Design rules for successful governmental payments for ecosystem services

Taking agri-environmental measures in Germany as an example

authored by

Claas Meyer, Michaela Reutter, Bettina Matzdorf, Claudia Sattler, Sarah Schomers

Abstract

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to financial environmental policy instruments that have played important roles in solving agri-environmental problems throughout the world, particularly in the European Union and the United States. The ample and increasing literature on Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) and agri-environmental measures (AEMs), generally understood as governmental PES, shows that certain single design rules may have an impact on the success of a particular measure. Based on this research, we focused on the interplay of several design rules and conducted a comparative analysis of AEMs' institutional arrangements by examining 49 German cases. We analyzed the effects of the design rules and certain rule combinations on the success of AEMs. Compliance and noncompliance with the hypothesized design rules and the success of the AEMs were surveyed by questioning the responsible agricultural administration and the AEMs' mid-term evaluators. The different rules were evaluated in regard to their necessity and sufficiency for success using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Our results show that combinations of certain design rules such as environmental goal targeting and area targeting conditioned the success of the AEMs. Hence, we generalize design principles for AEMs and discuss implications for the general advancement of ecosystem services and the PES approach in agri-environmental policies. Moreover, we highlight the relevance of the results for governmental PES program research and design worldwide.

External Organisation(s)

Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF)

Type

Article

Journal

Journal of Environmental Management

Volume

157

Pages

146-159

No. of pages

14

ISSN

0301-4797

Publication date

01.07.2015

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Environmental Engineering, Waste Management and Disposal, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2015.03.053 (Access: Closed)