Valuation of Ecosystem Services Based on EU Carbon Allowances-Optimal Recovery for a Coal Mining Area.

This paper presents a new way of valuing ecosystem services based on the price of EU carbon dioxide emission allowances. Its main advantage is that it facilitates the monetisation of non-provisioning ecosystem services, which is the Achilles heel of current frameworks. The research approach is built on the notion that land rehabilitation and ecological restoration involve trade-offs between ecosystem services.

Restoring Coal Mining-Affected Areas: The Missing Ecosystem Services.

Multi-criteria decision analysis and cost-benefit analysis, either individually or in combination, have been used as the preferred tools to develop ecosystem services valuation, presenting significant discrepancies and variations between the calculated values. To counteract this problem, a new framework was developed based on a hierarchical weighting of the non-provisioning ecosystem services, using biodiversity as the reference ecosystem service since it is the easiest to apprehend. Their monetisation was made using the average price of EU carbon dioxide emission allowances during 2019 and 2020, obtaining reasonable and comparable results in line with what was expected for the study region.

Work-related overexertion injuries in cleaning occupations: An exploration of the factors to predict the days of absence by means of machine learning methodologies.

The special characteristics of the cleaning industry have an important impact on the health and safety of its workforce. Making use of data from more than 79,000 occupational accidents, the aim of the present research is to use machine learning techniques to develop a model to predict incapacity for work (expressed in days of absence) due to work-related overexertion injuries among service sector cleaners in Spain. The severity of accidents caused by overexertion depends on several factors that can be classified into the following categories: injury typology, individual factors, employment conditions, accident circumstances and health and safety management and standards in the company.