NATURAL RESOURCE ECONOMICS fileY axis: cm precipitation, or the amount of energy that needs to...
Transcript of NATURAL RESOURCE ECONOMICS fileY axis: cm precipitation, or the amount of energy that needs to...
NATURAL RESOURCE
ECONOMICS
NATURAL RESOURCE
ECONOMICS Sponsored by a Grant TÁMOP-4.1.2-08/2/A/KMR-2009-0041
Course Material Developed by Department of Economics,
Faculty of Social Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest (ELTE)
Department of Economics, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest
Institute of Economics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Balassi Kiadó, Budapest
NATURAL RESOURCE ECONOMICS
Author: Gábor Ungvári
Supervised by Gábor Ungvári
January 2011
ELTE Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economics
NATURAL RESOURCE ECONOMICS
Week 4
The system of water circulation
and the impact of its change
on well-being
Gábor Ungvári
Draft
• Nature is an independent system – view as a capital,
its basic supporting services are the water, carbon,
nutrient circulation and soil formation.
• The size and diversity of this capital define the
benefits of the ecosystem services for well-being.
• The importance of water generates from the fact that
it is the fuel and the carrying medium of these
circulations at the same time.
• The connection of land use and the natural capital
match the question of water management and well-
being.
Exploring the relationship between well-being
and ecological performance
Costanza’s hypothesis
Summarising the economic examinations relevant to natural resources, ordered
by types of ecological systems (biomes) and services.
The specific values relating to the given area change in conjunction with the
ecological system’s level of water-usage.
Costanza et al: The Value of ecosystem services: putting the issues in perspective. In Ecological Economics 25(1998)
67–2.
Grass / rangelands
Temperate / boreal forest
Tropical forest
Tidal marsh / mangroves
Swamps / floodplains
• The ability of transpiration drives the temperature of the
plants, that influences the pace of warming above the
surface
• The bottleneck condition of delaying warming up of the air is
the quantity of available humidity in the soil.
Water intolerancy Kravchik, Varga – People and Water www.peopleandwater.sk
• Temperature differences between the
sealed and non-sealed surfaces, but:
• There are differences of non-sealed
surfaces by the plant / habitat type –
forest, plow-land
Connection among the 3 basic supporting ecosystem
services, the climate and the water circulation
C.W. Thornthwaite, F.K Hare: Unasylva, 1955, 9. Évf./ 2
Integrated watershed management – Manual UNEP 2004
www.unep.or.jp
The driving forces of climate processes:
sunshine – precipitation – transpiration, means ecosystem
functioning – seasonal water surplus – water retention – water scarcity
Y axis: cm precipitation, or the amount of energy
that needs to transpirate it
X axis: months from january – to january
Thornthwaite, Hare (Unasylva, 1955, 9. Évf./ 2)
• The vapour intake of the atmosphere are
constrained by the available energy (from the
sun)
• The possibility of vapour intake is provided by
the plants cover (and the soil if uncovered)
• The rate of the process are defined by the type
of plant cover – both the transpiration
efficiency of the plants and the water retention
capacity of the habitat – That gives the
superior performance of forests
Thornthwaite, Hare (Unasylva, 1955, 9. Évf./ 2) http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/AmazonEVI/
The effect of non-considering water retention – the example
of the Amazon basin
Daily run-off of two streams at summer period
(by two hours periods)
The connection of transpiration and runoff in the
Hidegvíz valley experiment site (Soproni hegység).
Summer run-off time series 12 days with
the trend-line of water depletion
Gribovski Zoltán: Evapotranspiráció hatása a lefolyás napi
ritmusára erdősült kisvízgyűjtőkön. In: Erdő és Klíma füzetek
IV. Sopron 2004
Mitigating climate interferes with the nature’s ability to transpirate
The leveled runoff are provided by the soils ability to store water
Soil humidity is the result of water retention that requires continuous land cover with deep
soil – that’s what forests provides
The impact of ecosystem services on human well-being by
the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment research program
The 3 basic
supporting service
Nutrient circulation
Primary production
Soil formation
The possibility to
draw of usufructs, a
capital embodied in
the supporting
processes
The rate of water
retention is the
indicator of the
capital www.maweb.org Consequences of Ecosystem
Change for Human Well-being
Temperate Grasslands &
Woodlands
Temperate Broadleaf Forest
Tropical Dry Forest
Tropical Grasslands
Tropical Coniferous Forest
Mediterranean Forests
Tropical Moist Forest
0 50 100
Percent of habitat (biome) remaining
Habitat Loss to 1990
Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Source: Heinz Ellenberg: Vegetation ecology of Central Europe (Vegetation Mitteleuropas mit den Alpen (1963)
The historical trend of river valley changes in CE
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Conceptual Framework
Direct
Drivers
Indirect
Drivers
Ecosystem
Services
Human
Well-being
Direct Drivers of Change Changes in land use
Species introduction or removal
Technology adaptation and use
External inputs (e.g., irrigation)
Resource consumption
Climate change
Natural physical and biological
drivers (e.g., volcanoes)
Indirect Drivers of Change Demographic
Economic (globalization, trade,
market and policy framework)
Sociopolitical (governance and
institutional framework)
Science and Technology
Cultural and Religious
Human Well-being and
Poverty Reduction Basic material for a good life
Health
Good Social Relations
Security
Freedom of choice and action
Life on Earth:
Biodiversity
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
www.maweb.org
The results of diminishing water circulation
in the ecosystem services
www.maweb.org Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment
Consequences of Ecosystem
Change for Human Well-being
Floods – Inland excess water – Growing
irrigation needs
Soil – decay of productivity – Erosion
Sink of subsoil water tables – droughts
Atmospheric extremities – Warming
• The increasing lack of services results
in loss of well-being, so reducing natural
capital a well-being deficit is emerging
• Increasing pressure on public sources
to compensate the individual and public
damages of the impacts generated by
the ecological deficit
Air quality
Climate mitigation (cooling)
CO2 sink
Erosion mitigation
Water purification
Disease control
Pariasite control
Mitigation of natural disasters
Regulating functions
The aggregation of the small but
subsequent steps • The forests consumed, the waters gone – the landscape impoverished and so the
communities co-existed in it
• The living force of the landscape seeps with the water
• The step-by step deforestation decreased the ecological productivity.
• The drainage of the floodplains cut the supporting ecosystem service production.
The accumulation of natural capital stopped
• The exploitation of the ecosystem services based on the yields of natural capital
changed to the eat up of the natural capital itself.
• The portfolio of the used usufructs shrinked and its application homogenized
• The human well-being degraded with nature – the group of beneficiaries concentrated,
the ones crowded out increased. Common usufructs fall in expense of the private ones.
• Recent land use patterns are irrational, there is no place for water and forests. It results
in a critically low productivity level of ecosystem processes – compared to its possible
level
• As the missing amount of water grows as do the deficit of the ecosystem services
• The diminishing mitigation services of the ecosystem results in the growing frequency of
climate extremities – rising negative impacts and rising costs to compensate them.
The impact of forest loss on
the water circulation
parameters and the utility of
land
Legend:
• C – precipitation,
• P – transpiration,
• L – run-off,
• L1 – surface run-offs
(floods),
• L2 – sub-surface, low-
water run-offs,
• W – stored water