Restoring Coal Mining-Affected Areas: The Missing Ecosystem Services.

Multi-criteria decision analysis and cost-benefit analysis, either individually or in combination, have been used as the preferred tools to develop ecosystem services valuation, presenting significant discrepancies and variations between the calculated values. To counteract this problem, a new framework was developed based on a hierarchical weighting of the non-provisioning ecosystem services, using biodiversity as the reference ecosystem service since it is the easiest to apprehend. Their monetisation was made using the average price of EU carbon dioxide emission allowances during 2019 and 2020, obtaining reasonable and comparable results in line with what was expected for the study region. However, the revised EU Emissions Trading System Directive, which will apply from 2021-2030, generated a price escalation of carbon allowances, making it necessary to adjust or rethink the proposed framework. To achieve this goal, the paper proposes the introduction of new vectors or "missing ecosystem services" to counterbalance efforts to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions without necessarily removing humans from the equation: welfare and human health. As the linkages regarding ecosystem health, ecological restoration and human health are not well known, only welfare was incorporated into the framework. The results were highly satisfactory, in line with what was expected for the study region and the ones obtained before the price escalation of carbon allowances that started in 2021.

Work-related overexertion injuries in cleaning occupations: An exploration of the factors to predict the days of absence by means of machine learning methodologies.

The special characteristics of the cleaning industry have an important impact on the health and safety of its workforce. Making use of data from more than 79,000 occupational accidents, the aim of the present research is to use machine learning techniques to develop a model to predict incapacity for work (expressed in days of absence) due to work-related overexertion injuries among service sector cleaners in Spain. The severity of accidents caused by overexertion depends on several factors that can be classified into the following categories: injury typology, individual factors, employment conditions, accident circumstances and health and safety management and standards in the company.

Valuation of Ecosystem Services Based on EU Carbon Allowances-Optimal Recovery for a Coal Mining Area.

This paper presents a new way of valuing ecosystem services based on the price of EU carbon dioxide emission allowances. Its main advantage is that it facilitates the monetisation of non-provisioning ecosystem services, which is the Achilles heel of current frameworks. The research approach is built on the notion that land rehabilitation and ecological restoration involve trade-offs between ecosystem services. A quantitative assessment (valuation) of these trade-offs is necessary to make sound decisions. However, using different valuation methods to estimate monetary values creates a non-comparability in the valuation process that is difficult to correct. To address this problem, in the first place, the propagation of imprecise preference statements in hierarchical weighting is proposed, avoiding the non-comparability caused by the different current approaches while reducing the effort of preference elicitation. In the second place, to achieve consistency, monetisation of all non-provisioning ecosystem services was carried on the above comparison and the monetary valuation of the attribute with the most direct and market-related valuation possible: carbon sequestration, using the EU Emissions Trading System. A former coal mining area exemplifies the valuation of ecosystem services provided by alternative ecological restoration scenarios. The aim is to estimate their contribution to human well-being, understand the incentives faced by decision makers to manage ecosystems in different ways and assess the values of alternative solutions. An exercise is then carried out to show that the price of EU carbon permits (as of December 2021) after the price escalation that coincides with phase 4 of the allocation of allowances under the EU Emissions Trading System can be estimated by prioritising biodiversity over other ecosystem services.