Early work and academic experience focused on coastal zone management, in particular with the environmental impacts and benefits and costs to users of the lagoon alternative management strategies. Much of my work over the last 15 years has focused on the development of techniques to assist in the analysis of interactions between economic activities and ecological processes. The concept of sustainable development has figured in much of this work. The techniques include simulation modelling (including mixed input-output modelling), natural resource accounting, indicators for sustainable development and performance indicators for mutli-criteria analysis of environmental management options. The focus has always been on the support which the use of these techniques could provide to environmental management and policy development.
This is illustrated by several recent projects. The value of a mangrove ecosystem in the Philippines was assessed under alternative management strategies. The project also estimated the costs of unsustainability should management alternatives fail to be sustainable, as well evaluating alternatives on the basis of equity and environmental quality in addition economic efficiency. The approach taken in this project has been extended in two additional projects dealing with transboundary rivers and wetland restoration.
I am currently coordinating a 2 million guilder project entitled “Wetlands in de Randstand”. This project consists of nine individual projects from the disciplines chemistry, systems ecology, hydrology and economics, and will attempt a spatial analysis of vernatting (raising water levels) for wetland restoration in the Vecht river valley.