Charles Perrings BA (London), PhD (London) Charles Perrings was appointed Professor of Environmental Economics at Arizona State University in August 2005. Previous appointments include Professor of Environmental Economics and Environmental Management at the University of York; Professor of Economics at the University of California, Riverside; and Director of the Biodiversity Program of the Beijer Institute, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, where he is a Fellow. Between 1995 and 2005 he was editor of the Cambridge University Press journal, Environment and Development Economics, and he remains on the editorial board of this and several other journals in environmental, resource and ecological economics, and in conservation ecology. He is Past President of the International Society for Ecological Economics, a society formed to bring together the insights of the ecological and economic sciences to aid understanding and management of environmental problems. He has advised various governmental, intergovernmental and international non-governmental organizations as well as research funding agencies. In Britain he served on, inter alia, the Royal Society’s Environment Committee, the WHAT Commission on Crop Genetic Diversity in Agriculture and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (Natural Environment Research Council Research Institutes) Program Review Board. At ASU he directs (with Ann Kinzig) the ecoSERVICES Group within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The Group studies the causes and consequences of change in ecosystem services – the benefits that people derive from the biophysical environment. It analyses biodiversity change in terms of its impacts on the things that people care about. Following the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) these are characterized as provisioning services (foods, fuels, fibers, genetic materials, chemical compounds and the like), cultural services (aesthetic, spiritual, moral, recreational, educational, scientific uses) and regulating services (the role of ecosystems in regulating flows of provisioning and cultural services including, for example, water quality regulation, soil erosion reduction, storm damage protection and so on). Charles Perrings co-chairs (with Shahid Naeem) the ecoSERVICES core project of Diversitas, the international program of biodiversity science. The Group contributes to a number of international research projects on issues relating to biodiversity change, conservation and development, and supports training in biodiversity and ecosystem services both within ASU and internationally. It runs the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Training Network (BESTNet), a Research Coordination Network funded by the National Science Foundation.

Research Activities Publications Editorial Courses

Contact ecoSERVICES Group School of Life Sciences Box 874501, Tempe, AZ 85287-4501, USA Tel: + 1 480 727 0427 Charles.Perrings@asu.edu

Research

1. Ecosystem Services

Research on ecosystem services is conducted within the ecoSERVICES Group at ASU. The Group supports the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Training Network (BESTNet) , a Research Coordination Network funded by the National Science Foundation. The core members of the network are part of an international global-change research network, DIVERSITAS, which focuses on the relationship between human activities, biodiversity change, and ecosystem services. DIVERSITAS is an interdisciplinary, international network of scientists concerned with the impact of anthropogenic activity on the world’s biodiversity, and on the consequences of biodiversity loss for human well-being through changes in ecosystem functioning, ecosystem processes, and the provision of valuable goods and services. It works through a set of four core projects - bioGENESIS; bioDISCOVERY; ecoSERVICESand bioSUSTAINABILITY – that together develop the scientific basis for monitoring, observing understanding and predicting changes; expanding biodiversity and ecosystem functioning science to larger scales and over a greater breadth of the biological hierarchy; linking changes in ecosystem structure and functioning to changes in ecosystem services; assessing human response to change in ecosystem services; developing new knowledge to guide policy and decision making that support sustainable use of biodiversity; evaluating the effectiveness of current conservation measures; studying the social, political and economic drivers of biodiversity loss, as well as social choice and decision making. The core projects are supplemented by cross-cutting networks including agroBIODIVERSITY, freshwaterBIODIVERSITYand the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment. Diversitas is asking novel scientific questions about the interdependence between biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, ecosystem services, economic, technical and institutional change at the global scale. It is stimulating new research methods designed to clarify the linkages between biodiversity change and human well-being. BESTNet will bring the benefits of the research stimulated by the global initiative to research students in US universities, through a set of networked research and research training activities.

One example of the research being undertaken on ecosystem services involves a collaboration with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) to launch joint work on the ecosystem services generated by the Panama Canal Watershed. This project poses the following question: If the full array of (spatially and temporally distributed) ecosystem services delivered by specific landscapes, and the full set of (spatially and temporally distributed) beneficiaries of those services are taken into account, how should this affect landscape management? In this project we consider landscapes that deliver a range of ecosystem services at different geographical scales, and investigate the relationship between the scale of landscape management and the scale of the effects of landscape management. We will investigate how inclusion of a range of services with widely varying temporal and spatial impacts affects the sustainability of conservation and use strategies.

2. Invasive species

Globalization involves the closer integration of both socioeconomic and ecological systems. Integration of ecological systems occurs through the intentional or incidental movement of species associated with growth in trade and travel. Species movement has a number of potential but uncertain consequences. These include the emergence of novel zoonotic diseases along with changes in the diversity and structure of local species assemblages that affect their capacity to deliver ecosystem services. In many cases, the effect is to homogenize ecosystems with implications for both the correlation of risks across space and the resilience of individual systems. The resulting “portfolio effect” alters responses to environmental stressors.

One line of research, with William Brock and Ann Kinzig, addresses trade growth as a driver of global change. Because the dispersal of species through trade and the alteration of ecosystem structure are both choice variables, the selection of a portfolio of natural capital is amenable to policy. The model builds both on the way that biological dispersion and changes in species assemblages are analyzed in theoretical ecology and the way that value functions are optimized in incompletely observed and controlled systems in economics.

A second line of research focuses on the particular problem of pathogens - diseases being one example of invasive species. The ecoSERVICES Group leads SPIDER, a working group funded by NIMBioS. SPIDER brings together a group of ecologists, epidemiologists, mathematicians, and economists to develop mathematical models of disease risk. SPIDER models differ from standard epidemiological models of disease risk in two ways. First, SPIDER focuses on emerging infectious diseases (EIDs). These are infectious diseases that are caused by novel pathogens. Second, SPIDER focuses on endogenous risk. What makes disease risks endogenous is that the probability and consequences of an event such as disease emergence depends on people's reactions to that event. The concept of endogenous risk, though intuitively obvious, is often neglected in epidemiological modeling.

3. Urban ecosystems

A third research area involves the study of urban ecosystems and urban infrastructures. The project Sustainable Infrastructure for Water and Energy Supply (SINEWS) investigates the sustainability and resilience of power and water infrastructures in Phoenix. Using hedonic property pricing models we are estimating willingness to pay for the reliability of infrastructures, a proxy for the resilience of the system. The research also investigates interactions between the resilience of ecosystems and a number of ecosystem services and disservices.

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Publications

Books

Perrings C., H. Mooney and M. Williamson (eds). 2010. Bioinvasions and Globalization: Ecology, Economics, Management and Policy, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Naeem, S., D. Bunker, A. Hector, M. Loreau andPerrings C (eds). 2009. Biodiversity, Ecosystem Functioning, and Human Wellbeing: An Ecological and Economic Perspective, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Perrings C (ed). 2008. Ecological Economics, Volumes I-IV, London, SAGE.

Perrings C. and J. Vincent (eds) 2003. Natural Resource Accounting and Economic Development, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar.

Perrings C., M. Williamson and S. Dalmazzone (eds) 2000. The Economics of Biological Invasions, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar.

Perrings C. (ed) 2000. The Economics of Biodiversity Conservation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Mending the Ark. Cheltenham, Edward Elgar.

Perrings C. 1997. Economics of Ecological Resources: Selected Essays, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar.

Costanza R., C. Perrings and C. Cleveland (eds) 1997. The Development of Ecological Economics, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar.

Perrings C. 1996. Sustainable Development and Poverty Alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Botswana, London, Macmillan Press.

Perrings C., K.-G. Mäler, C. Folke, C.S. Holling and B.-O. Jansson (eds) 1995. Biological Diversity: Economic and Ecological Issues. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Paperback edition, 1997.

Perrings C., K.-G. Mäler, C. Folke, C.S. Holling and B.-O. Jansson (eds) 1994. Biodiversity Conservation: Problems and Policies. Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Press.

Perrings C. 1987. Economy and Environment:  A Theoretical Essay on the Interdependence of Economic and Environmental Systems. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Italian translation 1992. Economia e ambiente. Milan, Etas. Paperback 2005.

Recent Papers

Touza J., C. Perrings and M.L. Chas Amil. 2009. Harvest Decisions and Spatial Landscape Attributes: The Case of Galician Communal Forests, Environmental and Resource Economics, DOI 10.1007/s10640-009-9335-z.PDF

Perrings C., and W.A. Brock. 2009  Irreversibility in economics, Annual Review of Resource Economics, DOI: 10.1146/annurev.resource.050708.144103.PDF

Brock W.A., A.P. Kinzig and C.Perrings. 2009. Modeling the Economics of Biodiversity and Environmental Heterogeneity, Environmental and Resource Economics, DOI 10.1007/s10640-009-9333-1.PDF

Avila S., C. Perrings and D. Raffaelli. 2009. An ecological economic model for watershed management: the case of Tonameca watershed, Oaxaca, Mexico. Ecological Economics 68: 2224–223.PDF

Carpenter S.R., H.A. Mooney, J. Agard, D. Capistrano, R. DeFries, S. Díaz, T. Dietz, A.K. Duraiappah, A. Oteng-Yeboah, H.M. Pereira, C. Perrings, W.V. Reid, J. Sarukhan, R. J. Scholes, A. Whyte. 2009. Science for Managing Ecosystem Services: Beyond the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106(5): 1305–1312. PDF

Ceddia M. G., M. Bartlett and C. Perrings. 2009. Quantifying the effect of buffer zones, crop areas and spatial aggregation on the externalities of genetically modified crops at the landscape level, Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 129: 65–72. PDF

Perrings C. 2008. Biodiversity Conservation in Sea Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction: the Economic Problem. In K. N. Ninan (ed) Conserving and Valuing Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity Economic, Institutional and Social Challenges. Earthscan, London: 59-83.

Touza J., M. Termansen and C. Perrings 2008. A bioeconomic approach to the Faustmann-Hartman rule: ecological interactions and even-aged forest management, Natural Resource Modeling 21 (4): 551–581. PDF

Areal F.J. , J. Touza, A. MacLeod, K. Dehnen-Schmutz, C. Perrings, M.G. Palmieri and N.J. Spence 2008. Integrating drivers influencing the detection of plant pests carried in the international cut flower trade. Journal of Environmental Management 89(4): 300-307. PDF

Di Falco S., M. Smale and C. Perrings 2008. The role of agricultural cooperatives in sustaining wheat diversity and productivity: the case of southern Italy, Environmental and Resource Economics 39:161–174. PDF

Jackson L.E., L. Brussaard, P.C. de Ruiter, U. Pascual, C. Perrings, and K. Bawa. 2007. Agrobiodiversity. Encyclopedia of Biodiversity. Elsevier, DOI 10.1016/B978-012226865-6/00572-9.

Perrings C. 2007. Going beyond panaceas: future challenges, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104:15179–15180 PDF

Dehnen-Schmutz K., J. Touza, C. Perrings and M. Williamson. 2007 A century of the ornamental plant trade and its impact on invasion success, Diversity and Distributions 13: 527–534. PDF

Perrings C. 2007. Pests, pathogens and poverty: biological invasions and agricultural dependence, in A. Kontoleon, U. Pascual and T. Swanson (eds) Biodiversity Economics: Principles, Methods and Applications, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 133-165.

Ceddia M.G., M. Bartlett and Perrings C. 2007. Landscape gene flow, coexistence and threshold effects: The case of genetically modified herbicide tolerant oilseed rape (Brassica napus), Ecological Modelling 205: 169-180. PDF

Pascual U. and C. Perrings 2007. Developing incentives and economic mechanisms for in situ biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes, Agriculture, Ecosystems and the Environment, 121: 256–268. PDF

Dehnen-Schmutz K., J. Touza, C. Perrings and M. Williamson M. 2007. The horticultural trade and ornamental plant invasions in Britain, Conservation Biology 21(1): 224–231. PDF

Perrings C. 2006. Ecological economics after the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, International Journal of Ecological Economics and Statistics 6: 8-22. PDF

Perrings C. 2006. Environment, poverty and development, in J. Boyce, S. Cullenberg, P.K. Pattanaik and R. Pollin (eds) Human Development in the Era of Globalization: Essays in Honour of Keith B. Griffin, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham: 199-210.

Perrings C. 2006. Resilience and sustainable development, Environment and Development Economics 11: 417–427. PDF

Loreau M., A. Oteng-Yeboah, M.T.K. Arroyo, D. Babin, R. Barbault, M. Donoghue, M. Gadgil, C. Häuser, C. Heip, A. Larigauderie, K. Ma, G. Mace, H.A. Mooney, C. Perrings, Raven P., Sarukhan J., Schei P., Scholes R.J. and Watson R.T.. 2006. Diversity without representation, Nature 442, 245-246. PDF

Wätzold F., M. Drechsler, C.W. Armstrong, S. Baumgärtner, V. Grimm, A. Huth, C. Perrings, H. Possingham, J. Shogren, A. Skonhoft, J. Verboom-Vasiljev and C. Wissel 2006. Ecological-Economic Modeling for Biodiversity Management: Potential, Pitfalls, and Prospects, Conservation Biology 20(4): 1034–1041. PDF

Kasulo V. and C. Perrings 2006. Fishing down the value chain: Biodiversity and access regimes in freshwater fisheries — the case of Malawi, Ecological Economics 59: 106 – 114. PDF

di Falco S. and C. Perrings 2006. Cooperatives, diversity and crop productivity in Southern Italy. In M. Smale (ed) Valuing crop biodiversity: on farm resources and genetic change, CABI Publishing, Wallingford: 270-279.

Perrings C., L. Jackson, K. Bawa, L. Brussaard, S. Brush, T. Gavin, R. Papa, U. Pascual, P. De Ruiter, P. 2006. Conservation Biology 20(2): 263–264. PDF

di Falco S. and C. Perrings 2005. Crop biodiversity, risk management and the implications of agricultural assistance, Ecological Economics.55(4): 459-466. PDF

Perrings C. 2005. Economics and the value of biodiversity and ecosystem services. In J.-P. de Luc (ed) Biodiversity Science and Governance: Proceedings of the International Conference, Paris, Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris: 109-118.

Simonit S. and C. Perrings 2005. Indirect economic indicators in bioeconomic fishery models: agricultural price indicators and fish stocks in Lake Victoria. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 62(3): 483-492. PDF

Simonit S. F. Cattaneo and C. Perrings 2005. Modelling the hydrological externalities of agriculture in wetlands: the case of rice in Esteros del Iberà, Argentina. Ecological Modeling 186(1): 123-141. PDF

Perrings C., S. Dalmazzone and M. Williamson, 2005. The Economics of Biological Invasions. In H.A. Mooney, R.N. Mack, J.A. McNeeley, L.E. Neville, P.J. Schei and J.K. Waage, eds, Invasive Alien Species: a new synthesis, SCOPE 63, Island Press, Washington D.C.: 16-35.

Perrings C., K. Dehnen-Schmutz, J. Touza and M. Williamson 2005. How to manage biological invasions under globalization, Trends in Ecology and Evolution 20(5): 212-215. PDF

Perrings C. 2005. Mitigation and adaptation strategies for the control of biological invasions, Ecological Economics 52 (3): 315-325 PDF

di Falco S. and C. Perrings 2005. The role of risk properties and farm risk aversion on crop diversity conservation, in Koundouri P. (ed) Econometrics Informing Natural Resources Management, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar: 231-246.

Perrings C. and B.H.Walker 2004 Conservation in the optimal use of rangelands. Ecological Economics 49: 119-128. PDF

Dehnen-Schmutz K., C. Perrings and M. Williamson 2004. Controlling Rhododendron ponticum in the British Isles: an economic analysis, Journal of Environmental Management 70: 323-332. PDF

Perrings C.2003. The economics of abrupt climate change. Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 361(1810): 2043-2059. PDF

di Falco S. and C. Perrings 2003. Crop genetic diversity, productivity and stability of agroecosystems: a theoretical and empirical investigation, Scottish Journal of Political Economy 50(2): 207-216. PDF

Perrings C. 2003. Closed physical systems: a model. in Hagemann H., Landesmann M. and Scazzieri R. (eds) The Economics of Structural Change, III. International library of critical writings in economics 157. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham: 475-497.

Perrings C. and M. Gadgil 2003 . Conserving biodiversity: reconciling local and global public benefits In Kaul I. , Conceicao P., le Goulven K. and Mendoza R.L. (eds) Providing global public goods: managing globalization, Oxford, OUP: 532-555.

Horan R.D., C. Perrings, F. Lupi and E. Bulte 2002. Biological pollution prevention strategies under ignorance: the case of invasive species, American Journal of Agricultural Economics 84(5): 1303-1310. PDF

Perrings C. 2002. Biological invasions in aquatic systems: the economic problem. Bulletin of Marine Science 70(2): 541-552. PDF A version of this paper has also appeared in Kriström B. and Löfgren K-G. (eds) Economic Theory for the Environment: Essays in Honour of Karl-Göran Mäler, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar: 219-234.

Brock W.A., K.-G. Mäler and C. Perrings 2002. Resilience and sustainability: the economic analysis of non-linear dynamic systems. In Gunderson, L.H. and C.S.Holling, Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Systems of Humans and Nature. Island Press, Washington DC: 261-291.

Costanza R., C. Cleveland and C. Perrings 2002. The development of ecological economics, in Nemetz P.N. (ed) Bringing Business on Board: Sustainable Development and the B-School Curriculum, University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver: 87-110.

Perrings C., M. Williamson, E. B. Barbier, D. Delfino, S. Dalmazzone, J. Shogren, P. Simmons, and A. Watkinson. 2002. Biological invasion risks and the public good: an economic perspective. Conservation Ecology 6(1): 1. [online] URL: http://www.consecol.org/vol6/iss1/art1

Perrings C. 2001. Modelling sustainable ecological-economic development. In Folmer H.and Tietenberg T. (eds). International Yearbook of Environmental and Resource Economics 2001/2: 179-201.

Perrings C. and B. Hannon 2001. Spatial discounting: endogenous preferences and the valuation of geographically distributed environmental externalities, Journal of Regional Science 41(1): 23-38. PDF

Perrings C. 2001. The economics of biodiversity loss and agricultural development in low income countries. In Lee D.R., and Barrett C.B. eds. Tradeoffs or Synergies? Agricultural Intensification, Economic Development and the Environment, Wallingford, CAB International: 57-72.

Perrings C. 2000 Sustainability indicators on fisheries in integrated coastal areas management, Marine and Freshwater Research 51:513-522.

Ansuategi A. and C. Perrings 2000. Transboundary externalities in the environmental transition hypothesis, Environment and Resource Economics 17(4): PDF

Perrings C. and D. Stern 2000. Modelling loss of resilience in agroecosystems, Environment and Resource Economics 16(2): 185-210. PDF

Perrings C. and A. Ansuategi 2000. Sustainability, Growth and Development, Journal of Economic Studies 27(1/2): 19-54. PDF

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Editorial

Editorial Boards

2005-	Environment and Development Economics
2000-	International Journal of Water
1997-	International Yearbook of Environmental and Resource Economics
1996-	Ecology and Society
1990-	Environmental and Resource Economics
1989-	Ecological Economics

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Courses 2009

SOS 512 Sustainable Resource Allocation, Spring 2009

SOS 535 People and Nature: Ecosystem Services, Fall 2009