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MAP OF ENVIRONMENTAL LOADS
OF CATALONIA
Phase I
Enric Pol ([email protected])
Maria Rosa Bonet, Andrés Di Masso, Joana Espín, Tomeu Vidal
PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Department of Social Psychology - University of Barcelona
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Origine of Map of Environmental Loads of Catalonia
It’s an idea of
PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
in the frame of Environmental Intervention Program
Department of Social Psychology - University of Barcelona
Supported by the Catalan Government
to be applied to his environmental and territorial management system
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
What’s the Map of Environmental Loads of
Catalonia?
The Map of Environmental Loads of Catalunya (MELC) is
a data-base in GIS (Geographical Information System)
format which contains the environmental loads of each
part of the territory taking into consideration its
physical and social vulnerability.
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Which is the MELC utility?
The MELC is designed to become a useful instrument for the decision
making on the location of facilities and environmental services.
The specific characteristics of each project will have to be
contrasted with the specificities and capacities of the different places
where the facilities or services might be hosted.
The MELC can be useful for the elaboration of studies of
environmental impact that must be subjected to an E.I.A., as well as for
the valuation of the proposal and the elaboration of the E.I. Statement
by the competent governamental organism.
Particularly, the MELC aims to be useful for the territorial and cityplanning and the Environmental Evaluation of Plans and Projects
according to directive 2001/42/EC, the denominated Strategic
Environmental Impact Assessment.
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Why a MELC?
The Nimby effect (Not in my back yard) has acquired a special relevance
and even virulence, independently of which the implied company, public
administration or goverment level might be.
The increasing number of environmental conflicts registered in
Catalunya can be seen in the growing emergence of platforms and other
associations that constitute a systematic opposition to any intervention
project in the territory.
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
The problem
Increasing Nimby effect (see theoretical support in the European
Review of Applied Psychology (Pol et al. 2003/4)
Some particular interests, the interests of some social groups, or the
interest of some political perspectives often use the proposals of facilities
implying some kind of environmental loads, as an excuse for
confrontation, independently of the objectivity of the argumentations
adduced by any part.
The increase of the environmental awareness (that is necessary to
improve the environmental behavior of people, companies and institutions, and
orients it towards a sustainable development), makes more frequent the
movements of rejection to facilities and services that, although
considered necessary, are not accepted by the population: eventually it is
hard to find locations or drawn up.
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Catalonia in Europe
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Standards that guide management
The management and the decisions on facilities and services of
environmental character must be done in an integrated way (Catalan
legislation, Law IIAA, 27/2/98; European IPPC Directive).
The European principle of subsidiarity aims to approach the solution of
the problem to the place where it takes place.
 Subsidiarity usually hits frontally with what’s generally considered as
‘general interest’.
All together creates a situation that is hard to manage, revealing that
sometimes the environmental problematic cannot be redirected/reoriented.
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Expected benefits of the proposal
Reduction of conflicts and Environmental management could be very much
benefited if there was a precise description of the loads and environmental
responsibilities that the territory supports:
 Objectively
 According to the citizen’s perceptions
Describing how these loads and responsibilities are distributed on the
territory, considering the environmental vulnerability, understood as
ecological fragility and social fragility.
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Objectives of the global MELC project
General Objective
 Elaboration of a Map of Environmental Loads of Catalonia
Specific Objectives
 To inventory the local loads derived from housing and urban processes,
either legal or illegal.
 To inventory the local loads of industrial, energetic, miner and
extractive activities with environmental effects that extend the local
balance.
 To inventory the local loads of agrarian, cattle and fishery activities,
with environmental effects that extend the local balance.
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Specific Objectives …
 To inventory the local loads of services and infrastructures with
environmental effects that extend the local balance.
 To inventory the present and foreseeable demographic and city-planning
pressure on the territory units that are considered.
 To establish an index of anthropization of the territory.
 In addition to current catalogues of protected spaces and places of
natural interest, to establish a catalogue of spaces of social interest by its
patrimonial qualities, of life styles or forms of production to preserve.
 To inventory or to catalogue any other aspects not considered in the
previous ones and that can be of interest.
 To know the citizen’s perception of loads through survey.
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Phases of the MELC project
Phase 1 Establishment of criteria for the elaboration of indices and
indicators of environmental loads that need to be considered for the
elaboration of the MELC
Phase 2 Creation of a data base from the scopes defined in phase 1
Phase 3 Survey of perception of environmental burden
Phase 4
Integration of data on the Map of Loads on GIS
Phase 5 Territorial characterization of Catalonia
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Objective of Phase 1
Establishment of previous criteria detecting sensible scopes and factors for
the elaboration of indices and indicators of environmental loads
Two parallel studies
The citizen’s perspectives
The expert’s perspective
(analysing environmental conflicts)
(fixing the operative concept of
environmental load)
 Documental analysis
 Press analysis
 Delphi/experts from different
disciplines
 Web analysis
 Most visible conflicts that
create public opinion
 Sensible scopes to create
indicators
 Effective concept of
“environmental load”: consensus
 Definition of sensible scopes to
create indicators
Data base to be integrated in a GIS
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
A) REPORT OF THE SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL
CONFLICTS during the last 15 YEARS
(the citizen’s perspectives)
Specific objectives:
 To detect, to inventory, to categorize and to locate the environmental
conflicts
To know how its nature evolves or varies along the time
To identify the leading factors and the causes of the beginning of the
conflicts
To describe the processes, agents, actions and resolutions
To know the relations based on the type of the conflict and its location
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
work process
 Exploration of documental sources
 Descriptive card registry
Generic descriptive information:
Name of the conflict
Location
Beginning
Resolution
Type or classification: it defines
the object of the conflict
Processes of the conflict:
Origin and causes
Faced agents
Actions
Types of resolution
 Crossing of variables and description of the results
 Conclusions
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Discussion on Environmental Conflicts
 Tendency to the increase of the visibility and occurrence of
environmental conflicts in the last years.
Sustainability as a new “positive social values”
new Information and Communication Technologies
electoral periods -> more conflicts
Environmental argumentations:
Obeying to just causes
NIABY (Not In Any Back Yard)
Defense of private interests under
the assumption that nobody will dare to
discuss an environmental argumentation
NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard)
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Discussion on Environmental Conflicts…
 permanent
conflict
Waste  dilemma: concentration vs equitative distribution
Territorial intervention
Mobility infrastructures
Urban developments
Golf courses
Skiing tracks
permanent conflicts
increasing conflicts 90s
 Perception of inequity (specially in infrastructures)
 At the end of the 90s increasing rejection to production and
transportation of energy
(interested?) loss of social prestige of alternatives of energy (f.i. aeolic)
induces the public opinion for a possible ending of the nuclear moratorium?
 Symbolic value of the place increases the rejection/conflict
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Psychosocial processes in the conflict
Anticipation of consequences
Social perceptions
Cause and responsibility
attributions
Social construction of reality
Social construction of risk
univocal attribution responsibilities to
Complaints and protests
public administrations
 Ecological group’s behavior is not homogenous
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
B) THE CONSTRUCTION OF a
DEFINITION OF ENVIRONMENTAL LOAD and the
DETERMINATION OF SENSIBLE SCOPES
(=The expert’s perspectives)
PROCEDURE :
- Delphi technique
- 113 participants, first step; 53 second; 27 third step:
Discipline and/or profession of participants
- ecologists/biologists (28)
- archit/urban planners (16)
- engineers (18)
- economists (14)
-psychologists, geographers
and sociologists (26)
- law (3)
- communication sciences (3)
- policy makers (4)
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
RESULTS
What should be considered environmental load?
According to the expert’s answers,
Environmental loads is the sum of impacts, of a very
diverse nature, derivatives from interventions, uses,
procedures or services, with different degrees of
pressure over the environment and with cumulative and
synergic effects that come together on a concrete
surrounding (that includes physical, biological, and
social dimensions).
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Some sensible scopes to be considered
in the creation of environmental loads indices
Physical environment sensible scopes:
Injuring of the agricultural system of irrigation
Affectation of the aquatic ecosystems
Accumulation and treatement of waste
Urban developments in natural areas with special qualities
Aggressions and mortgages to the local biodiversity
Atmospheric contamination by the liberation of high toxicity
smoke
Forced alteration of geophysical and biogeological processes
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Some sensible scopes to be considered ….
Human and social environment sensible scopes
Break down of the social fabric and inhabitability of the territory
Centralization and social desertization
Amassed, unstructured, excessively urbanized population increase
Capacity for the renovation of population and to revert the aging
inertia
Risks for the reached health and the quality of life
Symbolic places and expectations
Perception and relevancy of the proposed projects
Loss of the heritagel value of the territory
Pol, Bonet, Di Maso, Espin, Vidal -- PSYCHO/SOCIO/ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH GROUP
Human and social environment sensible scopes (cont.)
Accumulated inequity and frustrated expectations
Pre-established breach of the political promises and contracts
Disposition/In-disposition to assume services that are of a
general
interest (supralocal scope)
Injuring of the proximity principle (p.e. in the case of the garbage
dumps)
Coherence with the historical evolution of the place