TAPERS OF THE: REGIONAL, SCIENCE ASSOCTATION, VOL. 601. 1986, pp. 93-108 ECONOMIC-ECOLOGICAL IMPACTS OF AIR POLLUTION CONTROL POLICIES L. C. Braat W. A. Hafkamp S. W. F. van der Ploeg Institute for Environmental Studies Pree University Amsterdam, The Netherlands ABSTRACT. ‘his paper presents an economic-ceologic ental policy analysis, developed at the Insitute for Fnvironmental Stulies We first Uiscuss the concenis and context of the model and then present an outline of the stractuce fand 2 selection of the resulls oF a case study on the mpaets of air palfution, control Doliles in the Netherlands 1. INTRODUCTION ‘Adequate and effective economic-ccological impact assessment should in~ clude long term cumulative, interactive, feedhack and spatial extension eflects, ‘The assessment of such cilects is virtually impossible without the help of mathematical simulation models, which expand the synthetic and calculation power of the analyst. Developing impact assessment maodels which maximise adequacy and eflectiveness at the same time appears to benetit from interactive, multidisciplinary model building sessions in which all parties involved participate. simulation meidel for environ 2. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT MODELLING AND POLICY ANALYSIS, In the process of constructing impact and policy analysis models. technical problems and institutional constraints are distinguished. The technical problems include all the famihar problems of buikling adequate mathematival models of real world phenomena isce for a review Braat and Van Lierop 1985). ‘The Constraints include institutional circumstances and diflerences in objectives and views between model builders and model users (Biswas 1975; Frenkiel_ and Goodall 1978). The key concept in policy modelling is effectiveness. This means that a model must contribute as much as possible to solving the problem for which it burl ‘The objective of academic modellers, however, is adequacy, which is the degree to which a model corresponds with that part of the reul world system it is supposed 10 represent (Majone and Quade i981). Striving for adequac requires searching for a comprehensive mode]. which then tends to become large and complex, and consequently costly. This leads to a trade off problem in pohey modelling studies. A model will definitely not be effective in solving a particular problem if it is not adequate. IL is also not effective to keep improving the model ad infinitum and not use it tw contribute 10 the problem solution, One may conceive of an optimum where the model is adequate enough to produce realistic results and 1s completed within the constraints of time and financial resources 0 it can be effective in the policy analysis at hand. ‘This sugeests that when modelling for general policy analysis, one should94 PAPERS OF THE REGIONAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION, VOL. 60, 1986 keep the modet ‘simple’. This implies a model with a clear, and limited purpose. Also, there is no use in concealing uncertainty in complex detailed models. It is more effective to make uncertainty explicit in alternative versions or scenarios, to design and run rough models early in the project and to pay attention to articulate documentation. In addition, the effectiveness of a model may be increased considerably by involving policy advisers in the model design (Biswas 1975; Dror 1984; Environment Canada 1982; Holling 1978; Walker 1981), Over the last four years, the development and application of a simulation and information system for environmental impact assessment and policy analysis (RIM) has been the main concern of a group of scientists at the Institute for Environmental Studies, The system ori mally centered around an cvonomic- energy input-output table, andl tables of identical format with emission coeffi cients. It ts capable of generating projections of national and sectoral emission tolals for several pollutants (SO,NO,, ClLH,, Cadmium, Lead). The RIM-system has been used to unalyse the impacts of alternative en vironmental policy scenario’s on emission levels in the Netherlands from a long term perspective (see A. ©. Hettelingh et al. 1983). It belongs to a category of input-output based economic. environmental models which have been devcloped over the last 15 years, starting, with the extension by Leontief (1970) of input-output analysis to environmental pollution, The RIM-system advances on earlier approaches to input-output based sconomic-environmental modelling by retating emission levels to sectoral activity levels measured in physical terms (eg. energy use in pl}, see Hordijk ct al. (1983) and Muller (1979). For this purpose, extended IO-tables are used which include energy conversion und final use of energy. In order to prevent problems of complexity and related inaccessibility, the structure of the system has been kept relatively simple: it distinguishes beween the model and the information system; has no spatial desaggregation: economic and energy forecasts are exog- enous: and focuses on technological options for reduction of emissions, The development of the RIM system has been based, to a certain extent, on earlier experience with the American SEAS (Strategic Civiruumental Assessment Sys- tem), see for example Ratick and Lakshmanan (1980). Sinee it became obvious that emission levels by themselves could hardly be an adequate basis for environmental and nature conservation policy design, an ecological impact model (called RINAL) was developed {see Braat ct al. 1983). The information system is essentially a database with data manipulation facilities. At will not be discussed further in this paper. The RINAL-simulation model contains modules for various ecological systems. It accepts RIM output and additional secuiacioy and generates projections into the future for a number of ecological indicator variables (see Figure 1). In this figure a transformation module is included, This module serves to transform RIM emission output data. These data are defined at the national scale and aiven for selected projection years. ‘The module transforms these to regionally ambient air concentrations for the respective pollutants over consecutive years, Such a transformation is necessary because calculating evological impacts at the national scale produces irrelevant and therefore inetfective results, while cu- mulative effects will be missed in the analysis if only the impacts of emissions in RIM-projection years are considered. ‘The main objective of the cuse study was to explore the implications of alternative air pollution controt policies. Given the purpose and the practical circumstances, RIM projections have been used and a rather simple mathematical simulation model has been constructed. The next logical step, refining the systema with laboratory and field data and testing the model projections against inde-BRAAT, HAFKAMP AND YAN DER PLOBG: AIR POLLUTION CONTROL POLICIES 95 a = uscponacte teecon no seunrion POs outa 7 ii J ' Lo son a sao ‘RINAL RINAL ‘RINAL a bee scone: Fonyats projections FIGURE 1. ‘The RIM/RINAL System pendent data, is presently being taken in a large national acid deposition research program. The model and a selection of simulation results are presented in the next 1WO sections. 3. THE STRUCTURE OF THE RIM/RINAL SYSTEM ‘The structure of the RIM/RINAL system is shown in Figure 1. The diagram, indicates that scenarios are driving both the RIM and the RINAL simulation models. RIM output, emission projections for a variety of pollutants are fed into a transformation module which translates the emission data into ambient air concentrations and depositions of the pollutants. These data then function as input for the RINAL simulation model, which generates projections of forest growth and grass development in heathland. ‘The structure of RIM, as an information and modelling system, is presented in Figure 2. For the long term perspective, the construction of medium and long term scenatios for economic and environmental developments is required, This may be done, for instance, hy constructing alternative scenarios for the emission of air pollutants in the period 1980-2000. "The first step of the analysis is to gather data on all possible sources of pollution in the base year, i.c. the most recent year for which a complete data Sct is available, These sources can be considered clements of the economic, energy, and/or transportation system. Furthermore, exact relationships have 10 be determined between the activity levels at identified sources and quantities of pollutants released into the environment {emissions factors and coefficients) ‘These relationships depend mainly on technological parameters. Technological data are assembled in the form of technological profiles. For each economic sector such a profile is drawn for the energy conversion sector as well as the transportation system. Input-output tables for the economic system and statistics from the national energy balance are the other basic data for RIM which are stored in the information system. Within this information system modelling relationships are formulated. Environmental pollution is caused by a variety of economic activities, both industrial and consumptive, Consequently, forecasting pollution levels requires