NATURAL RESOURCE

ECONOMICS

NATURAL RESOURCE

ECONOMICS Sponsored by a Grant TÁMOP-4.1.2-08/2/A/KMR-2009-0041

Course Material Developed by Department of Economics,

Faculty of Social Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest (ELTE)

Department of Economics, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest

Institute of Economics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Balassi Kiadó, Budapest

NATURAL RESOURCE ECONOMICS

Author: Gábor Ungvári

Supervised by Gábor Ungvári

January 2011

ELTE Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economics

NATURAL RESOURCE ECONOMICS

Week 4

The system of water circulation

and the impact of its change

on well-being

Gábor Ungvári

Draft

• Nature is an independent system – view as a capital,

its basic supporting services are the water, carbon,

nutrient circulation and soil formation.

• The size and diversity of this capital define the

benefits of the ecosystem services for well-being.

• The importance of water generates from the fact that

it is the fuel and the carrying medium of these

circulations at the same time.

• The connection of land use and the natural capital

match the question of water management and well-

being.

Exploring the relationship between well-being

and ecological performance

Costanza’s hypothesis

Summarising the economic examinations relevant to natural resources, ordered

by types of ecological systems (biomes) and services.

The specific values relating to the given area change in conjunction with the

ecological system’s level of water-usage.

Costanza et al: The Value of ecosystem services: putting the issues in perspective. In Ecological Economics 25(1998)

67–2.

Grass / rangelands

Temperate / boreal forest

Tropical forest

Tidal marsh / mangroves

Swamps / floodplains

• The ability of transpiration drives the temperature of the

plants, that influences the pace of warming above the

surface

• The bottleneck condition of delaying warming up of the air is

the quantity of available humidity in the soil.

Water intolerancy Kravchik, Varga – People and Water www.peopleandwater.sk

• Temperature differences between the

sealed and non-sealed surfaces, but:

• There are differences of non-sealed

surfaces by the plant / habitat type –

forest, plow-land

Connection among the 3 basic supporting ecosystem

services, the climate and the water circulation

C.W. Thornthwaite, F.K Hare: Unasylva, 1955, 9. Évf./ 2

Integrated watershed management – Manual UNEP 2004

www.unep.or.jp

The driving forces of climate processes:

sunshine – precipitation – transpiration, means ecosystem

functioning – seasonal water surplus – water retention – water scarcity

Y axis: cm precipitation, or the amount of energy

that needs to transpirate it

X axis: months from january – to january

Thornthwaite, Hare (Unasylva, 1955, 9. Évf./ 2)

• The vapour intake of the atmosphere are

constrained by the available energy (from the

sun)

• The possibility of vapour intake is provided by

the plants cover (and the soil if uncovered)

• The rate of the process are defined by the type

of plant cover – both the transpiration

efficiency of the plants and the water retention

capacity of the habitat – That gives the

superior performance of forests

Thornthwaite, Hare (Unasylva, 1955, 9. Évf./ 2) http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/AmazonEVI/

The effect of non-considering water retention – the example

of the Amazon basin

Daily run-off of two streams at summer period

(by two hours periods)

The connection of transpiration and runoff in the

Hidegvíz valley experiment site (Soproni hegység).

Summer run-off time series 12 days with

the trend-line of water depletion

Gribovski Zoltán: Evapotranspiráció hatása a lefolyás napi

ritmusára erdősült kisvízgyűjtőkön. In: Erdő és Klíma füzetek

IV. Sopron 2004

Mitigating climate interferes with the nature’s ability to transpirate

The leveled runoff are provided by the soils ability to store water

Soil humidity is the result of water retention that requires continuous land cover with deep

soil – that’s what forests provides

www.maweb.org Consequences of

Ecosystem Change for Human Well-being

The impact of ecosystem services on human well-being by

the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment research program

The 3 basic

supporting service

Nutrient circulation

Primary production

Soil formation

The possibility to

draw of usufructs, a

capital embodied in

the supporting

processes

The rate of water

retention is the

indicator of the

capital www.maweb.org Consequences of Ecosystem

Change for Human Well-being

Temperate Grasslands &

Woodlands

Temperate Broadleaf Forest

Tropical Dry Forest

Tropical Grasslands

Tropical Coniferous Forest

Mediterranean Forests

Tropical Moist Forest

0 50 100

Percent of habitat (biome) remaining

Habitat Loss to 1990

Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Source: Heinz Ellenberg: Vegetation ecology of Central Europe (Vegetation Mitteleuropas mit den Alpen (1963)

The historical trend of river valley changes in CE

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Conceptual Framework

Direct

Drivers

Indirect

Drivers

Ecosystem

Services

Human

Well-being

Direct Drivers of Change Changes in land use

Species introduction or removal

Technology adaptation and use

External inputs (e.g., irrigation)

Resource consumption

Climate change

Natural physical and biological

drivers (e.g., volcanoes)

Indirect Drivers of Change Demographic

Economic (globalization, trade,

market and policy framework)

Sociopolitical (governance and

institutional framework)

Science and Technology

Cultural and Religious

Human Well-being and

Poverty Reduction Basic material for a good life

Health

Good Social Relations

Security

Freedom of choice and action

Life on Earth:

Biodiversity

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

www.maweb.org

The results of diminishing water circulation

in the ecosystem services

www.maweb.org Millennium

Ecosystem Assessment

Consequences of Ecosystem

Change for Human Well-being

Floods – Inland excess water – Growing

irrigation needs

Soil – decay of productivity – Erosion

Sink of subsoil water tables – droughts

Atmospheric extremities – Warming

• The increasing lack of services results

in loss of well-being, so reducing natural

capital a well-being deficit is emerging

• Increasing pressure on public sources

to compensate the individual and public

damages of the impacts generated by

the ecological deficit

Air quality

Climate mitigation (cooling)

CO2 sink

Erosion mitigation

Water purification

Disease control

Pariasite control

Mitigation of natural disasters

Regulating functions

The aggregation of the small but

subsequent steps • The forests consumed, the waters gone – the landscape impoverished and so the

communities co-existed in it

• The living force of the landscape seeps with the water

• The step-by step deforestation decreased the ecological productivity.

• The drainage of the floodplains cut the supporting ecosystem service production.

The accumulation of natural capital stopped

• The exploitation of the ecosystem services based on the yields of natural capital

changed to the eat up of the natural capital itself.

• The portfolio of the used usufructs shrinked and its application homogenized

• The human well-being degraded with nature – the group of beneficiaries concentrated,

the ones crowded out increased. Common usufructs fall in expense of the private ones.

• Recent land use patterns are irrational, there is no place for water and forests. It results

in a critically low productivity level of ecosystem processes – compared to its possible

level

• As the missing amount of water grows as do the deficit of the ecosystem services

• The diminishing mitigation services of the ecosystem results in the growing frequency of

climate extremities – rising negative impacts and rising costs to compensate them.

The impact of forest loss on

the water circulation

parameters and the utility of

land

Legend:

• C – precipitation,

• P – transpiration,

• L – run-off,

• L1 – surface run-offs

(floods),

• L2 – sub-surface, low-

water run-offs,

• W – stored water