We study climate uncertainty and how managers' beliefs about climate change develop and influence their decisions. We develop an approach for updating knowledge and beliefs based on the observation of forest and climate variables and illustrate its application for the adaptive management of an even-aged Norway spruce (Picea abies L. Karst) forest in the Black Forest, Germany. We simulated fores...

Sustainable territorial management requires reliable assessment of the impact of conservation policies on landscape structure and dynamics. Euro-Mediterranean regions present a remarkable biodiversity which is linked in part to traditional land use practices and which is currently threatened by global change. The effectiveness of one-decade conservation policies against land use changes was exa...

Economic analysis of policies aimed at sustainable use and management of natural resources requires information about the biophysical and economic aspects of alternative options. Since these biophysical and economic aspects are inter-related and inter-dependent, it is essential that these data are integrated. However, existing biophysical and economic monitoring networks and studies tend to obs...

In the economics of climate change, the future benefits of greenhouse gas emissions abatement are commonly discounted at a rate equal to the long-run return on corporate stocks, which averaged 6% per year during the 20 century. Since a 6% discount rate implies that one dollar of benefits obtained one century from the present attains a present value of less than one cent, this method implies tha...

Coastal communities in Suriname are highly vulnerable to sea level rise and will need to adapt. Global assessments of climate risk and vulnerability, such as IPCC reports, play an important role in the development of local adaptation policies. The aim of this article is to explore global and national discourses on climate change vulnerability and their local expressions in national policies. Th...

Global climate change — perhaps even more than other environmental problems — can be addressed successfully only with a solid understanding of its economic dimensions. This paper, prepared as an introduction to the economics section of a forthcoming book from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, provides a primer for non-economists on how economic analysis can be brought to bear on three br...

The complex political and social context where local and regional policies are being developed plays a decisive role in the development of climate change adaptation. This article examines the phenomenon of climate change adaptation in Dutch communities by focussing on the policy process of local adaptation to determine the main factors that drive policy actors in these municipalities to impleme...

The issue of sustainability is at the top of the political and societal agenda, being considered of extreme importance and urgency. Human individual action impacts the environment both locally (e.g., local air/water quality, noise disturbance) and globally (e.g., climate change, resource use). Urban environments represent a crucial example, with an increasing realization that the most effective...