The ideological approaches to human
well-being:
1.
The Basic Needs School (Barja)
2.
The Utilitarian-Income/GNP Approach (Cheikh M)
3.
The Natural Wealth / Natural Capital Approach (Bawarej)
4.
The Rights based approach (Abedieh)
5.
The Capabilities Approach (Anjar)

-- differences / similarities to SLF

Advantages / disadvantages

Relationship to complexity of well-being and livelihoods
Other issues
 Your timeline / methodology (tools)
 By Friday please (April 1)
 The End of Poverty – Movie
 Thursday, April 7 – 6.30 to 8 pm
 Ta Marbouta
2
DPSIR
Integrated analysis of environmental
trends and policies
 Need to answer 3 main questions
 What is happening to the environment and why?
 . What are the consequences for the environment and
humanity?
 What is being done and how effective is it?
 How to answer these questions
 IEA analyses environment and human well-being trends and
dynamics based on the drivers-pressures-state-impactsresponses (DPSIR) framework.
4
Analysis involves…
 : A. Understanding the issue to determine what is happening
to the environment, why and what the impacts are.
 B. Preparing a policy report card to understand the array of
high-level strategies affecting the environmental issue.
 C. Conducting a policy instrument scan to identify the mix of
policies influencing the environmental issue, and the
effectiveness of such a mix.
 D. Performing a policy gap and coherence analysis to
determine if relevant policies are in place and are focused on
the most important drivers and pressures.
5
Spatial context
 In principle, you can carry out an IEA analysis for any given
issue, geographic area or level of decision making.
 In practice there usually are two choices:
 analysis based on jurisdictional (political) boundaries,
 or on non-political boundaries (e.g.,ecoregion,watershed).
 only rarely do the two spatial boundaries coincide as they do, for
example, in small island states.
6
Temporal Context
 IEAs combine retrospective integrated analyses with future
outlook.
 Defining the temporal scale—how far do you look back and
ahead—is important for conceptual clarity.
 In which time scale do the environmental issues you want to
assess show significant or detectable change?
 How far back do you expect to have reliable data?
 How far into the future do you need to or can you project
environmental trends?
7
The DPSIR concept
Responses
Driving
forces
Impact
Pressures
State
8
The causal chain
9
Driving forces:
 A driving force is a need:
 Individual: Food, shelter etc (Maslows hierachy)
 Industry: Make profit, lower costs, expand markets
 Nation: Increase/maintain standard of living, reduce
unemployment
 DFs are the underlying factors that influence
development such as population growth,
economic growth, energy consumption and
industrial production.
10
Pressures:
 Human activities to meet needs affect the environment
through production or consumption processes:
 Emissions of polluting substances
 Extraction of natural resources
 Land use
11
State:
 Current condition of the environment:
 Air quality
 Water quality
 Soil quality
 Ecosystems status
12
Impact:
 Effect of changes on both environment and society.
13
Response:
 Society can make political, economic or behavioural changes
as a reaction to changes in the environment.
 Responses can be aimed at any of the links in the causal chain
(DPSI).
14
Understanding the dynamics of issues:
15
Driving Force - Pressure Relationships
 The environmental pressures resulting from human activities
(emissions, resource use and land use) are a function of two
types of variable:
 (i) the level of these activities
 (ii) the technology applied in these activities.
16
17
CASE EXAMPLE Telling an integrated story about water quality
issues in Canada’s Red River Basin and Lake Winnipeg

The Red River flows north from the United States into Canada where it empties into Lake
Winnipeg, the world’s 10th largest freshwater lake. The Red River Basin is about 846 000 square
km in extent.

State: Water quality in the Red River experienced increases in flow-adjusted, total nitrogen and
phosphorous concentration between 1978 and 2000,particularly north of the city of Winnipeg and
the confluence of the Assiniboine and Seine Rivers.

Among the key Drivers: are urban expansion due to population growth and increased agricultural
production to meet growing agriculture export demands.

Pressures (i.e.,direct drivers): Total N and P [ ] in the Red River arise primarily from non-point
source nutrient loading from intensive agricultural production in the Red River Basin, and from
urban runoff and sewage discharges from the city of Winnipeg in Canada, and Grand Forks and
Fargo in the United States.

The decreasing water quality of the Red River is having a serious negative Impact on Lake
Winnipeg due to massive and rapid eutrophication. This ecosystem impact affects human wellbeing.

a mix of public policies (responses) are implemented by the Manitoba provincial government –
eg: 16% reduction in average erosion rates on farmland; 12% reduction in residual N
18
exercise

Select one specific issue, and identify the specific environmental STATE that the issue involves.

How has this state changed over time?

Identify a general societal DRIVER with broad influence on the pressure and environ- mental
state.

Identify a societal PRESSURE directly affecting that environmental state.

What natural disturbances might be causing your environmental state to change?

Given the change in your environmental state, what are examples of key IMPACTS on the
services that ecosystems provide, and human well-being?

What existing policies and policy instruments (including laws and institutions) contribute to
restoring or enhancing the environment (e.g., have an influence on the environmental state,
pressures and drivers)? What policies and policy instruments have helped (or hindered) the
ability of communities and businesses to adapt to impacts of the change in the environmental
state? What technologies have facilitated restoration and/or adaptation?
19
20
21
22
EXERCISE Identifying interlinkages
among environmental issues
 From your DPSI Story Sheet,
 transfer the environmental state, key pressure and
associated drivers to the interlinkages table below.
 Starting from the driver, identify two other pressures and
then other environmental states that could change as a
result of each pressure.
 Note the multiple linkages among pressures and
environmental states
 What impacts on the environment and human health are
associated with changes in the various environmental states?
23
Example…
24
Analysing themes and sectors
25
26
What about indicators?
 indicators should:
 Be developed within an accepted conceptual framework.
 Be clearly defined and easy to understand.
 Be subject to aggregation.
 Be objective.
 Have reasonable data requirements.
 Be relevant to users.
 Be limited in number.
 Reflect causes, processes or results
 SMART
 Specific
Measurable
 Aggressive but achievable targets
 Relevant
Time-bound
27
What about responses?
 See handout
 Example: river water quality
 A number of policy instruments, such as in situ treatment and
water quality standards, could have positive or negative impacts
on the state of the water quality.
 Other impacts can come from the effects of municipal taxes
driving as urban growth, infrastructure development reducing
sewage discharges and food import programmes to
compensate for a reduction in fish as a food source.
28
Example policy instrument scan for water quality of rivers
29
To summarize
30
31
32
Problem tree analysis: Why?
33
Problem tree:
Identify the problem
 Whose problem? – perceived as such by the community
The following are the basic steps that should be followed with the
community, in developing the cause-effect analysis leading to
the identification of focal problems and their solutions through
the problem tree:
1.Identify, define and select specific main problems or undesired
situations within the project scope;
2.For each specific main problem selected develop a problem tree;
3.For each problem tree carry out a comprehensive cause-effect
analysis of the situation identifying the focal problems;
34
exercise
 draw a tree.
 Write the problem on the trunk of the tree.
 What are the causes of the problem
 social, economic, and political causes including attitudes,
behavior, and other factors
35
36