This paper aims at presenting an integrated framework for the study of territorial dynamics in coastal areas. The use of Geographic Information Systems made possible the association of land cover data and socio-economic data using different levels of spatial analysis. The Coastal Alentejo...

Biodiversity provides essential services to human societies. Many of these services are provided as public goods, so that they will typically be underprovided both by market mechanisms (because of the impossibility of excluding non-payers from using the services) and by government-run systems...

Scientific and economic consensus increasingly points to the need for a credible and cost-effective approach to address the threat of global climate change, but the Kyoto Protocol to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change appears incapable of inducing significant participation and...

This paper tests the effect of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita on pollution, measured by carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per capita. World Bank 1992 study claims that pollution rises with income, but at a slower and slower speed and eventually declines. Using Ordinary Least Squares...

Evolutionary and environmental economics have a potentially close relationship. This paper reviews past and identifies potential applications of evolutionary concepts and methods to environmental economics. This covers a number of themes: resource use and ecosystem management; growth and...

Up to now a clear theoretical and methodological framework for economic-environmental analysis of environmentally damaging subsidies is lacking. Environmentally damaging subsidies are all kinds of direct and indirect subsidies aimed at achieving a certain (often non-environmental) goal that...

Governments contracting with private agents for the provision of an impure public good must contend with agents who would potentially supply the good absent any payments. This additionality problem is centrally important in the use of carbon offsets as part of climate change mitigation....

What is a 'sustainable nation’ and how can we identify and rank ‘sustainable nations’? Are nations producing and consuming in a sustainable way? Aggregate indicators have been proposed to answer these questions. This paper quantitatively compares three aggregate indicators of...

Many conflicts currently take place around the world due to disputes over water use. In many major river basins of the world, water is increasingly scarce. In Brazil, some regions face problems of water deficiency, such as the Northeastern semi-arid region and some metropolitan areas. The aim of...

The objective of this study is to evaluate the potential impacts of the water transfer Project of the Sao Francisco River, located in the Northeastern region of Brazil. Besides this evaluation, the study aims to identify if the Sao Francisco River Project is or is not an adequate alternative to...