Socioenvironmental and economic sciences applied to the assessment of the impacts of payment for ecosystem services in the Atlantic Forest

• Grant number: 24/12797-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct)
• Start date: September 01, 2024
• End date: August 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal Investigator: Ramon Felipe Bicudo da Silva
• Grantee: Juliana Angelo
• Host Institution: Núcleo de Estudos e Pesquisas Ambientais (NEPAM). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 22/16002-1 - Multi-scale analysis of environmental changes and management practices in rural properties in the Atlantic Forest: effects of payment for ecosystem services, AP.JP

Abstract

We are in the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) in a period where environmental degradation is still a major threat for human societies and biodiversity. However, in recent decades different strategies and processes underpinning restoration were developed, such as the payment for ecosystems services (PES), known as mechanisms for working through incentives (cash or in-kind transactions) to foster changes in resources practices or to conserve and restore natural areas. In Brazil, it has been implemented in the Southern region of Paraíba Valley (São Paulo state) since 2018, through a partnership including public environment agencies and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF). To contribute to the efforts to cope with environmental degradation and to foster restoration, this proposal will apply a multi-level approach (biome, municipality, and rural property) under a socio-environmental mixed-methods framework to understand the effects of the PES program in the Paraíba Valley. Hence, this proposal will develop a new land-use and land-cover (LULC) mapping of Paraíba Valley (2015-2022) using Sentinel-2 data (10 m resolution), and will collect data through a mixed methods approach with landowners participating (and not participating) in the PES program. Statistical analysis (hypothesis tests, correlation, spatial econometric regression), and spatially-explicit modelling (e.g., InVEST) will be performed along with digital elevation modeling (DEM), landscape metrics, national statistics on agriculture and economy, and climate and hydrologic data. This proposal will be conducted in partnership with scholars from Michigan State University (USA), King's College London (UK) and State University of Campinas (Unicamp), and with a specialist from the Secretariat of Infrastructure and Environment of São Paulo state (Finatec/SEMIL) who are in charge with the implementation of the PES program supported by the GEF.