MAP OF ENVIRONMENTAL LOADS OF CATALONIA Phase I Enric Pol (epol@ub)

MAP OF ENVIRONMENTAL LOADS

OF CATALONIAPhase I

Enric Pol ([email protected])

Maria Rosa Bonet, Andrés Di Masso, Joana Espín, Tomeu Vidal

PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP

Department of Social Psychology - University of Barcelona

Origine of Map of Environmental Loads of Catalonia

It’s an idea of

PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP

in the frame of Environmental Intervention Program

Department of Social Psychology - University of Barcelona

Supported by the Catalan Government

to be applied to his environmental and territorial management system

Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP

What’s the Map of Environmental Loads of Catalonia?

The Map of Environmental Loads of Catalunya (MELC) is a data-base in GIS (Geographical Information System) format which contains the environmental loads of each part of the territory taking into consideration its physical and social vulnerability.


Which is the MELC utility?

The MELC is designed to become a useful instrument for the decision making on the location of facilities and environmental services.

The specific characteristics of each project will have to be contrasted with the specificities and capacities of the different places where the facilities or services might be hosted.

The MELC can be useful for the elaboration of studies of environmental impact that must be subjected to an E.I.A., as well as for the valuation of the proposal and the elaboration of the E.I. Statement by the competent governamental organism.

Particularly, the MELC aims to be useful for the territorial and city-planning and the Environmental Evaluation of Plans and Projects according to directive 2001/42/EC, the denominated Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment.


Why a MELC?

The Nimby effect (Not in my back yard) has acquired a special relevance and even virulence, independently of which the implied company, public administration or goverment level might be.

The increasing number of environmental conflicts registered in Catalunya can be seen in the growing emergence of platforms and other associations that constitute a systematic opposition to any intervention project in the territory.


The problem

Increasing Nimby effect (see theoretical support in the European Review of Applied Psychology (Pol et al. 2003/4)

Some particular interests, the interests of some social groups, or the interest of some political perspectives often use the proposals of facilities implying some kind of environmental loads, as an excuse for confrontation, independently of the objectivity of the argumentations adduced by any part.

The increase of the environmental awareness (that is necessary to improve the environmental behavior of people, companies and institutions, and orients it towards a sustainable development), makes more frequent the movements of rejection to facilities and services that, although considered necessary, are not accepted by the population: eventually it is hard to find locations or drawn up.


Catalonia in Europe


Standards that guide management

The management and the decisions on facilities and services of environmental character must be done in an integrated way (Catalan legislation, Law IIAA, 27/2/98; European IPPC Directive).

The European principle of subsidiarity aims to approach the solution of the problem to the place where it takes place.

Subsidiarity usually hits frontally with what’s generally considered as ‘general interest’.

All together creates a situation that is hard to manage, revealing that sometimes the environmental problematic cannot be redirected/reoriented.


Expected benefits of the proposal

Reduction of conflicts and Environmental management could be very much benefited if there was a precise description of the loads and environmental responsibilities that the territory supports:

Objectively

Describing how these loads and responsibilities are distributed on the territory, considering the environmental vulnerability, understood as ecological fragility and social fragility.

According to the citizen’s perceptions


Objectives of the global MELC project

General Objective

Elaboration of a Map of Environmental Loads of Catalonia

To inventory the local loads derived from housing and urban processes, either legal or illegal.

Specific Objectives

To inventory the local loads of agrarian, cattle and fishery activities, with environmental effects that extend the local balance.

To inventory the local loads of industrial, energetic, miner and extractive activities with environmental effects that extend the local balance.


To inventory the local loads of services and infrastructures with environmental effects that extend the local balance.

Specific Objectives …

To establish an index of anthropization of the territory.

To inventory the present and foreseeable demographic and city-planning pressure on the territory units that are considered.

In addition to current catalogues of protected spaces and places of natural interest, to establish a catalogue of spaces of social interest by its patrimonial qualities, of life styles or forms of production to preserve. To inventory or to catalogue any other aspects not considered in

the previous ones and that can be of interest.

To know the citizen’s perception of loads through survey.


Phases of the MELC project

Phase 1 Establishment of criteria for the elaboration of indices and indicators of environmental loads that need to be considered for the elaboration of the MELC

Phase 2 Creation of a data base from the scopes defined in phase 1

Phase 3 Survey of perception of environmental burden

Phase 4 Integration of data on the Map of Loads on GIS

Phase 5 Territorial characterization of Catalonia


Objective of Phase 1 Establishment of previous criteria detecting sensible scopes and factors for the elaboration of indices and indicators of environmental loads

Two parallel studies The citizen’s perspectives

(analysing environmental conflicts)

Documental analysis Press analysis Web analysis

Most visible conflicts that create public opinion

Sensible scopes to create indicators

The expert’s perspective (fixing the operative concept of environmental load)

Delphi/experts from different disciplines Effective concept of “environmental load”: consensus

Definition of sensible scopes to create indicators

Data base to be integrated in a GIS


A) REPORT OF THE SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL CONFLICTS during the last 15 YEARS

(the citizen’s perspectives)

Specific objectives:

To detect, to inventory, to categorize and to locate the environmental conflicts

To know how its nature evolves or varies along the time

To identify the leading factors and the causes of the beginning of the conflicts

To describe the processes, agents, actions and resolutions

To know the relations based on the type of the conflict and its location


work process

Exploration of documental sources Descriptive card registry

Crossing of variables and description of the results Conclusions

Generic descriptive information: Name of the conflictLocationBeginningResolutionType or classification: it defines the object of the conflict

Origin and causesFaced agentsActionsTypes of resolution

Processes of the conflict:


Discussion on Environmental Conflicts

Environmental argumentations:

Obeying to just causes Defense of private interests under the assumption that nobody will dare to discuss an environmental argumentation


Tendency to the increase of the visibility and occurrence of environmental conflicts in the last years. Sustainability as a new “positive social values” new Information and Communication Technologies electoral periods -> more conflicts

NIABY (Not In Any Back Yard)

NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard)

Discussion on Environmental Conflicts…

Perception of inequity (specially in infrastructures)

At the end of the 90s increasing rejection to production and transportation of energy

(interested?) loss of social prestige of alternatives of energy (f.i. aeolic)

induces the public opinion for a possible ending of the nuclear moratorium? Symbolic value of the place increases the rejection/conflict


Waste dilemma: concentration vs equitative distribution permanent conflict

Territorial intervention Mobility infrastructures permanent conflicts

Urban developments Golf courses increasing conflicts

90s Skiing tracks

Psychosocial processes in the conflict


Anticipation of consequences

Social perceptions

Cause and responsibility attributions Social construction of reality

Social construction of risk

univocal attribution responsibilities to

Complaints and protests public administrations

Ecological group’s behavior is not homogenous

B) THE CONSTRUCTION OF a DEFINITION OF ENVIRONMENTAL LOAD and the

DETERMINATION OF SENSIBLE SCOPES (=The expert’s perspectives)

PROCEDURE : - Delphi technique- 113 participants, first step; 53 second; 27 third step:

Discipline and/or profession of participants- ecologists/biologists (28)- archit/urban planners (16)- engineers (18)- economists (14)

-psychologists, geographers and sociologists (26)- law (3)- communication sciences (3)- policy makers (4)


RESULTS

What should be considered environmental load?

According to the expert’s answers,

Environmental loads is the sum of impacts, of a very diverse nature, derivatives from interventions, uses, procedures or services, with different degrees of pressure over the environment and with cumulative and synergic effects that come together on a concrete surrounding (that includes physical, biological, and social dimensions).


Some sensible scopes to be considered in the creation of environmental loads indices

Physical environment sensible scopes:

Injuring of the agricultural system of irrigation

Affectation of the aquatic ecosystems

Accumulation and treatement of waste

Urban developments in natural areas with special qualities Aggressions and mortgages to the local biodiversity

Atmospheric contamination by the liberation of high toxicity smoke Forced alteration of geophysical and biogeological processes


Some sensible scopes to be considered ….

Human and social environment sensible scopes

Break down of the social fabric and inhabitability of the territory Centralization and social desertization

Amassed, unstructured, excessively urbanized population increase Capacity for the renovation of population and to revert the aging inertia

Risks for the reached health and the quality of life

Symbolic places and expectations

Perception and relevancy of the proposed projects

Loss of the heritagel value of the territory


Human and social environment sensible scopes (cont.)

Accumulated inequity and frustrated expectations

Pre-established breach of the political promises and contracts Disposition/In-disposition to assume services that are of a general interest (supralocal scope)

Injuring of the proximity principle (p.e. in the case of the garbage dumps)

Coherence with the historical evolution of the place


Documents

MAP OF ENVIRONMENTAL LOADS OF CATALONIA Phase I Enric Pol (epol@ub)