Economics, Ecology, and Environmental Quality

Karr, James R.; Thomas, T.R.

doi:10.2307/2269549

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Numerous studies have been conducted since 1995 debunking the EKC (see Arrow et al 1995, Farber 1995, Grossman and Krueger 1995, Lash 1995, Daily et al 1996, Karr and Thomas 1996, Schindler 1996. Despite most criticisms, "the current debate is less on the validity of [the EKC] than on its interpretation" (Sprangenberg, 2001: 176).…”

Section: Trade Environment and Ekcsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trading away damage: Quantifying environmental leakage through consumption-based, life-cycle analysis

Ghertner

Fripp

2007

Ecological Economics

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This research quantifies the extent to which the US has shifted the environmental impact associated with the goods it consumes to other countries through trade. To achieve this, we use a life-cycle, consumption-based approach to measure the environmental impacts embodied in US trade activities for global warming potential (GWP), energy, toxics, and the criteria air pollutants.We use these values to determine the amount of environmental impact "leaked" from current, production-based approaches to analyzing national environmental trends for the years 1998-2004.We find that with reasonable assumptions about the environmental intensity of imports and exports, this leakage exceeds 10% for all studied impacts, exceeds 25% for GWP, energy, and most criteria air pollutants, and exceeds 80% for lead emissions and toxics. By including the environmental impacts embodied in trade activities into national environmental accounts, we provide consumption-based, US per capita, environmental impacts, which we use to evaluate the relationship between income and environmental impact. We find evidence for rising per capita environmental impacts with rising income in the US, contra the Environmental Kuznets Curve.The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for international environmental policy of increasing embodied emissions in trade.

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Section: Trade Environment and Ekcsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trading away damage: Quantifying environmental leakage through consumption-based, life-cycle analysis

Ghertner

Fripp

2007

Ecological Economics

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“…Resilience of biological systems is difficult to define and even more difficult to measure (Karr & Thomas, 1996). Using maximum production as a measure of health is the analogue of using gross national product as a measure of economic vitality; both measure only one aspect of ecological or economic health.…”

Section: What Is Health?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Using maximum production as a measure of health is the analogue of using gross national product as a measure of economic vitality; both measure only one aspect of ecological or economic health. Resilience of biological systems is difficult to define and even more difficult to measure (Karr & Thomas, 1996). Resilient to what?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining and measuring river health

1999

Self Cite

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Summary 1. Society benefits immeasurably from rivers. Yet over the past century, humans have changed rivers dramatically, threatening river health. As a result, societal well‐being is also threatened because goods and services critical to human society are being depleted. 2. ‘Health’— shorthand for good condition (e.g. healthy economy, healthy communities) — is grounded in science yet speaks to citizens. 3. Applying the concept of health to rivers is a logical outgrowth of scientific principles, legal mandates, and changing societal values. 4. Success in protecting the condition, or health, of rivers depends on realistic models of the interactions of landscapes, rivers, and human actions. 5. Biological monitoring and biological endpoints provide the most integrative view of river condition, or river health. Multimetric biological indices are an important and relatively new approach to measuring river condition. 6. Effective multimetric indices depend on an appropriate classification system, the selection of metrics that give reliable signals of river condition, systematic sampling protocols that measure those biological signals, and analytical procedures that extract relevant biological patterns. 7. Communicating results of biological monitoring to citizens and political leaders is critical if biological monitoring is to influence environmental policies. 8. Biological monitoring is essential to identify biological responses to human actions. By using the results to describe the condition, or health, of rivers and their adjacent landscapes and to diagnose causes of degradation, we can develop restoration plans, estimate the ecological risks associated with land use plans in a watershed, or select among alternative development options to minimize river degradation.

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“…Another attribute of a healthy stream is its ability to recover from disturbance, i.e., its resilience. Resilience has long been recognized as a component of ecosystem health (Rapport 1989, Arrow et al 1995), yet it is so difficult to quantify that some have questioned its usefulness in assessing environmental health (e.g., Karr and Thomas 1996). Studies of resistance and resilience of the stream biota to disturbances have a strong tradition in stream ecology.…”

Section: Goodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stream Health: Incorporating the Human Dimension to Advance Stream Ecology

Meyer¹

1997

Journal of the North American Benthological Society

222

150

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A healthy stream is an ecosystem that is sustainable and resilient, maintaining its ecological structure and function over time while continuing to meet societal needs and expectations. The concept described in this paper explicitly incorporates both ecological integrity (maintaining structure and function) and human values (what society values in the ecosystem). Stream ecologists who want their research to contribute to improving conditions in flowing waters require concepts like stream health, which will stimulate research in directions that will be more effective in restoring and preserving the unique organisms and ecosystems they study. Determining what is a healthy stream requires integration of stream ecology with disciplines such as economics and political science, because a concept of stream health must take into account the human attitudes and social institutions that are a part of the stream's societal watershed. New and fruitful directions for stream research lie in developing operational measures of stream health, which include the human dimension and move beyond identifying symptoms of ecological stress, and in elucidating the ecological processes and human actions that maintain stream health.

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Economics, Ecology, and Environmental Quality

Cited by 11 publications

References 10 publications

Trading away damage: Quantifying environmental leakage through consumption-based, life-cycle analysis

Trading away damage: Quantifying environmental leakage through consumption-based, life-cycle analysis

Defining and measuring river health

Stream Health: Incorporating the Human Dimension to Advance Stream Ecology

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