• European Marine Science
• Other research productsclose
• US close
• GB close
• FR close
• English close

The perception of ocean areas by policy-makers or by people, living or not on the coast, has significantly varied over centuries. Due to its vastness and complexity, the sea has been studied within distinct academic disciplines. However, the current issues related to the sea, such as climate change, marine pollution or coastal tourism, require an integrated vision of the assets and drawbacks in order to meet the challenges arising from human activities both at sea and onshore. In this study, a group of foresight officers from the French network of public research institutes decided to cross-check and compare several science approaches (biology, sociology, economics, etc) about oceans. Thus, 11 sectors of maritime activity (transportation, fisheries, energy, etc.) were cross-tabulated with 9 basic social functions (providing food, housing, learning, etc.). In this matrix, the main challenges and issues projected for 2030 were sought, in the frame of a baseline scenario. Results were clustered through 4 criteria, leading to 9 major challenges, each of them broken down into two important issues for research. The outcomes were used to create a survey, allowing the ranking of the research priorities. Most of the 9 challenges tally with the research and development objectives of great maritime states, except for governance and monitoring, which remain underscored. As a result, maritime powers still show more interest on securing national resources rather than on promoting international cooperation for secure trade and sustainable exploitation of marine resources. But foresight in this field could help changing the mentalities notably because oceans show clearly now to be a vital common good for mankind.

This publication serves as a starting point for young readers who want to learn more about the World Bank. A general, accessible introduction to the World Bank, this guide provides an overview of the Bank's history, organization, mission, and purpose. It is a good reference tool for young people interested in understanding what the Bank does and how it operates. The guide features graphics and sidebar Q & As on a wide range on topics such as HIV/AIDS, education, and conflict prevention. It addresses such questions as: Why was the Bank founded? Where does it get its money? What are Millennium Development Goals? And what's the difference between the Bank and the International Monetary Fund?

Chemicals are used in the production of many items that we depend on every day. Evidence demonstrates that certain organic chemicals are persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic and that these chemicals cause long-term harm to the health of human beings and the planet s environment. Throughout the world, people and their environments are exposed on a daily basis to Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). POPs and their effects on human health and the environment is a global issue of concern. They accumulate in animals and humans, predominantly in fatty tissue. As these chemicals move up the food chain they concentrate to levels that are harmful to humans, wildlife and fish. From the date of its inception, the Canada POPs Trust Fund (CPF) has focused on assisting developing countries and countries with economies in transition (CEITs) in developing their capacity to reduce or eliminate persistent organic pollutants. The Trust Fund has accomplished this through critical financial support, providing technical expertise and access to technology, and by transferring knowledge and know-how.

These datasets were used to describe the diversity, ecology and role of non-scleractinian corals on scleractinian cold-water coral carbonate mounds in the Logachev Mound Province, Rockall Bank, NE Atlantic. Cold-water coral carbonate mounds, created by framework-building scleractinian corals, are also important habitats for non-scleractinian corals, whose ecology and role are understudied in deep-sea environments. In total ten non-scleractinian species were identified, which were mapped out along eight ROV video transects. Eight species were identified as black corals (three belonging to the family Schizopathidae, one each to the Leiopathidae, Cladopathidae, and Antipathidae and two to an unknown family) and two as gorgonians (Isididae and Plexauridae). The most abundant species were Leiopathes sp. and Parantipathes sp. 2. Areas with a high diversity of non-scleractinian corals are interpreted to offer sufficient food, weak inter-species competition and the presence of heterogeneous and hard settlement substrates. A difference in the density and occurrence of small vs. large colonies of Leiopathes sp. was also observed, which is likely related to a difference in the stability of the substrate they choose for settlement. Non-scleractinian corals, especially black corals, are an important habitat for crabs, crinoids, and shrimps in the Logachev Mound Province.

When a groundwater basin is exploited by a large number of farmers, acting independently, each farmer has little incentive to practice conservation that would primarily benefit other farmers. This can lead to excessive groundwater extraction. When farmers pay less than the full cost of electricity used for groundwater pumping, this problem can be worsened; while the problem can be somewhat relieved by rationing the electricity supply. The research in this paper constructs an analytical framework for describing the characteristics of economically efficient groundwater management plans, identifying how individual water use decisions by farmers collectively depart from efficient resource use, and examining how policies related to both water and electricity can improve on the efficiency of the status quo. It is shown that an optimal scheme for pricing electricity used for pumping groundwater includes two main elements: 1) the full (marginal) economic cost of electricity must be covered; and 2) there must be an extra charge, reflected in the electricity price, corresponding to the externality cost of groundwater pumping. The analysis includes a methodology for calculating the latter externality cost, based on just a few parameters, and a discussion of how electricity pricing could be modified to improve efficiency in both power and water use.

The technical workshop on enhancing development benefits to local communities in hydropower projects was held in Washington, D.C., on June 26, 2008. It was hosted by the Social Development Department (SDV) and Water Anchor (ETWWA) of the World Bank. The workshop aimed to provide a platform for a discussion of past and current practices, as well as how to construct development benefits mechanisms within the specific context of hydropower projects. It also provided a forum for sharing knowledge as to how development benefits mechanisms may be applied to Bank-financed projects. The workshop had five sessions and brought together more than 60 experts from different sectors in different regions of the World Bank. Sixteen speakers gave presentations. The workshop had discussions on enhancing development benefits to local communities in hydropower projects and also covered issues pertaining to the broader range of benefit-sharing, including World Bank engagement in hydropower projects, legacy of hydropower, notion evolution, approaches and mechanisms, and good practices in benefit-sharing of hydropower projects. A range of mechanisms are available to enhance and share benefits. Benefit-sharing consists of a combination of monetary and non-monetary mechanisms adapted to specific project contexts. Monetary development benefits are linked largely to economic rent, fair distribution, full compensation, entitlements, national priorities, and optimization of opportunities, and include basically taxation, royalties, preferential rates, revenue sharing, development funds, and joint ownership. The non-monetary development benefits include, for example, allocation of fishing rights in reservoirs; priority hiring of local community members during construction; start-up support for local companies; capacity building; multipurpose infrastructure; rural electrification; and access to improved infrastructure.

Time and energy are finite resources in any environment, and how and when organisms use their available resources to survive and reproduce is the crux of life history theory (Gadgil and Bossert 1970; Balon 1975; Stearns 1976). The different survival strategies used by animals are often shaped by their environment in addition to their biology (Winemiller and Rose 1992), which allows for exploration into biological variability when environmental factors are known. For this reason, the Line Islands in the Central Pacific provide an ideal location to perform observational studies due to their unique productivity gradient and fish assemblage structures across the island chain (Sandin et al. 2008; DeMartini et al. 2008; Fox et al. 2018; Zgliczynski et al. 2019). Many of the world’s coral reefs are in remote regions that lack monitoring programs or even local populations, so conducting ecological surveys on fish communities in these regions can require extensive amounts of time, energy, resources and people. The inherent variability an environment exerts on the many factors that contribute to growth over a lifetime make it difficult to generate a directly proportional formula that calculates age. A novel age estimation method was developed that utilizes in-situ visual census data to estimate the age of fishes, and as a case study, several fish were chosen as representative species to explore its capabilities. Through this process, new ecological information and insight can be gained about the age structures of fish populations both between and throughout the Line Islands.

Bangladesh, with two-thirds of its land area less than five meters above sea level, is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world. Low-lying coastal districts along the Bay of Bengal are particularly vulnerable to sea level rise, tidal flooding, storm surges, and climate-induced increases in soil and water salinity. This paper investigates the impact of drinking water salinity on infant mortality in coastal Bangladesh. It focuses on the salinity of drinking water consumed during pregnancy, which extensive medical research has linked to maternal hypertension, preeclampsia, and post-partum morbidity and mortality. The study combines spatially-formatted salinity measures for 2001-09 provided by Bangladesh with individual and household survey information from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Surveys for 2004 and 2007. It uses probit and logit analyses to estimate mortality probability for infants less than two months old. Controlling for many other determinants of infant mortality, the analysis finds high significance for salinity exposure during the last month of pregnancy and no significance for exposure during the preceding months. The estimated impact of salinity on infant mortality is comparable in magnitude to the estimated effects of traditionally-cited variables such as maternal age and education, gender of the household head, household wealth, toilet facilities, drinking water sources, and cooking fuels.

The effectiveness of conservation interventions such as Payments for Environmental Services (PES) is often evaluated, if it is evaluated at all, only at the completion of the intervention. Since gains achieved by the intervention may be lost after it ends, even apparently successful interventions may not result in long-term conservation benefits, a problem known as that of permanence. This paper uses a unique dataset to examine the permanence of land use change induced by a short-term PES program implemented in Quindío, Colombia, between 2003 and 2008. This the first PES program to have a control group for comparison. Under this program, PES had been found to have a positive and highly significant impact on land use. To assess the long-term permanence of these changes, both PES recipients and control households were re-surveyed in 2011, four years after the last payment was made. We find that the land use changes that had been induced by PES were broadly sustained in intervening years, with minor differences across specific practices and sub-groups of participants. The patterns of change in the period after the PES program was completed also help better understand the reasons for the program s success. These results suggest that, at least in the case of productive land uses such as silvopastoral practices, PES programs can be effective at encouraging land owners to adopt environmentally-beneficial management practices and that the benefits will persist after payments cease.

The importance of agriculture in the economies of sub-Saharan African countries cannot be overemphasized. With agriculture accounting for about 65 percent of the region's employment and 75 percent of its domestic trade, significant progress in reducing hunger and poverty across the region depends on the development and transformation of the agricultural sector. Transforming agriculture from largely a subsistence enterprise to a profitable commercial venture is the prerequisite and driving force for accelerated development and sustainable economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa. The rationale behind the development of agribusiness indicators (ABIs) is to construct indicators for specific factors to support successful, effective private sector involvement in agriculture. The indicators can be used to benchmark and monitor performance in the agricultural sector over time and across countries. The resulting information can provoke knowledge flows and meaningful dialogue among policy makers, government officials, donors, private sector actors, as well as other stakeholders in the agricultural sector. This study is predicated on the fact that agriculture is the backbone of the economies of most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including Kenya. The ultimate aim is to stimulate debate and dialogue among policy makers in specific African countries to engender change and reform in areas where investment is needed to leverage agribusiness and economic development. This study relied heavily on an extensive secondary data collection and literature review, supplemented by informal surveys to solicit information from a broad spectrum of stakeholders and actors in Kenya's agricultural sector. The review and interviews focused on the factors that the agribusiness indicators team determined to be the most critical for agribusiness development across sub-Saharan Africa, based on extensive scoping missions in three pilot countries (Ghana, Ethiopia, and Mozambique). This report is organized into following chapters: chapter one gives introduction; chapter two presents ABI methodology; chapter three presents findings on the success factors and indicators; and chapter four gives concluding remarks.