Based on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork between September 2011 and December 2013 in rural Yunnan, this dissertation explores the political and technical project of making water available to human use in a time of drought and environmental stress. In particular, it focuses on the collective challenge undertaken by people in this part of China to keep the water flowing through their land and their communities against many and diverse odds. The main questions it addresses are: How is water shortage experienced and confronted by Chinese citizens? How is water circulated among different people and what kind of cultural practices and institutions do they create in the attempt to meet this very basic human need? What kind of social relationships and relationships with the environment ensue from this attempt? What does it take to keep the water flowing in present day, environmentally degraded rural China? The overarching argument of the dissertation is that if fresh water still remains available in north-eastern Yunnan, this is not solely thanks to State policies or to the rational strategies adopted by public and private entities, but more significantly to the commitment of ordinary villagers and local officials who are doing their best to keep flourishing in what has now become a water-poor area. Because water keeps running thanks largely to the technical knowledge and dedication of ordinary people, it can be said that its management has a human dimension. Relationships of care and dependence, but also of mistrust and antagonism, are implicated in the active project of distributing and allocating fresh water for human use, inflecting the modalities and direction of its course. Securing water for human consumption is, above all else, a cooperative project: one pursued by people who are differently positioned across the social spectrum. By committing to this project, they also tighten and sustain human relationships, and envision the possibilities of a differently organised society in which water could be available to all.

This thesis contains five studies that make use of non-market valuation techniques and of data collected in Mexico to make methodological and policy contributions to the field. In the order that they are presented in the thesis these are: * a contingent valuation study, based on data collected face-to-face of a representative sample of the population of Mexico City, to calculate a value of statistical life for Mexico and make an assessment of whether the benefit-transfer values that have been and continue to be used in the country are appropriate for policy-making; * a study that uses data collected online on whether the type of organisation sponsoring a contingent valuation survey affects the amount participants say they are willing to pay for the good being valued (in this case mortality risk reductions), all else equal; * a study that uses the same dataset to consider the relationship between trust in institutions and other forms of social capital and contingent valuation results; * an hedonic pricing analysis that makes use of several datasets (including high-resolution property data that is not in the public domain) and seeks to improve on previous attempts at applying this method in a developing country context (jointly using spatial econometrics and an instrumental variables approach); and * a short study on whether there is a relationship between air quality, social capital and subjective wellbeing in Mexico City.

Cement -based solidification/stabilisation (s/s) has been applied to the disposal of heavy metal bearing contaminated soil and wastes for approximately 50 years. This work studies the interactions of cement and heavy metals and provides further insight into encapsulation of heavy metals in cement matrices. The pastes and suspensions of calcium oxide, calcium hydroxide, pure cement phases ( 38, C}A, C4AF, Ci 2A7 and CA) and Portland cement with or without heavy metals (Zn2+ , Pb2+, Cu2+ and Cr3+) were examined by a number of analytical techniques. These techniques were X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), solid state magic angle spinning/nuclear magnetic resonance (MAS/NMR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), differential thermal analysis (DTA) and thermogravimetry (TG). Thermodynamic modelling using a geochemical code, PHREEQC, and the edited database, was carried out to elucidate the chemical reactions occurring in cement/heavy metal systems. Heavy metals acted as accelerators for hydration of CaO, CaS and Portland cement except that Zn2+ retarded the early-age hydration of Cfi and Portland cement. This work confirmed that the precipitation of portlandite was retarded due to the hydrolysis of heavy metals. Calcium ions resulting from the decomposition of cement phases combined with heavy metals to form calcium-heavy metal double hydroxides, including CaZn2(OH)6.2H2O, Ca2(OH)4Cu(OH)2.mH2O and Ca2Cr(OH)7 .3H2O. The carbonation of CaS and Portland cement resulted in the formation of calcium carbonate and the condensation of silicates from single tetrahedra to branching sites and three-dimensional frameworks (low Ca/Si ratio C-S-H gel). The polymerisation of C-S-H gel, and the polymorphism conversion and decomposition temperature of calcium carbonate were influenced by heavy metals. The incorporation of heavy metal cations in C-S-H gel is similar to that seen in glass. Heavy metals acted as network modifiers or network intermediates. In hydrated Portland cement pastes, aluminium was partitioned in ettringite or calcium carboaluminate. After carbonation, this work revealed that aluminium was in the tetrahedral form, forming mixed AlCVSiC^ branching or three-dimensional networks. This thesis presents the new structural models for C-S-H gel and the chemical mechanisms of 38 reactions with water and carbon dioxide in the presence or absence of heavy metals. In the absence of gypsum, the reaction products detected in the pastes of C3A, C4AF, Ci2A? and CA were gehlenite hydrate, calcium carboaluminate, C4AH X and hydrogarnet. Heavy metals, especially Zn 2+ , inhibited the formation of hydrogarnet and promoted the conversion of C-A-H to calcium carboaluminate and calcium carbonate. In the presence of gypsum, the major hydration product of C^A was ettringite. During carbonation, COs'" substituted for SO 4 2 " and formed calcium carboaluminate, and eventually transformed into calcium carbonate and gibbsite. The conversion of metastable calcium carbonate polymorphs (aragonite and vaterite) to calcite through Ostwald ripening occurred very slowly in the carbonated pastes containing gypsum. The reactivity of C 3 A, C^Ay, CA and C4AF during carbonation was much lower than seen during hydration. Heavy metals influenced the rates and products of hydration or carbonation of CsA, Ci2A7, CA and C4 AF and were completely incorporated in the reaction products of these phases. Thermodynamic modelling confirmed that accelerated carbonation could be beneficially employed to cement-based s/s to improve its effectiveness. Calculations of solubility and equilibrium phase assemblage are consistent with the experimental examination obtained in this work.

This thesis addresses two important issues of environmental and resource economics: how agricultural households adapt to climate change (CC) and how the households recover from climate hazards. Chapter 1 attempts to enunciate the perspective of the overall research and the rationale for researching on Bangladesh. It summarizes the global evidences of CC and disaster, their impacts, vulnerabilities in agriculture sector, significance of adaptation and poverty impact of disaster. Chapter 2 examines whether crop choice is affected by CC and the extent to which households switch their crops in response to the CC scenarios. It finds that crop choice is climate-sensitive and a shift in crop choices will take place in Bangladesh in response to CC scenarios. This research also finds that crop choice will be more sensitive to change in temperature than change in rainfall. Chapter 3 examines the effect of CC on crop diversification and the households’ response to CC scenarios. It finds that crop diversity is climate sensitive and this diversity in different locations varies with climatic conditions. Effects of rainfall scenarios on crop diversity are much lower compared to the effects of temperature. Chapter 4 investigates the impact of cyclone on consumption and income dynamics in a quasi-experimental setting and finds that low income people are more sensitive of their asset loss to income generation compared to the high income people, and disaster causes income loss, but, people show their resilience in accelerating higher income growth compared to the non-affected areas. Chapter 5 examines poverty group dynamics in the post-shock period and the existence of a poverty trap in the cyclone affected coastal region of Bangladesh. It finds that asset loss or asset holding impacts the dynamism of the poverty groups and poverty traps exists at low levels of income in the disaster affected areas compared to the unaffected areas.

This thesis aims to explore how some of the findings from behavioural economics and the social capital literature can apply in the case of electricity access in developing countries with a focus on solar off-grid electrification. And specifically on solar home systems and solar hybrid mini-grid electrification in rural Guinea-Bissau. Specifically, I am drawing from studies looking at the role of discounting anomalies on technology adoption and recurring payments, the role of trust on technology adoption and the role of computational limitations and the use of simplification strategies on the accuracy of frequency and expenditure reporting in surveys. This exercise aims to inform electrification policy in developing countries, demonstrate instances where insights from behavioural economics and social capital can enrich our understanding of the underlying barriers and drivers of electrification access, but also demonstrate how some selected case studies can help to strengthen empirical findings from other contexts. Chapter 1 provides an introduction on the issues surrounding electrification access in developing countries and introduces the research motivation and the research objectives of this thesis. This chapter also discusses the relevant gaps in the literature, how this thesis attempts to address them and the contribution to knowledge. Finally, the research location is introduced. Chapter 2 presents the results of a stated preference study that uses a choice experiment to estimate willingness to pay for a solar home system, and the trade-off between different repayment schemes and maintenance responsibilities, in the region of Bafatá in Guinea-Bissau. Results suggest that preferences are driven both by income constraints as well as self-control problems, excessive discounting and self-reported trust for a number of actors. Chapter 3 explores the main determinants in the decision to connect to a solar hybrid mini-grid, in the semi-urban community of Bambadinca in Guinea-Bissau, with a focus on social capital as expressed in trust. Connections are driven largely by the socio-economic background of the households and prior energy use patterns. However, there is evidence that social capital as expressed in self-reported trust for one’s neighbours, also has a positive effect on connections through facilitating the informal expansion of the grid, whereby households use their neighbours’ infrastructure to connect to the service. Chapter 4 explores how the technology of prepaid meters can help researchers acquire more insight regarding the accuracy of survey responses and the response strategies used. More specifically, this chapter tests the accuracy of reported energy expenditure in surveys, when using differently defined recall periods, namely a ‘usual’ week versus a ‘specific’ (i.e. last) week. We compare real expenditure data for prepaid meters for electricity, from a solar hybrid mini-grid operating in the semi-urban community of Bambadinca in Guinea-Bissau, with answers from a survey where respondents are asked to state their expenditures, randomly, in different recall periods. Overall, our results show that respondents tend to over-report the level and frequency of their energy expenditures, but reporting is more accurate when the ‘specific’ period rather than when the ‘usual’ period is used. Chapter 5 investigates the role of self-control problems on prepayment patterns for electricity provided by a solar hybrid mini-grid installed in the semi-urban community of Bambadinca in Guinea-Bissau. Prepayment patterns are found to be mostly driven by income constraints and equipment in use however there is evidence that individuals with self-control problems as well as individuals being charged with an additional time-varying tariff (a higher tariff between 7pm to 12am) resort to smaller refill levels possibly as a strategy to consume less electricity at home. Chapter 6 provides concluding remarks.

This thesis investigates the economic implications of climate change uncertainties. It seeks to contribute to the existing literature by exploring various aspects of how uncertainty can and should be integrated in economic assessments of climate impacts and what this entails for policy-making. For several reasons, including analytical tractability and the difficulties of accommodating uncertainty in individual and social decision-making, the full scale of climate change uncertainties is often artificially reduced in economic assessments of climate change, e.g. through the use of best estimates, averages or mid-point scenarios. However, the impacts of future climate change on humankind are highly uncertain and require full investigation. The approach taken in this thesis has therefore been to ask new questions related to the economic implications of climate change uncertainties and to address each problem using innovative methods, which allow a more accurate characterization of the uncertainties at stake and of their potential interactions. This thesis comprises four standalone chapters (Chapter 2 to 5). The first chapter (Chapter 2) investigates how uncertainty about the benefits of climate mitigation, about future economic growth and about the relationship between these uncertainties affects the rate at which we should discount the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions today. The second chapter (Chapter 3) examines the impact of including the permafrost carbon feedback in the DICE Integrated Assessment Model on the social cost of carbon and on the optimal global mitigation policy. Whereas the first two chapters rely on the use of an Integrated Assessment Model, the final two chapters are based on econometric methods applied to weather and climate variables. The third chapter (Chapter 4) explores the impacts of droughts on regional economic growth in the United States. The last chapter (Chapter 5) examines the implications of temperature on inflation and central banks’ policy interest rates.

In the UK over the past two decades there has been a renewed investment in outdoor learning for children. This movement draws on ideas initially popularised in the United States about the importance of connecting children with nature. This movement advocates teaching children about and allowing them to connect with the natural world to provide valuable learning experiences for their personal development. Forest schools are part of this movement and have been established in the UK in response to concerns that children have lost contact with nature. This thesis provides a critical analysis of four such programmes including two forest schools, a school garden and a nature reserve located within the Midlands. It involved an immersive ethnographic study that took place over the 2014-2015 school year involving walking interviews, focus groups and participant observations. In this thesis, assumptions surrounding children’s supposed disconnection to the morethan-human world have been unpicked. A more-than-social approach is taken moving beyond narrow essentialist constructions of nature and childhood. This approach is combined with performativity in an exploration of participant practices in outdoor learning. In relation to the outdoor learning programmes, it was found that they incorporated Cartesian binaries – child-adult, male-female and people-nature. The knowledges and learning within them did little to encourage more open ways of understanding and being in the world. However, in the outdoor learning spaces there were opportunities for other ways of learning, which the children unconsciously exploited and developed. There were moments of experiential learning, whereby children assembled an array of more-than-humans to produce ways of learning and knowing about the world, which transformed their view of it. In these moments children were open to moving away from Cartesian versions of nature and created more hybrid and fluid natures.

The field of behavioral economics enhances the ability of social science research to effectively inform socially efficient climate policy at the microeconomic level, in part due to the dependence of climate outcomes upon present and future human consumption patterns. Since the behavioral field is relatively new, environmental and resource economists still have scarce evidence as to why people make particular decisions. For this thesis, I have conducted both field and laboratory experiments to address market failures highly relevant to environmental outcomes, namely international public goods problems and externalities from fuel and resource consumption. My methodology capitalizes upon the benefits of each experimental methodology—laboratory, artefactual, framed, and natural—to capture the effects of particular informational and contextual elements on subsequent behavior. While each methodology has its potential advantages and shortcomings, I contend that the complete toolkit is necessary to study a broad range of relevant environmental contexts. For instance, while natural field experiments are generally considered the “gold standard” in terms of exogeneity and generalizability, many settings in which field experimentation may provide tremendous insight preclude randomization across unknowing subjects. Similarly, researchers may not have access to populations of interest, though lab experimentation may still provide insights into the behavior of these populations or reveal motivations not yet captured in neoclassical utility functions. In this thesis, I will detail results from one of each experimental type, each suited to the context of interest. The natural field experiment in Chapter 2 aims to discern whether there is a role for environmental preferences and cognitive dissonance to play in encouraging individuals to engage in resource-conserving behaviors, and suggests that the latter may be effective in changing the behavior of green consumers. Chapter 3 presents the results of a large-scale framed field experiment comprising all eligible captains in Virgin Atlantic Airways, which tested the impacts of personalized information, tailored targets, and prosocial incentives on captains’ performance of fuel-efficient behaviors. In addition to documenting a substantial Hawthorne effect, we provide intent-to-treat estimates of the three types of feedback to show that tailored targets are the most (cost) effective strategy of those implemented. I introduce a complementary artefactual field experiment in Chapter 4, which allows for detailed scrutiny of captains’ fuel efficiency based on their social preferences as well as preferences and attitudes toward risk and uncertainty. I find that more risk-averse captains are more prone to over-fuel, that prosocial incentives increase captains’ well-being, and that revealed altruism increases responsiveness to prosocial incentives. Finally, Chapter 5 aims to provide insight into the effects of “side deals” in facilitating cooperation on international climate agreements. Using a lab experiment, we find that side deals alter the composition of group contribution to climate change mitigation, eliciting increased effort on the part of players with higher wealth.

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The collection of source segregated household food waste is becoming increasingly popular, because of its potential to divert biodegradable materials from landfill, increase recycling rates and provide a contaminant-free feedstock for anaerobic digestion. Various types of kerbside household food waste collection systems are operating in the UK and in Europe; however, studies on the energy consumption of integrating source separated food waste with collection of other waste fractions are very limited. A mechanistic model was developed in this research as a waste collection assessment tool (WasteCAT) for scoping and assessment of collection systems. Data collected from six local authorities in England was applied to verify and validate the modelling tool. Fuel consumption and other parameters such as total distance travelled (a proxy for vehicle lifespan), total time spent (a proxy for staffing costs), number of collection vehicles required (a proxy for capital costs), and arrangement of waste types and compartments were also assessed in this research, as these factors may also influence the selection of kerbside waste collection systems. A typical hypothetical town of 25,000 households was chosen to study the performance of separate, co-collection, kerbside-sorted and partially-sorted collection of household waste by different sizes and types of single and compartmentalised collection vehicles at different collection frequencies. Comparing the performance of the four collection systems, kerbside partially-sorted collection required the least fuel, while co-collection of household waste always had the best performance in terms of total travelling distance, time spent and number of collection vehicles required. The difference between the best and the worst systems was up to 156% for fuel use, 131% for distance travelled, 63% for time spent and 141% for vehicles required. Besides that, inappropriate allocation of compartment and waste type could increase fuel use by up to 1.1 times in co-collection, 2.27 times in kerbside-sorted and 3.08 times in kerbside partially-sorted collection. The research shows WasteCAT could provide a powerful tool for exploring alternative options. Keywords: Waste collection, collection vehicles, fuel consumption, food waste.