Gypsum amendment of agricultural fields to decrease phosphorus losses - Evidence on a catchment scale.

Amending agricultural fields with gypsum has been proposed as a cost-effective measure to reduce P load on coastal waters. We treated 1490 ha of clayey fields with phosphogypsum (4 t ha-1) in Southwest Finland and monitored the recipient river with online sensors and water sampling for the preceding spring and 5 years after the amendment. Gypsum immediately decreased the riverine fluxes, the effect lasting at least 5 years for particulate P (PP), total suspended solids (TSS), and dissolved organic C (DOC) and 1-2 years for dissolved reactive P (DRP). Compared with an upstream control area, the fluxes of PP, TSS, and DOC decreased by 15%, 25%, and 8.9%, respectively, as a 5-year average. Assuming the change in the fluxes occurred only due to gypsum, the amended fields showed 35%, 59%, and 64% lower losses for PP, TSS, and DOC than the unamended ones. More than half of the gypsum remained in the soil even after 5 years; thus, although the efficiency of gypsum lessened over time, its residual effect may be present. However, the difference in the erodibility between the control and treatment areas impacted the validity of the results, especially as the pre-gypsum period was short. In addition, the performance of gypsum showed spatial variation.

Precision, Applicability, and Economic Implications: A Comparison of Alternative Biodiversity Offset Indexes.

The rates of ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss are alarming and current conservation efforts are not sufficient to stop them. The need for new tools is urgent. One approach is biodiversity offsetting: a developer causing habitat degradation provides an improvement in biodiversity so that the lost ecological value is compensated for. Accurate and ecologically meaningful measurement of losses and estimation of gains are essential in reaching the no net loss goal or any other desired outcome of biodiversity offsetting. The chosen calculation method strongly influences biodiversity outcomes. We compare a multiplicative method, which is based on a habitat condition index developed for measuring the state of ecosystems in Finland to two alternative approaches for building a calculation method: an additive function and a simpler matrix tool. We examine the different logic of each method by comparing the resulting trade ratios and examine the costs of offsetting for developers, which allows us to compare the cost-effectiveness of different types of offsets. The results show that the outcomes of the calculation methods differ in many aspects. The matrix approach is not able to consider small changes in the ecological state. The additive method gives always higher biodiversity values compared to the multiplicative method. The multiplicative method tends to require larger trade ratios than the additive method when trade ratios are larger than one. Using scoring intervals instead of using continuous components may increase the difference between the methods. In addition, the calculation methods have differences in dealing with the issue of substitutability.

Costs and benefits of low-sulphur fuel standard for Baltic Sea shipping.

The maximum allowable fuel sulphur content for shipping in the Baltic Sea dropped from 1%S to 0.1%S in 1 January 2015. We provide a cost-benefit analysis of the sulphur reduction policy in the Baltic Sea Sulphur Emission Control Area (SECA). We calculated the abatement costs based on shipowners' optimal decision-making in choosing between low-sulphur fuel and a sulphur scrubber, and the benefits were modelled through a high-resolution impact pathway analysis, which took into account the formation and dispersion of the emissions, and considered the positive health impacts resulting from lowered ambient PM2.5 concentrations. Our basic result indicates that for the Baltic Sea only, the latest sulphur regulation is not cost-effective. The expected annual cost is roughly €465 M and benefit 2200 saved Disability Adjusted Life-Years (DALYs) or monetized €105 M. Based on our sensitivity analysis, the benefits yet have a potential to exceed the costs. The analysis neither takes into account the acidifying impact of sulphur nor the impact North Sea shipping has on the cost-benefit ratio. Lastly, a similar approach is found highly recommendable to study the implications of the upcoming Tier III NOx standard for shipping.

Nutrient abatement potential and abatement costs of waste water treatment plants in the Baltic Sea region.

We assess the physical potential to reduce nutrient loads from waste water treatment plants in the Baltic Sea region and determine the costs of abating nutrients based on the estimated potential. We take a sample of waste water treatment plants of different size classes and generalize its properties to the whole population of waste water treatment plants. Based on a detailed investment and operational cost data on actual plants, we develop the total and marginal abatement cost functions for both nutrients. To our knowledge, our study is the first of its kind; there is no other study on this issue which would take advantage of detailed data on waste water treatment plants at this extent. We demonstrate that the reduction potential of nutrients is huge in waste water treatment plants. Increasing the abatement in waste water treatment plants can result in 70 % of the Baltic Sea Action Plan nitrogen reduction target and 80 % of the Baltic Sea Action Plan phosphorus reduction target. Another good finding is that the costs of reducing both nutrients are much lower than previously thought. The large reduction of nitrogen would cost 670 million euros and of phosphorus 150 million euros. We show that especially for phosphorus the abatement costs in agriculture would be much higher than in waste water treatment plants.

Testing the potential for predictive modeling and mapping and extending its use as a tool for evaluating management scenarios and economic valuation in the Baltic Sea (PREHAB).

We evaluated performance of species distribution models for predictive mapping, and how models can be used to integrate human pressures into ecological and economic assessments. A selection of 77 biological variables (species, groups of species, and measures of biodiversity) across the Baltic Sea were modeled. Differences among methods, areas, predictor, and response variables were evaluated. Several methods successfully predicted abundance and occurrence of vegetation, invertebrates, fish, and functional aspects of biodiversity. Depth and substrate were among the most important predictors. Models incorporating water clarity were used to predict increasing cover of the brown alga bladderwrack Fucus vesiculosus and increasing reproduction area of perch Perca fluviatilis, but decreasing reproduction areas for pikeperch Sander lucioperca following successful implementation of the Baltic Sea Action Plan. Despite variability in estimated non-market benefits among countries, such changes were highly valued by citizens in the three Baltic countries investigated. We conclude that predictive models are powerful and useful tools for science-based management of the Baltic Sea.

Socially optimal drainage system and agricultural biodiversity: a case study for Finnish landscape.

This paper examines the socially optimal drainage choice (surface/subsurface) for agricultural crop cultivation in a landscape with different land qualities (fertilities) when private profits and nutrient runoff damages are taken into account. We also study the measurable social costs to increase biodiversity by surface drainage when the locations of the surface-drained areas in a landscape affect the provided biodiversity. We develop a general theoretical model and apply it to empirical data from Finnish agriculture. We find that for low land qualities the measurable social returns are higher to surface drainage than to subsurface drainage, and that the profitability of subsurface drainage increases along with land quality. The measurable social costs to increase biodiversity by surface drainage under low land qualities are negative. For higher land qualities, these costs depend on the land quality and on the biodiversity impacts. Biodiversity conservation plans for agricultural landscapes should focus on supporting surface drainage systems in areas where the measurable social costs to increase biodiversity are negative or lowest.

Reforming a pre-existing biodiversity conservation scheme: Promoting climate co-benefits by a carbon payment.

Protecting forests provides potential synergies for both biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. Payments for ecosystem services (PES) schemes are commonly used to promote biodiversity conservation in private forests, and including carbon as another target may be a cost-efficient way to promote both goals. We analyse a hypothetical reform on a forest biodiversity PES scheme by supplementing it with a carbon payment paid to landowners for also providing carbon benefits. With a site selection model, we examine how the proposed scheme could promote biodiversity and carbon values, and what level of the carbon payment would provide the highest synergy gains. We found that introducing the payment promotes both targets, but there is a temporal trade-off between selecting sites with high carbon storage or sites with good sequestration potential. The highest synergy gains are obtained in most cases by a second-best payment level of 10-20 € tCO2-1.

Multiple-pollutant cost-efficiency: Coherent water and climate policy for agriculture.

We examine the abatement costs for water and climate pollutants and their respective policies while accounting for cobenefits. We construct private and social marginal cost curves for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient runoff in Finnish agriculture. We find that the social marginal costs of reducing emissions that reflect the cobenefits are lower than the private costs. Accounting for greenhouse gas cobenefits from nutrient load reduction or water cobenefits from climate emissions reduction creates a gap between privately and socially optimal reduction levels. This gap varies depending on the valuation of cobenefits. The cost-efficient reduction of the focus pollutant is increased when cobenefits from the other pollutant are accounted for. For policies, this implies a higher cap or tax on the focus pollutant. We decompose the optimal tax rate to a basic tax on the focus pollutant and on an additional tax component depending on the level of cobenefits.

Toward the Baltic Sea Socioeconomic Action Plan.

This paper analyzes the main weaknesses and key avenues for improvement of nutrient policies in the Baltic Sea region. HELCOM's Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP), accepted by the Baltic Sea countries in 2007, was based on an innovative ecological modeling of the Baltic Sea environment and addressed the impact of the combination of riverine loading and transfer of nutrients on the ecological status of the sea and its sub-basins. We argue, however, that the assigned country-specific targets of nutrient loading do not reach the same level of sophistication, because they are not based on careful economic and policy analysis. We show an increasing gap between the state-of-the-art policy alternatives and the existing command-and-control-based approaches to the protection of the Baltic Sea environment and outline the most important steps for a Baltic Sea Socioeconomic Action Plan. It is time to raise the socioeconomic design of nutrient policies to the same level of sophistication as the ecological foundations of the BSAP.

Pneumatic vs. door-to-door waste collection systems in existing urban areas: a comparison of economic performance.

Pneumatic waste collection systems are becoming increasingly popular in new urban residential areas, and an attractive alternative to conventional vehicle-operated municipal solid waste (MSW) collection also in ready-built urban areas. How well pneumatic systems perform in ready-built areas is, however, an unexplored topic. In this paper, we analyze how a hypothetical stationary pneumatic waste collection system compares economically to a traditional vehicle-operated door-to-door collection system in an existing, densely populated urban area. Both pneumatic and door-to-door collection systems face disadvantages in such areas. While buildings and fixed city infrastructure increase the installation costs of a pneumatic system in existing residential areas, the limited space for waste transportation vehicles and containers cause problems for vehicle-operated waste collection systems. The method used for analyzing the cost effects of the compared waste collection systems in our case study takes into account also monetized environmental effects of both waste collection systems. As a result, we find that the door-to-door collection system is economically almost six times more superior. The dominant cost factor in the analysis is the large investment cost of the pneumatic system. The economic value of land is an important variable, as it is able to reverse the results, if the value of land saved with a pneumatic system is sufficiently high.