Research Projects:
Land Use and Ecosystem Preservation
Agricultural Pollution & Organic Agriculture Resource Persons
Documents
Land Use and Ecosystem Preservation
One of the most serious global environmental problems is the conversion of natural habitats to agriculture and the consequent loss of biodiversity. A key question facing policymakers in developing countries is to what extent environmentally sensitive areas should be protected to preserve ecosystem benefits and to what extent they should be exploited for their economic benefits. To help policymakers answer this question, this research program focuses on three issues:
- Understanding the factors affecting the conversion of environmentally sensitive areas to other uses, in order to better predict the severity of threats to these areas and to help design more cost-effective protection strategies;
- Developing and applying tools for assessing trade-offs between habitat protection and agricultural or other development in a given area; and
- Effectively managing environmentally sensitive areas.
Initial work has involved collaborative projects in Latin America and Asia, particularly in Brazil, Costa Rica and Indonesia. 
Agricultural Pollution & Organic Agriculture
Excessive use of toxic agricultural chemicals has caused serious damage to human health and aquatic ecosystems in many developing countries. Following the example of the industrial pollution project, the unit will address this problem in collaboration with developing-country agencies and World Bank Operations. The initial work will focus on four topics: Integrating agricultural pollution into a model of farm-household behavior; assessing the benefits and costs of alternative pollution reduction strategies in conventional agriculture; understanding the economics of organic agriculture as a possible zero-pollution alternative in some agricultural sectors; and broadening empirical work on trade and the environment to include agricultural pollution issues. The unit's initial project is a collaborative study of Brazilian agricultural pollution in collaboration with IBGE, Brazil's national census bureau.
Resource Persons
Documents
The policy research working papers below are drawn from the World Bank's institutional archives. Each link opens a page with an abstract of the document and several download options. Choose the 'light-weight documents' option for easy download.
You can also download other related documents. These include content-rich current outputs (updated document versions, miscellaneous documents, and web pages). |
RSS