he water framework directive of the european union has become a milestone in the water policy for this area. this directive aims to achieve a “good ecological status” of bodies of water in the member states of the european union by 2015. the water framework directive calls for the application of economic principles, economic approaches, tools and instruments. the functions of this economic anal...

In recent years, Marine Protected Areas (MPA), where fishing is severely restricted or not allowed, have become the Holy Grail of marine conservation for both nongovernmental organizations and governments. In the United States, the Papah anaumoku akea Marine National Monument in the NW Hawaiian Islands became the first large-scale reserve closed to fishing in 2006 (1). This reserve is 90% the s...

Multiple cost sharing rules often coexist in seemingly identical environments. We use shared irrigation costs as a context for examining the extent to which the structural environment explains the selection of a cost-sharing rule. We find that environmental factors affecting the costs and benefits derived from irrigation, as well as those determining the distribution of irrigators along the irr...

Expenditures for environmental protection in the U.S. are estimated to exceed $150 billion annually or about 2% of GDP. This estimate, based on largely self-reported information, is often cited as an assessment of the burden of current regulatory efforts and a standard against which the associated benefits are measured. Little is known, however, about how well reported expenditures relate to tr...

Combined cooling, heat, and power (CCHP) units can be integrated with conventional separate cooling, heat, and power production units to meet demands. The goal of this study is to develop and examine a hybrid GA-heuristic optimization algorithm for solving the unit commitment problem for integrated CCHP-thermal-heat only system with considerations for electricity boiler. When environmental emis...