There is no clear consensus on the impact of local communities on the resources they manage, primarily due to a shortage of studies with large sample sizes that incorporate multiple causal factors. As governments decentralize resource management to local communities, it is important to identify factors that prevent resource degradation, to inform more effective decentralization, and help the development of institutional characteristics that prevent resource degradation. This study used remote sensing techniques to quantify forest biomass in tropical deciduous forests in Kanha Pench landscape of Central India, and used these metrics to identify factors associated with changes in forest biomass. Kanha Pench landscape was chosen because of its variation in forest use, and because forests were transferred over a period where satellite imagery was available to track changes. To verify that remote- sensing measured changes indeed constitute degradation, I conducted ecological studies in six villages, to understand changes in biomass, understory, canopy, species diversity and long-term forest composition in intensively used forests. To understand the impact of institutional variables on changes in forest, I interviewed members of forest management committees in fifty villages in the landscape, and tested which institutional variables were associated with changes in forest canopy since 2002, when the forests were decentralized to local communities. The empirical results are of particular conservation significance in India, where further decentralization of forests to local communities in scheduled under the Forest (Dwellers) Rights Act, 2006. Results indicate that local forest use is associated with decreases in forest biomass, understory, canopy cover, and changes in vegetation structure, species richness and diversity. Most importantly, I found that human use has the potential to alter long- term forest composition as transition of some species to higher size classes is altered where humans use forest more intensively. Particularly, species that are fire and trampling resistant are more likely to become mature trees in intensely used forests. Thus, local forest use is associated with forest degradation as the long-term trajectory of the forest is altered, and forests may not be able to provide ecosystem services including livelihood needs such as fuelwood, construction, and non-timber forest products in the future. At a broader scale, remote sensing techniques (optical imagery Landsat and RADAR imagery ALOS-PALSAR FBD) were able to quantify forest biomass at an acceptable accuracy (67 percent), while more easily operatable MODIS based EVI was not. Landscape analysis showed that changes in forest biomass from 2007 to 2010 were associated with high population density, high fire radiative power and greater distance to towns. Since people only travel approximately 2 kilometers for subsistence forest use, the significance of greater changes further from towns suggests that, at a broader landscape scale, forest degradation is not primarily due to local use, but may be a result of other factors. Action taken to exclude outsiders and lower meeting frequency of committees (never) were identified as institutional variables associated with remotely-sensed positive change in canopy over the period when forest management was transferred (2002 to 2010). Villages with no meetings were also associated with higher incumbency of committee Chairpersons and lower incumbency of other committee members. Simultaneously, while economic payments increased awareness and participation in forest management committees, economic payments were not associated with any action to exclude outsiders from forest use. This suggests that managers need to focus on factors besides economic payments to incentivize committees to exclude outsiders, especially as it is associated with positive changes in the forest. Further, while elite capture of resources (as indicated by incumbency and lack of inclusiveness in decision-making) is not helpful for social equity, it does not appear to be detrimental for forests. Overall, this study suggests a number of management strategies to reduce forest degradation. Managers could focus on forests at a distance from towns and roads, as this is where most negative change in forests appears to occur. They could also work with local communities so that their use of forests does not prevent regeneration of species important for ecosystem services. Managers could also work with committees to find strategies other than economic payments for incentivizing community protection of forests.

This dissertation in environmental history is concerned with human landscapes of groundwater extraction. Using temporal and spatial comparison, it examines the role of groundwater tunnel-wells and human understandings of groundwater availability in the Western Desert of Egypt; the Balearic Islands of Spain; and Iran. In an Epilogue and final chapter, it examines conceptions of 20th-century expertise for environmental knowledge and economic development.

This dissertation includes three papers related to climate, resource use, and market applications for sustainable development in developed/developing countries. The first paper describes the development of a game-theoretic economic model investigating the linkages between credit and insurance markets for smallholder farmers, and how a new market tool (weather index insurance) may help to overcome credit constraints in rural financial markets of developing countries. The second paper extends consideration of agricultural climate-risk management to potential skill in predictions of late-season rainfall over monsoonal Indonesia, with the aim of better understanding: (i) forecast skill and risk in this region, and (ii) how forecast information may be better tied with financial market products, such as index insurance, to improve smallholder farmer incentives, decision-making, and livelihoods under climate risk. The third paper, in turn, looks at forest resource management in Canada, and what the application of new carbon constraints and a market for carbon would mean for investment, production decisions, and indicators of sustainable forest management in the Canadian boreal, both in respects to the management of the landscape (i.e. the forest resource), and the development of the forestry sector and forest-based communities.

No description available.

The need for a sustainable development of natural resources has, in recent time taken centre stage in most natural resource rich countries. Environmental degradation resulting from the unsustainable development of petroleum resources has also resulted in the impoverishment of a large number of people. In countries like Nigeria, revenue accruing from energy and natural resources projects has become the mainstay of the nation's economy. However, the main beneficiaries of the wealth created by the exploration and production of petroleum are the state who owns all natural resources in line with the provisions of Nigerian law and the companies that exploit these resources. As a result, local landowners, do not directly benefit from petroleum exploitation even though they bear the direct consequences of petroleum exploitation. One consequence is the reduction of productive agricultural lands which has disrupted some of the traditional occupations of the people in the Niger Delta where the bulk of Nigeria's petroleum production takes place. It is this disruption that is the focus of this thesis. Despite Nigeria's support for the sustainable development of Nigeria's petroleum resources, environmental degradation resulting from the exploitation of petroleum has continued unabated. This raises a fundamental question as to the effectiveness of the regulatory regime governing petroleum activities in Nigeria. Using doctrinal and socio-legal methodology, this thesis explores the existing regulatory regime to ascertain if it is robust enough or effective to ensure the sustainable development of Nigeria's petroleum resources. It considers what impact, if any, does a failure in the regulatory regime have on the local population. Having established the failure of the legal regime, the study examines the consequences of the State's failure to sustainably develop its petroleum resources and consider if s Having established the failure of the legal regime, the study examines the consequences of the State's failure to sustainably develop its petroleum resources and consider if such failure has any impact on the stability and sustainability of petroleum projects themselves. Perhaps the most surprising finding to emerge from this study is that while the failure of the regulatory regime has negatively impacted the local population, the resulting social unrest or risks does not negatively impact the stability and sustainability of petroleum projects in real terms when compared with the cost of improving environmetal practices. In the search for solutions to address the failure of the existing regime and its consequences, the study examined relevant provisions of the new Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) intending to ascertain if there are significant improvements capable of ensuring the sustainable development of Nigeria's petroleum resources. It concludes that while the PIB contains some improvements on the existing regulatory regime, there are problematic provisions that require some attention if the nation is to achieve the goal of sustainable development of its petroleum resources.

Master's Thesis: Tobin Hanspal May 18th, 2012 Variability Among Determinants of Education Attainment: The Effect of Natural Resources and Institutional Quality in Sub-Sahara Africa ABSTRACT: This thesis exploits survey data from 21 Sub-Saharan African countries. After constructing a dataset of over 100,000 households to analyze the variability in traditional determinants of schooling attainment across exogenous domains, results indicate strong heterogeneity across countries in the effects of household composition and parental background. Additionally, findings suggest that 1) marginal effects of parental education are on average three times smaller for secondary compared to primary school attainment, 2) countries with lower corruption are correlated with higher levels of educational mobility, 3) dependence on natural resource revenue is associated with increased educational mobility. And finally 4) household wealth becomes a stronger determinant in countries with better institutions. Exogenous factors appears to have a large correlative impact on schooling outcomes, such as individuals belonging to the richest households have almost ten times the chances of completing primary schooling over the poorest quintile in less corrupt states compared to only a marginal advantage in highly corrupt states.

No description available.

One of the main threats to water quality in the Chesapeake Bay is contamination by bacterial loading from point and non-point sources. While only very high levels of fecal bacteria (greater than 200 MPN/100ml) indicate the potential of a health threat to humans from contact with water, lower concentrations (14 MPN/100 ml) make the shellfish from contaminated waters unfit for human consumption. Many nearshore areas that are vulnerable to bacterial contamination also are suitable for the propagation of shellfish, including the hard clam (Mercenaria mercenaria). This is especially true on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, where shallow, sheltered waters with optimal salinity and little pollution support a hard clam aquaculture industry that had an economic impact upwards of $48 million in 2004 (Murray and Kirkley, 2005). Over the past decade, however, development pressures on the Eastern Shore have increased, and land has been converted from forests and fields to subdivisions and strip malls at a faster rate than in the past. Even in the absence of a point source of bacteria such as a wastewater treatment plant, bacterial loads from non-point sources associated with increased land development have the potential to degrade water quality to the detriment of marine life and marine resource users. One area where the conflict between aquaculture and other water qualitydependent uses, and development pressure is building is the Old Plantation Creek watershed on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Using a GIS-based watershed model to simulate land use and associated fecal bacteria loads, linked to a Tidal Prism Water Quality Model to estimate the disbursement of bacteria throughout the water body, this study predicts that if development continues to the maximum buildout allowed under current regulations it would lead to the condemnation of a large portion of the shellfish growing waters in Old Plantation Creek. By coupling this linked watershed-water quality model with an economic Input/Output (I/O) model, it was possible to determine the economic impact of those condemnations to the aquaculture industry and the economy of Virginia.

The collection of fecal coliform (FC) monitoring data in shellfish growing waters is primarily to assess public health risks from consumption of contaminated product. The data is also commonly used to assess the potential sources and loads of bacteria entering the aquatic system. This project is intended to extend traditional methods of developing these assessments, by applying an inverse modeling approach to improve the estimation of FC loads in the small watersheds typically contributing to shellfish growing waters in Virginia. Many fecal contamination studies in lower Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, have conveniently focused on analyses over relatively small spatial and temporal scales. The potential sources of bacteria are numerous and the magnitude of their contributions is commonly unknown (Hyer and Moyer, 2004). The effects of stochastic events merely complicate the already difficult task of quantifying sources and loads in an inherently variable system (White et al., 2008). Instead of identifying and quantifying individual fecal bacteria sources, like deer or raccoons or domestic animals, it is herein proposed to analyze spatial and temporal patterns of fecal contamination on relatively large scales and quantify FC loadings based on land cover. The result would make it easier for managers to assign land-cover-based accountability to restore fecal contaminated environments. Monitoring of FC concentrations throughout Virginia by the Division of Shellfish Sanitation (DSS) provided an opportunity to analyze FC levels from 1984 to the present and quantify FC loadings by type of land cover. There are three aspects in this study---spatial analysis of FC data, temporal analysis of FC data, and FC loadings quantification based on the findings from spatial and temporal analyses. GIS tools and a variety of statistical methods are used in combination with an inverse modeling approach. The modeling method was based on some basic concepts incorporated in the Watershed Management Model and the Tidal Prism Model currently used to develop Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) models for Virginia waters. The core contributions of this dissertation are: (1) This study provided a thorough examination of FC monitoring data in Virginia coastal waters and described how contamination levels are expressed at different spatial and temporal scales. Analyses examined tidal effects, regional effects, land condition effects, and climate effects. Results not only inform management decisions, but also provide guidance for the subsequent quantification of fecal bacteria loadings. (2) Fecal bacteria loadings are quantified as a function of land cover. The model developed in this study avoids the problems associated with using highly varied and poorly documented FC production rates and population numbers. Although the model is simple, the magnitude of Fecal Coliform Event Mean Concentration (FCMC) values based on land covers effectively distinguished the seasonal FC loadings.

Many production activities typically produce undesirable outputs, e.g., the production of the pollutant sulfur dioxide in the generation of electricity. Traditional economic metrics may overstate the efficiency and productivity of these production activities by failing to account for the undesirable outputs. These omissions can lead to conclusions that are biased against resource conservation and protection. Many fisheries capture their target species concomitantly with undesirable outputs such as bycatch of juvenile fish, marine mammals, sea birds, and sea turtles. One such fishery is the California-Oregon (CA/OR) drift gillnet fishery (DGNF), which incidentally takes protected species, such as sea turtles and marine mammals while harvesting swordfish and thresher shark. Beginning in August of 2001, regulatory measures to reduce the take of endangered species (e.g., leatherback sea turtles) have required the annual closure of an area located between Point Conception and 45?? N. latitude, for the time period August 15 to November 15. This regulatory closure acts as a natural experiment for assessing the impact of the time-area closure on the productivity of the CA/OR DGNF. The three primary purposes of this research were to measure the impact of the 2001 time-area closure on the productivity of the CA/OR DGNF, and to estimate the opportunity cost or shadow price of undesirable outputs. These shadow prices provide lower bound estimates of the social costs of conservation regulations intended to protect endangered leatherback sea turtles and other bycatch species. An alternative method which models the joint production of both desirable and undesirable outputs, the directional output distance function approach, was used to estimate the efficiency and productivity of drift gillnet fishing trips, thus crediting trips with reductions in undesirable harvest and increases in desirable outputs for the time period 1996-2008. By incorporating undesirable harvest into the production process, a more appropriate measure of total factor productivity was calculated than what is provided by traditional productivity measures. The new productivity measure can be used to develop more effective policies designed to maintain or improve a fishery's economic performance. The results indicate that efficiency and productivity measures which ignore undesirable outputs substantially misinterpret the economic performance of economic trips. The model that incorporates undesirable outputs indicates that productivity per trip has been growing by 788 pounds of swordfish over the research period relative to the base year. This is considerably lower than the average growth of 964 pounds when undesirable outputs are ignored and 878 pounds when undesirable outputs are allowed to expand. However, post-closure averages suggest that conventional estimates understate the economic performance of the observed trips. Post-closure productivity growth resulted in an increase of 334 pounds of swordfish harvest when adjusted for undesirable outputs. Average trip shadow prices (per animal captured) revealed a conservation opportunity cost for the reduction of undesirable outputs of &2,500 for marketable discards, &6,600 for unmarketable discards, &28,800 for sea turtles, and &9,800 for marine mammals in forgone composite swordfish and thresher shark revenue.