted and are inviolate. In addition, the safe operating space defined by these boundaries can be considered a depletable stock. We show that standard tools of natural resource economics for an exhaustible resource can thus be applied, which has implications for optimal use, price paths, technological innovation, and stock externalities. These consequences in turn affect the choice of policies that may be adopted to manage and allocate the safe operating space available for humankind. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural Resources Economics)

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260 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Assessing Tourists’ Preferences for Recreational Trips in National and Natural Parks as a Premise for Long-Term Sustainable Management Plans

by Diana E. Dumitras, Iulia C. Muresan, Ionel M. Jitea, Valentin C. Mihai, Simona E. Balazs and Tiberiu Iancu

Sustainability 2017, 9(9), 1596; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9091596 - 07 Sep 2017

Cited by 20 | Viewed by 4831

Abstract

Sustainable tourism management plans rely on relevant and consistent information about factors that can influence the decision to visit a protected area. This paper uses the choice experiment method to investigate tourists’ preferences with regard to recreational trip characteristics in national and natural parks in Romania. An on-site survey questionnaire was administered to visitors. The multinomial logit model was employed to investigate the preference orderings of the identified groups of recreational users. Overall, results indicate that tourists gain benefits after visiting the parks. Main preference differences were found for information sources and location of campsites. Visitors who stated that the park was the main trip destination were willing to have access to more information sources, the marks on trails being insufficient. Camping is preferred only in organized places, expressing the concern for environmental protection. The results of this study have management implications, highlighting the importance of assessing tourists’ preferences as a foundation for developing sustainable tourism strategies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Natural Resources Economics)

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