The Handbook of Environmental Policy Evaluation

Abstract

Policy evaluation is an important and well-established part of the policy process, facilitating and feeding back to promote the ongoing effectiveness of policies that have been implemented or anticipating policies in the making. Environmental policy is a special case, presenting new complexities uncommon to other areas, which standard evaluation tools are ill-equipped to grapple with. It is also an area that is experiencing rapid growth throughout the world and knowledge is now needed at all levels of government and in NGOs, businesses and other organizations, all of whom are required to assess the effectiveness of their policies. This handbook is the first guide to environmental policy evaluation in practice, Beginning with an introduction to the general principles of evaluation, it explains the particular complexities native to the environmental sphere and provides a comprehensive toolkit of evaluation methods and techniques which the practitioner can employ and refer to again and again. The authors also consider design issues which may face the policy evaluator, including involvement of stakeholders, the sensitivities between them, the a priori assessment of the evaluability of a field, the maximization of the utilization of the evaluations' outcomes, and much more. Throughout, the theory is illustrated with practical examples from around the world, making this the essential companion guide for anyone tasked with ensuring that environmental policy fulfils its aims and achieves its potential.

Reservoir Sustainability and Sediment Management

“…CBAs have undergone significant changes in the United States from their beginnings involving the Corps' Federal Navigation Act of 1936. This act specified that if projected benefits outweighed the costs, then the project could be pursued (Crabb and Leroy 2008). By 1960, many techniques were used among federal agencies regarding benefit and cost categorization and evaluation, including the Federal Interagency River Basin Committee's Green Book (Subcommittee on Benefits and Costs 1950), the Bureau of the Budget Circular A-47 (1962), and the various organizations' internal standards and procedures (Hanley and Spash 1993;Hufschmidt 2000).…”

The practice of climate change policy evaluations in the European Union and its member states: results from a meta-analysis

“…Aside from its key function of determining whether a policy can be considered effective [7], policy evaluation can help policymakers learn from their experiences and, where needed, correct and amend existing policies. Policy evaluation can further strengthen public accountability by demonstrating whether policies live up to policymakers' promises [8,9]. Furthermore, policy evaluation can be used as a management tool to review the performance of government departments [8].…”

“…Policy evaluation can further strengthen public accountability by demonstrating whether policies live up to policymakers' promises [8,9]. Furthermore, policy evaluation can be used as a management tool to review the performance of government departments [8].…”

Barriers and Openings for Transforming Swedish Planning Practice – Examples of Landscape and Health Policy Integration

“…It is also a very delicate task, often loaded with uncertainty and conflicts (Gains & Clarke, 2007;Markus & Savini, 2016). This often leads to a substantial gap between how policy is defined on paper and how it is implemented in practice (Crabbé & Leroy, 2008). Various general explanations for this policy implementation gap have been suggested, including overly optimistic expectations among policymakers, a dispersed governance process, inadequate collaborative processes and the vagaries of the political cycle (Hudson, Hunter, & Peckham, 2019).…”