a b s t r a c tHumans currently spend over 3 billion person-hours per week playing computer games. Most of these games are purely for entertainment, but use of computer games for education has also expanded dramatically. At the same time, experimental games have become a staple of social science research but have depended on relatively small sample sizes and simple, abstract situations, limiting their range and applicability. If only a fraction of the time spent playing computer games could be harnessed for research, it would open up a huge range of new opportunities. We review the use of games in research, education, and entertainment and develop ideas for integrating these three functions around the idea of ecosystem services valuation. This approach to valuation can be seen as a version of choice modeling that allows players to generate their own scenarios taking account of the trade-offs embedded in the game, rather than simply ranking pre-formed scenarios. We outline a prototype game called "Lagom Island" to test the proposition that gaming can be used to reveal the value of ecosystem services. Our prototype provides a potential pathway and functional building blocks for approaching the relatively untapped potential of games in the context of ecosystem services research.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to suggest a practical means of incorporating ecological capital into the framework of business entities. Investors and shareholders need to be informed of the viability and sustainability of their investments. Ecological (natural) capital risks are becoming more significant. Exposure to material risk from primary industry is a significant factor for primary processing, pharmaceutical, textile and the financial industry. A means of assessing the changes to ecological capital assets and their effect on inflows and outflows of economic benefit is important information for stakeholder communication. Design/methodology/approach – This paper synthesises a body of literature from accounting, ecological economics, ecosystem services, modelling, agriculture and ecology to propose a way to fill current gaps in the capability to account for ecological capital. It develops the idea of the ecological balance sheet (EBS) to enable application of familiar methods of managing built and financial capital to management of ecological assets (ecosystems that provide goods and services). Findings – The EBS is possible, practical and useful. A form of double-entry bookkeeping can be developed to allow accrual accounting principles to be applied to these assets. By using an EBS, an entity can improve its capability to increase inflows and avoid future outflows of economic benefit. Social implications – Although major efforts are under-way around the world to improve business impact on natural resources, these efforts have been unable to satisfactorily help individual businesses elucidate the practical economic and competitive advantages conferred by investment in ecological capital. This work provides a way for businesses to learn about what the impact of changes to ecological assets has on inflows and outflows of economic benefit to their enterprise and how to invest in ecological capital to reduce their enterprise’s material risk and create competitive advantage. Originality/value – No one has synthesised knowledge and practice across these disciplines into a practical approach. This approach is the first demonstration of how ecological assets can be managed in the same way as built capital by using proven practices of accounting.
While historically Australia has been a major exporter of food commodities and is generally considered to be "food secure", our inter-disciplinary modelling of Australia's food system and contemporary diet demonstrates that Australia is likely to become a net importer of key nutritious foods such as nuts and dairy if it continues along its current policy path. Furthermore, this occurs in the context of accelerating international debt, complete dependence on imported oil and declines in Gross Domestic Product per capita. Coupled with no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and increasing water deficits around many capital cities, these factors indicate increasing threats to Australia's food security. These strategic challenges arise from past and current policy choices and trends, including continued consumption of an unhealthy diet. Their effects are modelled for the coming decades using an innovative scenario simulation based on comprehensive accounts of physical processes in Australia's economy simulated in the Australian Stocks and Flows Framework. Our analysis further employed health and economic cost modelling based on burden of disease data, conservatively demonstrating that productivity and health costs of unhealthy diets would be at least three billion Australian dollars for the 2025 Australian population if we were to continue on this trajectory.
Summary There is a global need for inexpensive tools for research and monitoring. Landscape function analysis (LFA) is a visual assessment procedure used to assess and monitor soil function rapidly from measurable soil surface characteristics. It uses 11 indicators of soil biogeochemical properties and processes, and generates three indices of soil function: soil stability, nutrient cycling and infiltration. These indices are strongly associated with the provision and regulation of ecosystem services such as soil retention, cycling of water and nutrients, carbon storage and biomass production. The LFA method can be used to quantify changes in soil function response to natural and anthropogenic disturbances such as variation in climate, changes in management practices and land‐use change. Our research assessed LFA for monitoring soil function on livestock farms with four different strategies for grazing management and ecological restoration. With LFA, we showed that (i) soil function returned when severely eroded claypans (scalds) were rehabilitated, (ii) grazing pressure had a greater effect on soil function than grazing regime, (iii) soil function improved with a programme of planned recovery grazing, (iv) soil function increased following afforestation of grazing land with native trees of mixed species and shrubs and (v) soil function responded to seasonal effects and cropping. Our results show that LFA is an effective research and monitoring tool for farm‐scale studies. The LFA method produces integrative indices for soil stability, infiltration and nutrient cycling, and provides information on soil function that can be used to guide both management decisions and soil sampling and analysis when more detailed and expensive soil research is justified. Highlights: We evaluate the effectiveness of LFA as a research and monitoring tool with four case studies. We assess soil function in relation to its maximum potential within biogeochemical limits. The LFA indices show differences in soil function with grazing management and ecological restoration. The LFA method is an effective, rapid and inexpensive field research and monitoring tool.
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