Environmental degradation is threatening the provision of ecosystem services (IPBES, 2019). In an attempt to reverse this degradation trend, the use of economic incentives has increasingly gained prominence in environmental policy. In particular, payments for ecosystem services (PES), a type of economic incentive in which ecosystem services providers voluntarily receive a payment in exchange for the provision of ecosystem services, has increasingly gained relevance worldwide (Salzman et al., 2018). PES aim to enhance environmental conservation by altering the economic costs or benefits associated with targeted pro-environmental actions. However, a large amount of empirical evidence shows that PES, like other economic incentives, could potentially crowd out (or crowd in) intrinsic motivations for environmental conservation, which may sometimes translate into unexpected undesirable overall effects (for reviews, see Bowles and Polania-Reyes, 2012; Rode et al., 2015). Up to date, the conditions under which PES, and economic incentives in general, induce such motivational crowding effects are still not fully understood. In analyzing these effects, economic theory has often taken for granted non-monetary factors of economic incentives because they do not involve changes in prices or incomes. However, experimental evidence show that such factors could be relevant to preventing crowding-out effects or even creating crowding-in effects (e.g., see Ariely et al., 2009; Heyman and Ariely, 2004). In the context of PES, a large proportion of the experimental literature has focused on studying the effect of design features related to the monetary elements of these programs (e.g., Kerr et al., 2012; Kolinjivadi et al., 2019; Midler et al., 2015; Moros et al., 2019; Narloch et al., 2012), while fewer experimental studies have focused on non-monetary factors such as the degree of participation in the design or implementation process (e.g., Jack, 2009; Moros et al., 2019; Vollan, 2008). The present thesis contributes to this line of literature by examining whether PES could be more or less effective when specific non-monetary factors are adjusted in PES design or implementation. This thesis comprises an introductory chapter (Chapter 1) and a concluding chapter (Chapter 5) that serve as an overview of the thesis, together with three research articles (Chapters 2, 3 and 4). In each of the research articles belonging to this thesis, a specific non-monetary factor in the design or implementation context of PES is analyzed. Prior versions of the research articles in chapters 2-4 have been published as working papers on SSRN. Their content is briefly summarized below. Chapter 2 is entitled “Beyond a Market Discourse: Is Framing a Solution to Avoid Motivational Crowding-Out in Payments for Ecosystem Services?” and is co-authored by S. Engel and E. Midler. The goal of this article is to examine the role of the framing of a PES policy in preventing motivational crowding effects. In particular, it focusses on the short- and long-term effects of two dimensions of framing on: 1) using different terms to denote the payment, and 2) emphasizing different types of ecosystem services obtained from nature to motivate its conservation. This article analyses this topic with a lab-in-the-field experiment conducted with 157 farmers from a Colombian municipality. The findings of this article suggest that the framing of a policy could be a rather inexpensive tool to mitigate motivational crowding effects. In particular, a framing that acknowledges forest conservation as an achievement and a framing that emphasizes the cultural ecosystem services obtained from forest results in better conservation outcomes relative to a control framing. Chapter 3 is entitled “Who is Benefiting Downstream? Experimental Evidence on the Relevance of Upstream-Downstream Geographic Distance for Water Provision.” and is co-authored by S. Engel, E. Midler and T. Vorlaufer. The goal of this article is to study the relevance of the social distance between ecosystem service providers and beneficiaries for the short- and long-term motivational crowding effects of a PES policy. This article analyses this topic with a lab-in-the-field experiment in which the salience of social identity is defined by the real geographical distance between ecosystem service providers and beneficiaries, rather than being artificially induced. In particular, the experiment involves 60 rural farmers from a Colombian municipality, whose water provision decisions affected passive downstream beneficiaries in either the same municipality or the capital city of Bogotá. The findings suggest that although sharing a closer place identity with downstream beneficiaries is relevant to determine baseline water provision, it does not affect average motivational crowding effects in the short and long term. Nonetheless, predictions from the econometric analysis of the heterogeneous treatment effects suggest that emphasizing the benefits provided to people with whom upstream providers feel more socially identified could mitigate long-term crowding-out effects on providers with weak levels of place identification, without compromising the short-term effectiveness on farmers with a strong place identity and already high provisioning levels. Therefore, in the absence of a well-defined group of downstream beneficiaries financing a PES program, it could be more effective to emphasize local benefits, rather than the general benefits to society. Chapter 4 is entitled “Behavioral Spillovers from Mixing Conservation Policies in Neighboring Areas: An Experimental Analysis on Fairness Perceptions toward Unequal Policies.” and is co-authored by S. Engel and E. Midler. The goal of this article is to analyze the impact of fairness concerns on the effectiveness of a policy that is implemented in an unequal institutional context. In particular, it compares the effectiveness of implementing a specific economic incentive when a monetary reward is being implemented in a neighboring area, to the effectiveness of implementing the same economic incentive over the entire area. This article analyses this topic with a lab-in-the-field experiment conducted with 276 farmers from a Colombian municipality. In particular, the treatment recreated three institutional contexts: 1) a high priority area where PES are implemented next to a low priority area that is excluded from PES, 2) a protected area with land-use restrictions surrounded by a buffer area where PES are implemented, and 3) a protected area where PES are implemented on top of land-use restrictions, surrounded by a buffer area with only PES. Surprisingly, the findings show that fairness concerns do not increase with the level of inequality between neighbors. Although PES exclusion and simultaneously implementing PES inside and outside a protected area tend to increase fairness concerns and reduce forest conservation relative to the control groups, implementing PES only in the buffer area of a protected area decreases fairness concerns and increases forest conservation by those within the protected area, even after the policies are removed. Overall, this article stresses the relevance of considering the institutional context and context-specific fairness perceptions as a relevant factor when defining the targeting criteria for the implementation of environmental policies.

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The cumulative dissertation at hand addresses the question of how promising the successful implementation of the WFD is. Since research on implementation deficits has so far mainly considered national and sub-national levels, regional and local scales are taken centre stage within the dissertation. The Hase river catchment, which is located in one of Germany s most intensive livestock areas, serves as an example. The thesis shows that the procedural character of the WFD and regulative uncertainties give way to interpretation and action leeway, which will be pivotal to judgement on implementation success at lower levels. Moreover, the consistent operationalisation of nitrate limits in particular has led to major difficulties during implementation in Germany from which restraints can be expected for the preparation of river basin management plans and the program of measures. As to the regional level, implementation restraints also upraise due to socio-economic dependencies from agriculture and a high identification of the regional population with this economic sector have placed agriculture in a powerful position. In conclusion, one can state that various implementation restraints occur and the cause of these can be found at all scales European, sub-national and regional. The results of this dissertation concerning the multi-level system reveal that the relationship and interaction of the various scales will be given increased attention during the implementation process of European environmental policy. Besides the national and sub-national scale, the regional and local levels will be of equal importance. The question of suitable scales for implementation decisions and measures also offers pivotal approaches to undertake future research. Further research needs occur with new regional studies at national and international scales, with regard to the future of water protection in the course of the reform of German federalism and the current debate on climate change.

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In this thesis, a conceptual framework and related methodological approaches for complex system design are developed and tested. The approaches are based on insights from the fields of Systems Engineering (SE) and System-of-Systems Engineering (SoSE), as well as Natural Resources Management (NRM). The focus of this thesis is on: 1) the development of the System-of-Systems Design Framework “FRESCO”, 2) the development of a methodological framework for participatory systems design, 3) the application of the framework in two case studies, and 4) the development of an evaluation scheme to qualitatively measure the effectiveness of the methodological framework. The overall objectives of this doctoral dissertation are to highlight synergies between SE and NRM and to develop a methodological framework for designing decision making processes in a human-nature-technology context. The complexity of coupled and complex adaptive systems (CAS) such as the Water-Energy-Food Nexus (WEF-Nexus) and sustainability strategies, influences the design of decision-making processes and strategy building. Integrated process design which is promoted by the developed frameworks can assist in such tasks on an urban, regional, and national level.

Modern agriculture is causing a wide range of environmental problems. By regulating the agricultural sector, human societies try to find a balance between enabling the production of food and public goods and preventing negative consequences for the environment. In the European Union this is mainly achieved through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Since many of the environmental indicators are still showing negative trends, an ongoing evaluation and adaptation of the policy instruments included in the CAP is asked for. At the same time, the field of policy evaluation is more and more incorporating a behavioral economic perspective on human behavior, one that deviates from the homo oeconomicus model that has long dominated research in this area. This thesis presents a study on “Behavioral Economics of Agri-Environmental Policies” by combining themes from agricultural and environmental economics with methods and perspectives from behavioral and experimental economics. It thereby contributes to the emerging field of behavioral agricultural economics. Specifically, it aims to shed light on the behavioral drivers of pro-environmental decisions of farmers and how these insights can be used to evaluate and adapt the CAP. With a lab-in-the-field experiment with farmers from Lower Saxony in Germany, an influence of the framing of the farmers’ societal role, their self-identity, as well as control aversion and feelings of warm glow on farmers’ behavior was uncovered. From a policy perspective, the results of this thesis provide a case for the continued use of both mandatory and voluntary policy instruments. Furthermore, with a Principal Components and Cluster Analysis, a multi-facetted picture of different farmer self-identities prevalent in the sample population was revealed. Based on a literature review, the thesis also provides an analysis of how behaviorally-informed interventions might increase the environmental performance of the CAP in the future.