MAP OF ENVIRONMENTAL LOADS OF CATALONIA Phase I Enric Pol ([email protected]) Maria Rosa Bonet, Andrés Di Masso, Joana Espín, Tomeu Vidal PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP Department of Social Psychology - University of Barcelona
Jan 16, 2016
MAP OF ENVIRONMENTAL LOADS
OF CATALONIAPhase I
Enric Pol ([email protected])
Maria Rosa Bonet, Andrés Di Masso, Joana Espín, Tomeu Vidal
PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Department of Social Psychology - University of Barcelona
Origine of Map of Environmental Loads of Catalonia
It’s an idea of
PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
in the frame of Environmental Intervention Program
Department of Social Psychology - University of Barcelona
Supported by the Catalan Government
to be applied to his environmental and territorial management system
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
What’s the Map of Environmental Loads of Catalonia?
The Map of Environmental Loads of Catalunya (MELC) is a data-base in GIS (Geographical Information System) format which contains the environmental loads of each part of the territory taking into consideration its physical and social vulnerability.
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Which is the MELC utility?
The MELC is designed to become a useful instrument for the decision making on the location of facilities and environmental services.
The specific characteristics of each project will have to be contrasted with the specificities and capacities of the different places where the facilities or services might be hosted.
The MELC can be useful for the elaboration of studies of environmental impact that must be subjected to an E.I.A., as well as for the valuation of the proposal and the elaboration of the E.I. Statement by the competent governamental organism.
Particularly, the MELC aims to be useful for the territorial and city-planning and the Environmental Evaluation of Plans and Projects according to directive 2001/42/EC, the denominated Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment.
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Why a MELC?
The Nimby effect (Not in my back yard) has acquired a special relevance and even virulence, independently of which the implied company, public administration or goverment level might be.
The increasing number of environmental conflicts registered in Catalunya can be seen in the growing emergence of platforms and other associations that constitute a systematic opposition to any intervention project in the territory.
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
The problem
Increasing Nimby effect (see theoretical support in the European Review of Applied Psychology (Pol et al. 2003/4)
Some particular interests, the interests of some social groups, or the interest of some political perspectives often use the proposals of facilities implying some kind of environmental loads, as an excuse for confrontation, independently of the objectivity of the argumentations adduced by any part.
The increase of the environmental awareness (that is necessary to improve the environmental behavior of people, companies and institutions, and orients it towards a sustainable development), makes more frequent the movements of rejection to facilities and services that, although considered necessary, are not accepted by the population: eventually it is hard to find locations or drawn up.
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Catalonia in Europe
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Standards that guide management
The management and the decisions on facilities and services of environmental character must be done in an integrated way (Catalan legislation, Law IIAA, 27/2/98; European IPPC Directive).
The European principle of subsidiarity aims to approach the solution of the problem to the place where it takes place.
Subsidiarity usually hits frontally with what’s generally considered as ‘general interest’.
All together creates a situation that is hard to manage, revealing that sometimes the environmental problematic cannot be redirected/reoriented.
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Expected benefits of the proposal
Reduction of conflicts and Environmental management could be very much benefited if there was a precise description of the loads and environmental responsibilities that the territory supports:
Objectively
Describing how these loads and responsibilities are distributed on the territory, considering the environmental vulnerability, understood as ecological fragility and social fragility.
According to the citizen’s perceptions
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Objectives of the global MELC project
General Objective
Elaboration of a Map of Environmental Loads of Catalonia
To inventory the local loads derived from housing and urban processes, either legal or illegal.
Specific Objectives
To inventory the local loads of agrarian, cattle and fishery activities, with environmental effects that extend the local balance.
To inventory the local loads of industrial, energetic, miner and extractive activities with environmental effects that extend the local balance.
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
To inventory the local loads of services and infrastructures with environmental effects that extend the local balance.
Specific Objectives …
To establish an index of anthropization of the territory.
To inventory the present and foreseeable demographic and city-planning pressure on the territory units that are considered.
In addition to current catalogues of protected spaces and places of natural interest, to establish a catalogue of spaces of social interest by its patrimonial qualities, of life styles or forms of production to preserve. To inventory or to catalogue any other aspects not considered in
the previous ones and that can be of interest.
To know the citizen’s perception of loads through survey.
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Phases of the MELC project
Phase 1 Establishment of criteria for the elaboration of indices and indicators of environmental loads that need to be considered for the elaboration of the MELC
Phase 2 Creation of a data base from the scopes defined in phase 1
Phase 3 Survey of perception of environmental burden
Phase 4 Integration of data on the Map of Loads on GIS
Phase 5 Territorial characterization of Catalonia
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Objective of Phase 1 Establishment of previous criteria detecting sensible scopes and factors for the elaboration of indices and indicators of environmental loads
Two parallel studies The citizen’s perspectives
(analysing environmental conflicts)
Documental analysis Press analysis Web analysis
Most visible conflicts that create public opinion
Sensible scopes to create indicators
The expert’s perspective (fixing the operative concept of environmental load)
Delphi/experts from different disciplines Effective concept of “environmental load”: consensus
Definition of sensible scopes to create indicators
Data base to be integrated in a GIS
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
A) REPORT OF THE SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL CONFLICTS during the last 15 YEARS
(the citizen’s perspectives)
Specific objectives:
To detect, to inventory, to categorize and to locate the environmental conflicts
To know how its nature evolves or varies along the time
To identify the leading factors and the causes of the beginning of the conflicts
To describe the processes, agents, actions and resolutions
To know the relations based on the type of the conflict and its location
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
work process
Exploration of documental sources Descriptive card registry
Crossing of variables and description of the results Conclusions
Generic descriptive information: Name of the conflictLocationBeginningResolutionType or classification: it defines the object of the conflict
Origin and causesFaced agentsActionsTypes of resolution
Processes of the conflict:
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Discussion on Environmental Conflicts
Environmental argumentations:
Obeying to just causes Defense of private interests under the assumption that nobody will dare to discuss an environmental argumentation
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Tendency to the increase of the visibility and occurrence of environmental conflicts in the last years. Sustainability as a new “positive social values” new Information and Communication Technologies electoral periods -> more conflicts
NIABY (Not In Any Back Yard)
NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard)
Discussion on Environmental Conflicts…
Perception of inequity (specially in infrastructures)
At the end of the 90s increasing rejection to production and transportation of energy
(interested?) loss of social prestige of alternatives of energy (f.i. aeolic)
induces the public opinion for a possible ending of the nuclear moratorium? Symbolic value of the place increases the rejection/conflict
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Waste dilemma: concentration vs equitative distribution permanent conflict
Territorial intervention Mobility infrastructures permanent conflicts
Urban developments Golf courses increasing conflicts
90s Skiing tracks
Psychosocial processes in the conflict
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Anticipation of consequences
Social perceptions
Cause and responsibility attributions Social construction of reality
Social construction of risk
univocal attribution responsibilities to
Complaints and protests public administrations
Ecological group’s behavior is not homogenous
B) THE CONSTRUCTION OF a DEFINITION OF ENVIRONMENTAL LOAD and the
DETERMINATION OF SENSIBLE SCOPES (=The expert’s perspectives)
PROCEDURE : - Delphi technique- 113 participants, first step; 53 second; 27 third step:
Discipline and/or profession of participants- ecologists/biologists (28)- archit/urban planners (16)- engineers (18)- economists (14)
-psychologists, geographers and sociologists (26)- law (3)- communication sciences (3)- policy makers (4)
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
RESULTS
What should be considered environmental load?
According to the expert’s answers,
Environmental loads is the sum of impacts, of a very diverse nature, derivatives from interventions, uses, procedures or services, with different degrees of pressure over the environment and with cumulative and synergic effects that come together on a concrete surrounding (that includes physical, biological, and social dimensions).
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Some sensible scopes to be considered in the creation of environmental loads indices
Physical environment sensible scopes:
Injuring of the agricultural system of irrigation
Affectation of the aquatic ecosystems
Accumulation and treatement of waste
Urban developments in natural areas with special qualities Aggressions and mortgages to the local biodiversity
Atmospheric contamination by the liberation of high toxicity smoke Forced alteration of geophysical and biogeological processes
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Some sensible scopes to be considered ….
Human and social environment sensible scopes
Break down of the social fabric and inhabitability of the territory Centralization and social desertization
Amassed, unstructured, excessively urbanized population increase Capacity for the renovation of population and to revert the aging inertia
Risks for the reached health and the quality of life
Symbolic places and expectations
Perception and relevancy of the proposed projects
Loss of the heritagel value of the territory
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Human and social environment sensible scopes (cont.)
Accumulated inequity and frustrated expectations
Pre-established breach of the political promises and contracts Disposition/In-disposition to assume services that are of a general interest (supralocal scope)
Injuring of the proximity principle (p.e. in the case of the garbage dumps)
Coherence with the historical evolution of the place
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP