This paper focuses on improved storage and preservation technologies as an adaptation strategy in response to climate change. We also study the trade-off between improved cereal storage technologies and the preservation techniques among rural households in Tanzania. We find that climate variables significantly influence farmers’ choice of improved storage technologies and preserving decisions. Using a bivariate probit model, we find that modern storage technologies and preservation measures are substitutes.

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs are now high in number, if not always in impact. When groups of users pay groups of service providers, establishing PES involves collective action. We study the creation of collective PES institutions, and their continuation, as group coordination. We use framed lab-in-field experiments with hydroservices users and providers within watersheds participating in Mexico's Matching Funds program in Veracruz, Yucatan and Quintana Roo states.

Climate change is likely to affect water availability and therefore hydropower generation in many regions of the world. In drying regions, hydropower generation may be impaired, creating a need for new power investments that would otherwise have been unnecessary. In this study we apply two partial equilibrium models (GCAM and TIAM-ECN) and two general equilibrium models (MEG4C and Phoenix) to identify possible pathways of power sector adaptation for Colombia under climate change.

Highlights

Expected mainstreaming of the Ecosystem Services Approach (ESA) has not been fulfilled.

Sectors involved in ESA and their relationships drive pathways of mainstreaming in Latin America.

Incorporation of knowledge and consensus over values are key factors for mainstreaming.

Researchers need to adopt new roles for an effective mainstreaming of ESA.

Opportunities for new roles lay in the interfaces among sectors involved in ES management.

We analyze whether the decisions made by university students in a framed threshold public good game meet what artisanal gold miners decided in a lab-in-the-field experiment. This work contrasts with current literature in which the comparison between lab and lab-in-the-field has considered context-free situations. In general, we find more behavioral convergences than divergences between students and miners. Similar to a set previous literature, these results show lab experiments on social dilemmas can be externally valid.

A number of studies show that large-scale deployment of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is necessary to limit the increase in global average temperature to less than 2 °C by 2100. However, some experts and citizens worry about the integrity of carbon dioxide storage sites due to the possibility of future leakage.

Managing natural-resource allocation and environmental externalities is a challenge. Institutional designs are central when improving water quality for downstream users, for instance, and when reallocating water quantities including for climate adaptation. Views differ on which institutions are best: states; markets; or informal institutions. For transfers of ecosystem services, we compare informal trust-based institutions to enforced contracts, both being institutional types we observe commonly in the field.