Economic growth, ecological limits, and the expansion of the Panama Canal

This thesis explores the controversial Panama Canal expansion proposals using an analytical framework developed by Herman Daly, an ecological economist at the University of Maryland and a critic of traditional models economic development. At a time when nearly every nation seeks to increase the size of its economy, Daly has been an ardent advocate of setting limits to economic growth, arguing that, as the earth is materially closed, there cannot be infinite growth of the consumption of material and energy resources within a finite (nongrowing) biosphere. These limits should be defined by the regenerative and waste absorptive capacities of the biosphere. My objective here is to test the feasibility of implementing a policy at the local resource management level that is guided by the recognition of ecological limits to economic growth. I employ a water management technique developed by The Nature Conservancy called the Range of Variability Approach (RVA) and test its utility in setting an ecologically-based limit to water withdrawal and river system modification in the Panama Canal watershed. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...