Search

The scarcity of water resources is a serious problem that concerns governments and international institutions. The importance of water resources and the expectations of billions of people with serious water shortages and subsequent food shortages have made European water policy makers focus all their attention on the sustainability of water as a resource. In this paper we propose a new Water Sustainability Indicator based on a Multi-Reference methodology (WSI-MR) which permits modeling compensation between the analyzed criteria and provides a participative approach. The WSI-MR provides results based on 19 variables grouped into 5 dimensions: availability, access, resilience, good governance and economic capacity. The indicator was applied to assess water sustainability in 27 European countries. The results showed that Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom obtained the best global results in terms of weak water (compensatory) sustainability. Using a non-compensatory approach, no country gained acceptable results in terms of strong sustainability. Some subdimensions related to climate change and the state of freshwater resources were detected as especially vulnerable in all the analyzed countries. Finally, the study identified some eastern European countries with low GDP and good performance of availability and cost of water, where bad results in terms of governance and water productivity could jeopardize water sustainability in the event of a potential economic development, if these limitations are not addressed. In a context of economic and political instability, due to the current armed conflict in nearby countries such as Ukraine, it is especially important to pay attention to these countries, whose good governance indicators could worsen even more. The proposed indicator is useful to identify warning signs and can contribute to the improvement in decision-making processes and to monitoring international water policies. • We propose a new participatory, flexible-compensatory and sequential index to assess water sustainability. • We assess water sustainability in 27 European countries since this new approach. • We find that no country gained acceptable results in terms of strong sustainability. • Climate change and the state of freshwater resources were especially vulnerable subdimensions in the analyzed countries. • We identify some vulnerable countries with good availability and cost of water, with bad governance and water productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new composite indicator for the assessment of the implementation of Aichi Targets (ATCI) following a benchmarking approach simultaneously considering performance and drawbacks. ATCI is based on 37 indicators related to the 5 Aichi Strategic Goals and its aggregated scores and ranks are calculated using three BoD-DEA models to integrate performance and drawback scores for Targets. ATCI was applied to 21 European countries and its scores were mapped and classified into four groups according to their location in performance-drawbacks space: S1) Caution, S2) Excellence, S3) Fragility and S4) Catching up. Countries in S1 and S3 are recommended to mitigate drawbacks to facilitate the implementation of the Aichi Targets. Results showed that 52% of the countries (Italy, Hungary, Greece, Czechia, Belgium, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Latvia, Slovenia and Slovakia) should pay urgent attention to the Aichi Targets since they show the highest limitations. Based on limitations, two country profiles were identified: countries with high economic development, high population density and corresponding impacts on biodiversity, and countries of medium/low economic development, weak governance and few drawbacks related to human impacts on the environment. These impacts, however, can be aggravated if their economic situation improves and institutional constraints are not addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we propose a goal programming model that provides a consensual aggregated solution minimizing conflicts to guide multi-stakeholder decision-making processes and generates information regarding stakeholder groups to be exploited for negotiation purposes. This model permits to quantify variations in conflicts when the relative contribution of each criteria changes and gives insight to negotiation strategies with application in conservation areas. A dataset of a case study in the Meseta Ibérica Biosphere Reserve (Portugal-Spain) was used to test and validate the model. Fifty people belonging to four groups (scientists, government, farmers and businesspersons) assessed 20 management objectives in four dimensions: conservation, logistical support, development, and governance. The results showed the highest conflicts to be found for fauna and flora, education, and guarantees objectives while the most conflictive groups were scientists and farmers. The proposed model substantially reduced the global and intergroup conflicts associated to the same objectives, modelling the weights assigned to each objective in each dimension to find the most consensual/least conflictive solutions. This model can be a useful tool to improve complex decision-making processes in conservation areas with strong conflicts between stakeholders, such as transboundary biosphere reserves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Combining AHP, GP, MCS methods can achieve consensual plans in protected areas. • Participative sequential processes pinpoint conflicts in an integrated manner. • The model can improve the integrated planning of areas with multi-level governance. • Intergroup conflicts were found in conservation and agroforestry of Meseta Ibérica. • Intercountry divergencies were found regarding the governance of Meseta Ibérica. In this paper, we propose a sequentially participative model for planning in transboundary protected areas based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process, Goal Programming and Monte Carlo simulation. The model was developed with two scenarios: one determinist and another with simulations that provide a multi-level ranking of the most relevant goals according stakeholders' preferences to establish priorities in the planning of protected areas. Moreover, the proposed methodology is capable of identifying conflicts, providing a comparison between the most likely priorities and the most consistent group priorities associated with each planning goal. The model was tested in a Portuguese-Spanish Reserve called Meseta Ibérica and it permitted the identification of the highest conflicts in conservation, agroforestry, local development, fire prevention, wildlife conservation and certification of local products. Moreover, it found strong intercountry conflicts related to development and planning goals associated with governance at the most specific level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]