2019年美国大学生数学建模竞赛E题
江南大学自主招生-放飞希望
2019 ICM
Problem E: What is the Cost of
Environmental Degradation?
Economic
theory often disregards the impact of its
decisions on the biosphere or assumes
unlimited resources or capacity for its needs.
There is a flaw in this viewpoint, and the
environment is now facing the consequences.
The biosphere provides many natural processes to
maintain a healthy and sustainable environment
for human life, which are known as ecosystem
services. Examples include turning waste into
food, water filtration, growing food, pollinating
plants, and converting carbon dioxide into
oxygen. However, whenever humans alter the
ecosystem, we potentially limit or remove
ecosystem services. The impact of local small-
scale
changes in land use, such as building a
few roads, sewers, bridges, houses, or factories
may seem
negligible. Add to these small
projects, large-scale projects such as building or
relocating a large
corporate headquarters,
building a pipeline across the country, or
expanding or altering
waterways for extended
commercial use. Now think about the impact of many
of these projects
across a region, country,
and the world. While individually these activities
may seem
inconsequential to the total ability
of the biosphere’s functioning potential,
cumulatively they are
directly impacting the
biodiversity and causing environmental
degradation.
Traditionally, most land use
projects do not consider the impact of, or account
for changes to,
ecosystem services. The
economic costs to mitigate negative results of
land use changes:
polluted rivers, poor air
quality, hazardous waste sites, poorly treated
waste water, climate
changes, etc., are often
not included in the plan. Is it possible to put a
value on the environmental
cost of land use
development projects? How would environmental
degradation be accounted for
in these project
costs? Once ecosystem services are accounted for
in the cost-benefit ratio of a
project, then
the true and comprehensive valuation of the
project can be determined and
assessed.
Your ICM team has been hired to create an
ecological services valuation model to understand
the
true economic costs of land use projects
when ecosystem services are considered. Use your
model to perform a cost benefit analysis of
land use development projects of varying sizes,
from
small community-based projects to large
national projects. Evaluate the effectiveness of
your
model based on your analyses and model
design. What are the implications of your modeling
on
land use project planners and managers? How
might your model need to change over time?
Your submission should consist of:
One-
page Summary Sheet,
Your solution of no
more than 20 pages, for a maximum of 21 pages with
your summary.
Judges expect a complete list
of references with in-text citations, but may not
consider
appendices in the judging process.
Note: Reference list and any appendices do
not count toward the 21-page limit and
should
appear after your completed solution.
References:
Chee, Y., 2004. An
ecological perspective on the valuation of
ecosystem services.
Biological Conservation
120, 549-565.
Costanza, R., d’Arge, R., de
Groot, R., Farber, S., Grasso, M., Hannon, B.,
Limburg, K.,
Naeem, S., O’Neill, R.V.,
Paruelo, J., Raskin, R.G., Sutton, P., van den
Belt, M., 1997.
The value of the world’s
ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature
387, 253– 260.
Gómez-Baggethuna, E., de Groot,
R., Lomas, P., Montesa, C., 1 April 2010. The
history
of ecosystem services in economic
theory and practice: From early notions to markets
and payment schemes. Ecological Economics 69
(6), 1209-1218.
Norgaard, R., 1 April 2010.
Ecosystem services: From eye-opening metaphor to
complexity blinder. Ecological Economics 69
(6), 1219-1227.
Richmond, A., Kaufmann R.,
Myneni, R., 2007, Valuing ecosystem services: A
shadow
price for net primary production.
Ecological Economics 64, 454-462.
Yang, Q.,
Liu, G., Casazza, M., Campbell, E., Giannettia,
B., Brown, M., December
2018. Development of a
new framework for non-monetary accounting on
ecosystem
services valuation. Ecosystem
Services 34A, 37-54.
Data sources:
US
based data: https:systems
Satellite data:
https:a-accesssatellite-datasatellite-data-
access-
datasets
Glossary:
Biodiversity - refers to the variety of life
in an ecosystem; all of the living organisms
within a given area.
Biosphere - the
part of the Earth that is occupied by living
organisms and generally
includes the
interaction between these organisms and their
physical environment.
Ecosystem - a
subset of the biosphere that primarily focuses on
the interaction between
living things and
their physical environment.
Ecosystem
Services – the many benefits and assets that
humans receive freely from our
natural
environment and a fully functioning ecosystem.
Environmental Degradation – the
deterioration or compromise of the natural
environment through consumption of assets
either by natural processes or human
activities.
Mitigate – to make
less severe, painful, or impactful.
Valuation - refers to the estimating or
determining the current worth of something.