Róger Madrigal-Ballestero

• Ph.D
• Director at Centro Agronomico Tropical de Investigacion y Ensenanza Catie

Community-based drinking water organizations (CBDWOs) are the most important providers of water in rural areas of the developing world. They are responsible for coping with future threats due to climate change, besides other non-climatic drivers of change such as demographic growth. The inherent capacities of CBDWOs to adapt to external drivers of...

This policy note provides a snapshot of water and sanitation measures implemented by governments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 14 countries in the Global South: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Panama, South Africa, Uganda and Vietnam. We find that many countries have taken a...

ABSTRACT The Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region enjoys an exuberant natural wealth; with 16 percent of the planet’s land, the region is home to 40 percent of the world’s biological diversity. This report investigates and provides a good overview of the region’s efforts to mainstream natural capital and biodiversity concerns into public polic...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the factors that determine individual compliance with a locally devised set of rules for harvesting and selling marine turtle eggs, as well as for protecting the turtles and their hatchlings. Individuals who violate the rules receive a monetary penalty, which implies a reduction in the income from sale o...

Groundwater is an essential yet often invisible resource, frequently analysed and managed with large-scale, physically-based, top-down approaches. However, community-based approaches, such as Costa Rica’s ASADAS (community-based drinking water organizations), present a promising yet challenging model for sustainable groundwater management. ASADAS p...

Despite Costa Rica's reputation for being a leader in environmental policy and its thriving nature-based tourism industry, the nation has had poor surface water quality. Reasons for poor water quality include the lack of sewerage treatment, overuse of septic tanks, and the application of large quantities of agrichemicals. Although Costa Rica has po...

The sustainability of Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes largely depends on their effectiveness in delivering ecosystem services (ES) to society. From an investor perspective, funding PES should be conditional on obtaining the expected results. However, evaluating effectiveness is a complex task requiring quantifying and monitoring ES flo...

Introduction: Global and local stressors have led to rapid declines in coral reef health. The high rates of coral degradation have motivated restoration initiatives worldwide. Evaluation of these initiatives has provided valuable information regarding coral restoration techniques and limitations faced by projects. However, most of the literature is...

We study the implementation of a time-varying pricing (TVP) program by a major electricity utility in Costa Rica. Because of particular features of the data, we use recently developed understanding of the two-way fixed effects differences-in-differences estimator along with event-study specifications to interpret our results. Similar to previous re...

Using a spatially explicit framework with low/middle-income country coastal characteristics, we explore whether aspatial policies augment the impact of marine protected areas (MPAs) and identify when MPAs create income burdens on communities. When MPAs are small and budget-constrained, they cannot resolve all of the marinescape’s open-access issues...

The design of protected areas, whether marine or terrestrial, rarely considers how people respond to the imposition of no-take sites with complete or incomplete enforcement. Consequently, these protected areas may fail to achieve their intended goal. We present and solve a spatial bio-economic model in which a manager chooses the optimal location,...

We study the implementation of a time-varying pricing (TVP) program by a major electric utility in Costa Rica. Similar to previous research, we find that the program reduces consumption during peak-hours. However, in contrast with previous research, we find that the program increases total consumption. To explain the differences between our results...

Costa Rica is supporting Marine Areas of Responsible Fishing (AMPRs) to enable small-scale fishing communities to apply for exclusive harvesting and management rights within spatially delimited areas under a co-management policy framework. Communities need to self-organize their own fishing association and develop a fishing management plan (POP) to...

Este reporte presenta una reseña del panorama ambiental de Costa Rica. En él se detallan los principales desafíos del país para lograr un crecimiento inclusivo, resiliente y sostenible, incluyendo el reto de cumplir con los compromisos climáticos adquiridos en los Acuerdos de París. Finalmente, se plantean alternativas estratégicas que harían viabl...

Esta investigación analizó un conjunto de hogares que experimentan escasez de agua para consumo doméstico en la comunidad Maraxco en Chiquimula, Guatemala. Históricamente, esta comunidad ha estado bajo condiciones de sequías prolongadas. Estas condiciones han contribuido sustancialmente a reducir la capacidad del sistema comunitario de agua de sati...

Costa Rica is considering expanding their marine protected areas (MPAs) to conserve marine resources. Due to the importance of households' responses to an MPA in defining the MPA's ecological and economic outcomes, this paper uses an economic decision framework to interpret data from near-MPA household surveys to inform this policy discussion. The...

La Flor Wildlife Refuge and nearby beaches on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua are important nesting sites for various species of endangered marine turtles. However, illegal harvesting of turtle eggs threatens the survival of marine turtles. In this study, we analysed the different motivations of local villagers for complying with a ban on harvesting...

Los programas de transferencias condicionadas (PTC ) para promover objetivos de salud y educación, así como los pagos por servicios ecosistémicos (PSE) en el caso de los objetivos ambientales, son dos instrumentos importantes de política pública. Ambos buscan alinear los intereses de la sociedad como un todo con los intereses de los individuos, fam...

America. The policy review addresses the issue of sustainable energy from two different perspectives. One approach considers energy in its broad spectrum and as a national sector of relevance, while the other one focuses on the relevance of implementing sustainable energies under a climate change context (EEfD 2016) 1. Despite the difficulty of sep...

This report provides findings based on the Costa Rican experiences that are beneficial for countries around the world implementing Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes. In this report, it is noted that from 2000 to 2010, over 5 million hectares of forest were lost per year globally, with the agricultural sector contributing to an estimated...

In many lower-income countries, the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) involves significant opportunity costs for artisanal fishers, reflected in changes in how they allocate their labor in response to the MPA. The resource economics literature rarely addresses such labor allocation decisions of artisanal fishers and how, in turn, these...

This paper analyses the underlying factors affecting people’s satisfaction with drinking water provided by community-based organizations in rural Costa Rica. These organizations provide water to more than 60% of the country’s rural population, but there is great disparity in the quality of water provided. Using a Generalized Ordered Logit regressio...

Perspectivas futuras sobre el co-manejo como alternativa para el uso y la protección de las tortugas en Ostional A pesar del relativo éxito del modelo de co-manejo que existe en el Refugio de Vida Silvestre de Ostional, los cambios externos repentinos y sin precedentes en el entorno local plantean serias interrogantes a la permanencia de este model...

Este documento es un insumo para un taller de discusión organizado por el proyecto “Fortaleciendo la capacidad de investigación en economía ambiental para la adaptación al cambio climático” para definir prioridades de investigación científica en la dimensión socioeconómica del cambio climático y agua para América Latina y el Caribe.

Community water and sanitation bodies called ASADAS in Costa Rica provide a large part of water to rural population. These bodies claim for enhanced legal competencies and financial resources in order to improve distribution of water, to ensure protection of water aquifers, to build capacities among their members and to foment a broad environmental...

This paper considers valuation of amenities in urban neighborhoods and satisfaction with both those neighborhoods and life in general. First, rents are used to estimate neighborhood amenities price in San Jose, which explain 39 percent of the standardized variation of rents. Some districts rank very high in housing characteristics but poorly in nei...

This article presents a case study of development of a Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) program related to drinking water in the city of Copán Ruinas, Honduras. The methodology used for the design and the implementation of this program is based on an integrated and adaptive management approach. It includes the following elements: general diagn...

Adaptative design and management of a payment for ecosystem services scheme in Copan Ruinas, Honduras This article presents a case study of development of a Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) program related to drinking water in the city of Copán Ruinas, Honduras. The methodology used for the design and the implementation of this program is base...

Los servicios ecosistémicos (SE) son los beneficios que recibimos de las funciones de los ecosistemas. El manejo sostenible de los recursos naturales favorece la generación de los SE. El objetivo de ésta investigación es aportar lineamientos para el manejo sostenible de los recursos naturales basándose en la identificación de los principales SE gen...

El desarrollo de un esquema de PSE debe reflejar un proceso continuo y adaptativo. En este artículo se propone una metodología para la aplicación de un enfoque integral para esquemas de pago por servicios de ecosistemas forestales. La experiencia del esquema de pago por servicios de los ecosistemas en Costa Rica así como las lecciones aprendidas en...

This document was commissioned by the Environment Network of the Regional Policy Dialogue for the V Hemispheric Meeting celebrated on November 30th, 2006. This consulting service attempts to set forth the principal opportunities available to the countries of the region of Latin America and the Caribbean in relation to the sustainable generation of...

Resumen: Los servicios ecosistémicos forestales (SEF) son fundamentales para los sistemas que sustentan la vida en la Tierra. Este capítulo analiza los diferentes servicios que los ecosistemas forestales ofrecen, y los efectos del uso de la tierra y de las prácti- cas de manejo forestal en la capacidad de mantener la provisión adecuada de servicios...

Esta presentación fue comisionada por la Red de Medio Ambiente del Diálogo Regional de Política para la V Reunión Hemisférica celebrada el día 30 de noviembre de 2006

Agriculture is widely considered the single most important threat to biodiversity conservation and the greatest driver of habitat destruction and change in Central America. Historically, agriculture has had a negative impact on biodiversity conservation primarily through the expansion of the agricultural frontier, at the expense of natural habitat...

Con base en un estudio de caso en el Asentamiento Campesino de Bagatzí, localizado en el Pacífico Norte de Costa Rica, este artículo demuestra como la desmejora reciente en el uso del agua de riego se debe a una red compleja de factores físicos, de características socioeconómicas del grupo de usuarios y de las reglas de uso y acceso al sistema de r...