Browsing by Author "Sactic Chacón, María Isabel"

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    A scenario-specific nexus modelling toolkit to identify trade-offs in the promotion of sustainable irrigated agriculture in Ecuador, a Belt and Road country
    (Elsevier Sci Ltd, 2023) Naranjo, L.; Correa-Cano, M. E.; Rey, D.; Chengot, R.; España Chávez, Francisco Javier; Sactic Chacón, María Isabel; Knox, J. W.; Yan, X.; Viteri-Salazar, O.; Foster Bonnette, William Ellis; Melo, O.
    Increased demand for food due to development and population growth has prompted irrigated agriculture expansion, posing enhanced global challenges to water, energy, and food security. To confront these challenges, an approach that considers the water-energy-food-environment nexus can address multidimensional trade-offs that complicate the efficient use of resources and the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals. In order to provide insights into solutions to these challenges for a specific case, this study develops a modelling toolkit that integrates biophysical and socioeconomic aspects of nexus components in the context of agro-export and irrigation expansion in Ecuador, a Belt and Road Country. The nexus toolkit is applied to agriculturaldevelopment scenarios defined in participatory workshops and incorporates a water resources model, a lifecycle environmental assessment, and a socioeconomic analysis. The modelling exercise is constructed around specific scenario-determined land use patterns in the Santa Elena peninsula of Ecuador. Agriculture in the peninsula is water-limited, relying on delivery infrastructure and transfers from a neighbouring catchment. Impacts on nexus components are analysed for ten crops under two potential land-use scenarios: a substantial increase in irrigated area due to investment in irrigation infrastructure; and a substantial shift in land use towards export crops. The two have distinct impact on water and energy use, global warming potential, freshwater eutrophication, terrestrial acidification, and fine particulate matter formation. The results provide insights into future water and energy resource challenges and environmental and socioeconomic trade-offs associated with likely changes in irrigation expansion. The results for scenarios show that, for example, banana production has the greatest environmental impacts (e.g. a 519% increase in global warming potential and 452% increase in fine particulate matter form for scenario 2), primarily due to water and energy requirements, despite the crop being mainly produced organically. In addition, total net income and labour demand increase (net income increases by 43% and 217% under scenarios 1 and 2, respectively) due to a larger crop area and crop intensification. Scale effects on labour demand are mainly due to labour intensity of maize in Ecuador, which is disadvantaged in the crop export scenario (an unexpected result). However, expanding irrigated areas would also increase total water and energy demand for irrigation, global warming potential, and freshwater eutrophication. This type of information enables stakeholders and decision-makers to design policies that achieve equitable and sustainable agricultural production, water use, and economic growth.
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    Evaluación del desempeño de la metodología de transferencia internacional de beneficios en un país en desarrollo : calidad de agua del Lago Villarrica, Chile.
    (2019) Sactic Chacón, María Isabel; Melo Contreras, Óscar; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Facultad de Agronomía e Ingeniería Forestal
    La metodología de Transferencia de Beneficios ha sido utilizada ampliamente para calcular medidas de bienestar en sitios con falta de recursos para aplicar metodologías primarias. Esta ha tomado especial importancia en las últimas décadas debido a la creciente demanda de información sobre bienes y servicios ambientales, especialmente en países con pocos recursos destinados para este tipo de investigación. Sin embargo, existe poca información acerca de la confiabilidad y precisión de los datos generados por esta metodología en países en desarrollo. Este estudio tiene como objetivo estudiar el desempeño de la metodología de transferencia de beneficios utilizando como estudio de caso la disponibilidad a pagar por la mejora de la calidad de agua del lago Villarrica calculada mediante el método de valoración contingente. Se encontró que el porcentaje de error utilizando el método de transferencia de valor ajustado es de 37,7% mientras que las transferencias de función generaron valores mayores al 90% de error. Además, se rechazó la hipótesis del test de equivalencia entre las distribuciones empíricas de la disponibilidad a pagar calculada mediante el método de valoración contingente con las dos transferencias de función desarrolladas en el estudio.