Harold Levrel

Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle

The development of an ecosystem accounting system to complete current wealth indicators is a core issue. Biophysical ecosystem accounts of the SEEA EA have been adopted as a statistical standard to bridge this gap. However, challenges remain as the specificities of marine ecosystems are poorly considered in the current standard, and link with polic...

https://enpc.hal.science/hal-04625026 À l’instar de la France et son objectif « Zéro artificialisation nette » (ZAN), plusieurs juridictions européennes adoptent des cibles politiques de réduction de la dégradations des sols ou des terres. La mise en œuvre de ces objectifs soulève des enjeux éthiques, économiques et politiques. Comment encourager...

Environmental and natural resource economics lies inherently at the interface between economic and natural dynamics (e.g., geological constraints, climate change, biodiversity evolution). Building models in that field often means building integrated models, calling on knowledge and methods from economics and physics, climatology, biology, or ecolog...

This technical report presents the experimental biophysical marine ecosystems accounts in France in the context of the H2020 MAIA project. The System of Environmental Economic Accounting Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) has been adopted as a statistical standard by the UNSD in 2021. However, only few studies have attempted to operationalize it for th...

This paper briefly synthesizes the history of ecological / environmental / green accounting, from the 1870s-1880s to the 21st century, with a focus on national / macroeconomic accounting.

Harnessing reliable and relevant information on ecosystems requires focusing and prioritising information acquisition on dimensions of interest. As a boundary object between ecosystem monitoring, research and public decision-making, ecosystem accounting can serve this purpose. We develop an argument in favour of a set of accounts, consistent with t...

Environmental policymakers need to monitor the state of the environment to evaluate the effectiveness of their actions, prioritize policies, and thus establish their contribution to the conservation of natural capital. The Environmental Sustainability GAP (ESGAP) is a framework that introduces a synthetic dashboard to monitor the state of the envir...

Projecting the combined effect of management options and the evolving climate is necessary to inform shared sustainable futures for marine activities and biodiversity. However, engaging multisectoral stakeholders in biodiversity-use scenario analysis remains a challenge. Using a French Mediterranean marine protected area (MPA) as a marine social-ec...

This paper aims to describe which institutional, organizational, technical but also ecosystem innovations have led to the adoption of compromises around forms of coexistence between humans and pinnipeds, which have led to the recognition of new rights for the latter. These developments are very heterogeneous depending on the type of socio-ecosystem...

This paper explores the dynamics of change and reorganization of coastal California socioecosystems over the past 30 years in response to regional population increases of two pinniped species: the California sea lion Zalophus californianus and the harbour seal Phoca vitulina. The work presented focuses on four very different types of socio-ecosyste...

À l’aube de la sixième crise d’extinction du vivant, provoquée par un modèle économique insoutenable et encore largement aveugle à ses propres dégâts, il y a urgence à transformer radicalement nos façons de produire et de consommer, nos conceptions du monde, nos institutions, voire notre contrat social. L’exploitation de la biosphère nécessaire au...

Ce papier met en avant la pertinence et l’importance du développement de cadres comptables écologiques nouveaux à même de contribuer aux multiples efforts de transformation de notre économie en un système qui maintient et restaure efficacement la biosphère. Trois méthodes de comptabilité écologique sont présentées, s’établissant respectivement au n...

Les multiples avantages de l’exposition aux espaces verts urbains (EVU) étant de mieux en mieux reconnus, les politiques de renaturation sont devenues une composante importante de l’agenda politique urbain. La plupart des stratégies de ciblage des futurs EVU sont fondées sur la recherche d’une répartition égale des espaces verts urbains entre les r...

To better manage our environment, systematic information is needed on the state of ecosystems and their interactions with society. Efforts have been undertaken to design monitoring and recording systems, notably the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA). However, the diverse conceptualizations and applications on ecosyst...

It is increasingly recognised that the good quality of life of city dwellers depends on the provision of a variety of urban ecosystem services (UES) within cities. However, soil sealing, associated with urbanisation and densification policies, affects soil multifunctionality and compromises the supply of future UES delivered both by public and priv...

Projecting the combined effect of management options and the evolving climate is necessary to inform shared sustainable futures for marine activities and biodiversity. However, engaging multi-sectoral stakeholders in biodiversity-use scenarios analysis remains a challenge. Using a marine social-ecological case study, we coupled co-designed visionin...

Cet ouvrage, aux nombreuses illustrations, donne une vision transversale des changements environnementaux d'échelle mondiale que connaît notre planète aux limites finies. Son objectif est, en particulier, de faire comprendre les mécanismes et conséquences du réchauffement climatique et de l'érosion de la biodiversité ainsi que leurs relations avec...

Urban sprawl impacts are critical in the evaluation of planning decisions and often monitored by indicators of soil sealing. In France, these indicators are required by law to be reported in environmental assessments of planning documents. Although monitoring of soil sealing is important to limit environmental impacts, focusing on this sole dimensi...

Cette évaluation de la prise en compte des services écosystémiques dans les décisions d’aménagement urbain s’inscrit dans le cadre global de l’Évaluation française des écosystèmes et des services écosystémiques (Efese). Elle vise à proposer à l’ensemble des acteurs de l’aménagement urbain une démarche d’évaluation sur laquelle s’appuyer pour intégr...

Natural infrastructure such as parks, forests, street trees, green roofs, and coastal vegetation is central to sustainable urban management. Despite recent progress, it remains challenging for urban decision-makers to incorporate the benefits of natural infrastructure into urban design and planning. Here, we present an approach to support the green...

La transition écologique implique d’adopter une approche holistique que les théories économiques conventionnelles peinent à intégrer. La théorie co-évolutionniste, la théorie de la régulation et le mouvement de la décroissance apparaissent comme trois outils féconds pour penser les défis systémiques de la transition écologique.

La compensation est l’un des plus anciens dispositifs utilisés pour réparer un préjudice subi par une personne, dans l’objectif de recouvrer un certain équilibre au sein d’une structure sociale. Depuis les années 1970, les compensations écologiques étendent ce mécanisme aux espèces et habitats naturels dans le cadre des lois relatives aux études d’...

World agriculture needs to find the right balance to cope with the trilemma between feeding a growing population, reducing its impact on biodiversity and minimizing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this paper, we evaluate a broad range of scenarios that achieve 4.3 GtCO2,eq /year GHG mitigation in the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land-Use (AFO...

Urban green spaces provide cultural ecosystem services, and urban policies typically aim to enhance these services by targeting new investments in deprived areas. The implementation of urban greening policies is one way to reduce inequalities in well-being, for example by targeting areas where increased access to green spaces will benefit citizens...

Power asymmetries affect the governance of natural resources but are rarely considered explicitly in ecosystem services research, which often overlooks the diversity of actors and their interactions. In this paper, we propose an innovative and easily replicable method to analyze two types of power asymmetries, using social network analysis and a po...

The commodification of nature, through privatization, marketization, monetary valuation and other associated processes, has become a central topic in social sciences to examine the conditions and effects of the economic approaches for supporting conservation policies all around the world. The aim of this contribution is to delineate the current sta...

Clive Spash proposes a classification of ecological economists in three camps, “social ecological economists” (SEE), “new resource economists” (NRE), and “new environmental pragmatists” (NEP). Even if this classification describes the communities of the field and their main scientific strategies with an intuitive perspective, we have three concerns...

Plutôt que d'assister à une mise en économie univoque de la nature, ne serions-nous pas en train, parallèlement, de voir l'émergence de nouvelles logiques, écologiques, structurant la régulation des rapports humains/non-humains (évaluation multi-critères des services de la nature, dé-privatisation, decommodification, etc.) ? L'objectif de cette con...

Biodiversity Offsets (BO) and Payments for Environmental Services (PES) are sometimes used interchangeably to characterize innovative economic tools to conserve or restore biodiversity, ecosystems, or their services. We assume that a confusion between PES and BO can have negative implications for biodiversity conservation. In this paper, we argue t...

Renaturation policies are playing an increasingly important role in urban planning strategies of major metropolitan areas as the multiple benefits from exposure to urban green spaces are increasingly acknowledged. However, in urban planning, it is usually implicitly assumed that the development of any type of urban green space will have the same ef...

The development of ecosystem accounting systems at national levels to complete current wealth indicators with robust information on ecosystem degradation or enhancement is a crucial challenge, recognized in international strategies. However, the methodologies remain under development building, at the global level, on an experimental ecosystem accou...

En France la compensation écologique existe depuis la Loi de 1976 sur la protection de la nature. Depuis une dizaine d’années son application connait un certain regain d’intérêt. De nombreuses questions restent cependant en suspens concernant son application. Les choix des systèmes de mise en œuvre des mesures compensatoires et les effets que ces d...

Article paru dans The Conversation sur l'importance de prendre en compte la nature dans les projets d'aménagement urbain

The main aim of this publication is to highlight the current thinking in ecosystem service valuation for the marine environment. Valuation of the benefits stemming from marine ecosystem services, including often unnoticed benefits to society, can help to assess the long-term sustainability of blue growth, support policy development and marine manag...

The issues of power and equity are gaining attention in research on ecosystem services (ESs). Stakeholders benefiting from ESs are not necessarily able or authorized to participate in ES management. Thus, we have proposed an analytical framework to identify and qualify stakeholders’ roles in relation to ES flows. Building on existing frameworks in...

This publication highlights current thinking in ecosystem service valuation for the marine environment. Valuation of the direct and indirect benefits (for either societal welfare, health and economic activities) stemming from marine ecosystem services, can help to assess the long-term sustainability of blue growth, support policy development and ma...

Economics and economic activities are often considered as a source of alienation of nature, seen as a commodity delivering ecosystem services to be valued in order to provide benefits to people, without any considerations regarding idiosyncratic values. This economization process is supposed to occur through various mechanisms such as monetary valu...

Economics and economic activities are often considered as a source of alienation of nature,,seenas aommodity yelivering gcosystem services to ob valued in order to provide benefits to people, without ana considerations regarding idiosyncratic values. This economization process is supposed to occur through varrous mechanisms such as monetary valuati...

The Karthala Forest (Comoros) is currently the subject of a national protection policy, in conjunction with the international community. This policy may be more or less in line with the perceptions and expectations of the residents of the forest. In order to better understand these issues, we have studied the representations of the forest by local...

Land take is the transformation of agricultural, natural and semi-natural spaces into urban and other artificial uses. It is closely linked to urban sprawl (low-density or dispersed urban development). Land take is a major environmental challenge, especially for biodiversity conservation, as it destroys and fragments natural habitats. In order to a...

This paper investigates the consequences of the organization of actors on the performances of biodiversity restoration projects. It leans on an interdisciplinary framework that uses ecological engineering information to answer an economic issue following the transaction cost economics framework. Applied to four case studies, this analysis allows us...

The avoidong-minimizing-offseting sequence is becoming an increasingly important environmental policies in France over the past few years. The 2016 Law on the Recovery of Biodiversity has further strengthened the role of this public policy tool. In a context of an increasing mobilization of a diversity of stakeholders around this instrument, we obs...

Impacts of climate change are likely to be marked in areas with steep climatic transitions. Species turnover, spread of invasive species, altered productivity, and modified processes such as fire regimes can all spread rapidly along ecotones, which challenge the current paradigms of ecosystem management. We conducted a literature review at a contin...

Analyser l’efficacité d’une politique publique implique d’adopter une démarche normative, c’est-à-dire de définir « ce qui doit être » pour ensuite discuter du meilleur chemin pour y arriver. Dans le cadre de la compensation écologique, cet objectif est défini par l’atteinte de l’équivalence entre les pertes liées à un projet et les gains liés aux...

The mitigation hierarchy has been at the heart of French environmental regulations since the EIA process was introduced in 1976. Its application, however, has been patchy, especially concerning compensation for impacts on wildlife. New mechanisms have been put in place and trialed over the last few years so that France now has one of the most compr...

Marine recreational fishing (MRF) is a high-participation activity with large economic value and social benefits globally, and it impacts on some fish stocks. Although reporting MRF catches is a European Union legislative requirement, estimates are only available for some countries. Here, data on numbers of fishers, participation rates, days fished...

This paper develops an accounting approach for estimating cultural ecosystem services. Ecosystem satellite accounts should be able to include cultural ecosystem services, which raise numerous assessment difficulties. A new assessment method is proposed, which uses the production for own use of households who carry out recreational activities depend...

Wetland mitigation banking (WMB) is an organizational form that attempts to balance the ecological goals of wetland conservation and the economic goals of development with the aim of improving the implementation of wetland offsetting. Given the resulting tension, it is important to understand how the way stakeholders employ the WMB regulatory frame...

Natura 2000 (N2K) is a European network of protected areas that has grown out of the implementation of the Birds Directive (1979) and the Habitats Directive (1992). To date, the literature focussing on “conservation measures” required by the directives has been scarce. This article contributes to a better understanding of associated practices with...

This paper describes and analyzes the risks associated with using mitigation banking for the conservation of wet- lands in Florida in the United States. First, we attempt to identify and summarize the main ecological and socio- economic risks regarding mitigation banking that have been discussed in previous studies. Then we analyze the institutiona...

Coastal communities depend on the marine environment for their livelihoods, but the common property nature of marine resources poses major challenges for the governance of such resources. Through detailed cases and consideration of broader global trends, this volume examines how coastal communities are adapting to environmental change, and the attr...

Messages clés · La compensation doit recourir à de meilleures pratiques de restauration s’appuyant sur la littérature grise et les projets existants et sur des méthodes d’évaluation standardisées. · Des solutions alternatives (out-of-kind, actions de préservation) sont de plus en plus utilisées mais les risques associés doivent être analysés. · Le...

Biosphere reserves are an example of social-ecological systems that combine biodiversity conservation and socioeconomic development with knowledge generation and dissemination (both scientific and local). We review lessons learned from case studies biosphere reserves in western African and France, highlighting the importance of early stakeholder en...

Interacciones entre actores y servicios ecosistémicos en la cuenca del Mariño, Perú: Redes y poder

The quantification and integration of ecosystem services (ES) into urban planning decisions is becoming increasingly important. However, studies that quantify and analyze the impacts in terms of ES changes are still scarce. We analyzed multiple ES provided by the landscape of the Urban Community of Bordeaux (CUB), in France, between 1990 and 2006 a...

The forest transition framework describes the temporal changes of forest areas with economic development. A first phase of forest contraction is followed by a second phase of expansion once a turning point is reached. This framework does not differentiate forest types or ecosystem services, and describes forests regardless of their contribution to...

Transformation of ES variables. (PDF)

Details on land-cover changes. (PDF)

Parameters used in ES modeling. (PDF)