This paper presents six studies made on the economic costs of desertification and land degradation in 11 African countries. It presents the main methods used for these macro valuations and their limits. It gives the results obtained and discuss on the concrete implications, for example, in terms...

The Motueka Catchment is located at the north-western tip of the South Island of New Zealand. After decades of productive intensification, the ecological and social identity of this catchment is still largely intact. To keep things this way, local residents, scientists and planners have been...

In 1996, the Danish government launched an ambitious energy plan, Energy 21, describing a way to develop the energy sector in a more sustainable direction. Wind power plays an important role in the plan, and as a consequence there will be a very high penetration of wind energy in the electricity...

This paper documents the results of a participatory modelling trial involving an influence matrix with a group of researchers and community members in the Motueka Catchment of New Zealand. In this trail, the influence matrix was used to calculate whole-of-system sustainability-values used to:...

In the face of the changes in the planet's natural resources and of their unequal distribution, it is becoming more urgent that contemporary societies oversee environmental assets in a global manner. Although international directives, when they are transposed into national laws, may set specific...

This paper discusses some of the new challenges that the quest for sustainable development poses to scientific research and the interface between science and policy. One of the issues fundamental to both science and policy is that of integration. Integration of scientific research requires a...

The Environmental Kuznets Curves (EKC) hypothesis suggests that the environmental impacts of a population increase in the early stages of its development, and decline once a certain level of income is attained. After examining different criticisms that can be addressed to studies that validate...

Emerging concerns for environmental flows translate into reforms that aim to preserve minimal flows in rivers. These policy measures have consequences for traditional right-holders: how to share between consumptive users the new scarcity created by the protection of instream flows? This paper...