Daniel Kahneman received the Nobel Prize in economics sciences in 2002, December 8, Stockholm, Sweden. This article is the edited version of his Nobel Prize lecture. The author comes back to the problems he has studied with the late Amos Tversky and to debates conducting for several decades already. The statement is based on worked out together with Shane Federik the quirkiness of human judgment. Language: ru

Maps of Bounded Rationality: Psychology for Behavioral Economics

The term ''urban stream syndrome'' describes the consistently observed ecological degra- dation of streams draining urban land. This paper reviews recent literature to describe symptoms of the syndrome, explores mechanisms driving the syndrome, and identifies appropriate goals and methods for ecological restoration of urban streams. Symptoms of the urban stream syndrome include a flashier hy- drograph, elevated concentrations of nutrients and contaminants, altered channel morphology, and reduced biotic richness, with increased dominance of tolerant species. More research is needed before generaliza- tions can be made about urban effects on stream ecosystem processes, but reduced nutrient uptake has been consistently reported. The mechanisms driving the syndrome are complex and interactive, but most impacts can be ascribed to a few major large-scale sources, primarily urban stormwater runoff delivered to streams by hydraulically efficient drainage systems. Other stressors, such as combined or sanitary sewer overflows, wastewater treatment plant effluents, and legacy pollutants (long-lived pollutants from earlier land uses) can obscure the effects of stormwater runoff. Most research on urban impacts to streams has concentrated on correlations between instream ecological metrics and total catchment imperviousness. Recent research shows that some of the variance in such relationships can be explained by the distance between the stream reach and urban land, or by the hydraulic efficiency of stormwater drainage. The mech- anisms behind such patterns require experimentation at the catchment scale to identify the best management approaches to conservation and restoration of streams in urban catchments. Remediation of stormwater impacts is most likely to be achieved through widespread application of innovative approaches to drainage design. Because humans dominate urban ecosystems, research on urban stream ecology will require a broadening of stream ecological research to integrate with social, behavioral, and economic research.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1899/04-028.1

The urban stream syndrome: current knowledge and the search for a cure

The role of urban parks for the sustainable city.

Adaptation is a process of deliberate change in anticipation of or in reaction to external stimuli and stress. The dominant research tradition on adaptation to environmental change primarily takes an actor-centered view, focusing on the agency of social actors to respond to specific environmental stimuli and emphasizing the reduction of vulnerabilities. The resilience approach is systems orientated, takes a more dynamic view, and sees adaptive capacity as a core feature of resilient social-ecological systems. The two approaches converge in identifying necessary components of adaptation. We argue that resilience provides a useful framework to analyze adaptation processes and to identify appropriate policy responses. We distinguish between incremental adjustments and transformative action and demonstrate that the sources of resilience for taking adaptive action are common across scales. These are the inherent system characteristics that absorb perturbations without losing function, networks and social capit...

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Adaptation to Environmental Change: Contributions of a Resilience Framework

Study objectives: To investigate the strength of the relation between the amount of green space in people's living environment and their perceived general health. This relation is analysed for different age and socioeconomic groups. Furthermore, it is analysed separately for urban and more rural areas, because the strength of the relation was expected to vary with urbanity. Design: The study includes 250 782 people registered with 104 general practices who filled in a self administered form on sociodemographic background and perceived general health. The percentage of green space (urban green space, agricultural space, natural green space) within a one kilometre and three kilometre radius around the postal code coordinates was calculated for each household. Methods: Multilevel logistic regression analyses were performed at three levels—that is, individual level, family level, and practice level—controlled for sociodemographic characteristics. Main results: The percentage of green space inside a one kilometre and a three kilometre radius had a significant relation to perceived general health. The relation was generally present at all degrees of urbanity. The overall relation is somewhat stronger for lower socioeconomic groups. Elderly, youth, and secondary educated people in large cities seem to benefit more from presence of green areas in their living environment than other groups in large cities. Conclusions: This research shows that the percentage of green space in people's living environment has a positive association with the perceived general health of residents. Green space seems to be more than just a luxury and consequently the development of green space should be allocated a more central position in spatial planning policy.

https://jech.bmj.com/content/jech/60/7/587.full.pdf

Green space, urbanity, and health: how strong is the relation?

This paper presents research results on the impacts that floods can have on the people affected, thus complementing the existing data on the monetary losses liable to occur in flood events. Both datasets should be used when deciding on investment in flood defence measures. We report on research on the vulnerability of flood-affected communities to adverse health effects, and the development of an index of community vulnerability based on extensive focus-group research and secondary-source census data.

Vulnerability to flooding: health and social dimensions.

The tied relationship between flood disasters and the demand for a policy response is well known. What is not well known is how and why particular policy ideas emerge as policy change options. Drawing on the public policy theoretical literature, the paper evaluates the policy impact of four of the most significant flood disasters in England and Wales in the past 50 years. In so doing, it seeks to highlight which of the environmental, contextual and behavioural drivers have, in the past, been critical factors in the elevation of policy options to policy agendas. By monitoring changes in such drivers we can offer an understanding of the potential policy changes that may occur in response to flood disasters in the future.

Floods as Catalysts for Policy Change: Historical Lessons from England and Wales

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A Psychological Perspective

This paper evaluates policy accelerations after past flood crises in the UK (in 1947, 1953, 1998 and 2000) and explores their value as surrogates or metaphors for how governments might respond with policy changes to the local expressions of global climate and environmental change in the future. We find that these past policy change accelerations were, in general, not based on the development of new ideas but on bringing forward existing ideas that were already the subject of widespread professional or public discourse. We suggest, therefore, that we may be able to detect now, as ‘signals’ within current policy discourse, the embryos of the policy shifts that are likely to come about as part of any crisis-response adaptation to future climate change. If this is the case, then we believe that those with policy responsibilities now may be able to begin carefully and proactively to prepare the ground for such policy changes ahead of the crisis events that will alone trigger their acceleration and adoption.

‘Signals’ from pre-crisis discourse: Lessons from UK flooding for global environmental policy change?

Special Issue on “Knowledge and Policy in the Context of Urban Environments” edited by Judith Petts, Susan Owens and Harriet Bulkeley.

Ecological versus Social Restoration? How Urban River Restoration Challenges but Also Fails to Challenge the Science – Policy Nexus in the United Kingdom:

Sylvia Tunstall

Papers

Vulnerability to flooding: health and social dimensions.

Floods as Catalysts for Policy Change: Historical Lessons from England and Wales

A Psychological Perspective

‘Signals’ from pre-crisis discourse: Lessons from UK flooding for global environmental policy change?

Ecological versus Social Restoration? How Urban River Restoration Challenges but Also Fails to Challenge the Science – Policy Nexus in the United Kingdom: