Dr. M.P. (Maarten) Wolsink

Keywords

• Environment, Environmental Policy, Infrastructure facilities, Facility siting, Collaborative planning, Stakeholder planning, Institutional capacity, Nimby, Renewable Energy, Waste Management

Education and career

Educational

• MA Political Science and Social Science Methods, University of Amsterdam, 1982
• PhD in Social Psychology, University of Amsterdam, 1990; Thesis on the public acceptance and implementation of wind power

Professional

• Assistant at Department of Social Science Methods, Faculty of Political Science 1979-1982
• Researcher at the Interfaculty Department of Environmental Sciences, 1983-1993
• Associate professor Environmental Sciences 1993-1999. Faculty of Spatial Sciences
• Associate professor at the Department of Geography and Planning, since 1 July 1999

Projects

• Facility Siting Processes
• Institutional Constraints on the Implementation of Renewable Energy
• Institutional arrangements in utility sectors, with regards to environmental policy aims

Supervision and contract research

• Decision making on infrastructure with local environmental impact.
  National Science Foundation, NWO. PhD study of Nanda van Baren (PhD on 8 October 2001). The aim of the study is research on the way decision making about large infrastructure projects takes place and the way these processes are structured. The reason for studying these processes was the implementation of the "speed-up" legislation (the nimby bill; bill of trajectories) in 1994. The empirical study is carried out on six locations of waste management facilities.
• Perceptions of infrastructure facilities with local environmental impact, with regard to decision making.
  Funded by the National Science Foundation, NWO. PhD study of Jeroen Devilee (PhD on 27 Februari 2002). A study of attitudes among local resident and perceived consequences of facility siting. The development of the perceptions on the facilities as well as the actors in the decision making process is studied. The empirical part is carried out in the same six cases of waste management facilities as used in project 1.
• Institutional Capacity for the Implementation of Wind Power: a Geographical Comparison
  Funded by the National Science Foundation, NWO. PhD study of sylvia Breukers (started November 2001). The research is focussed upon the institutional setting for the implementation of renewable energy sources, in particular wind power. The reason is the remarkable difference between countries in implementation rates of wind power; differences that cannot be attributed to the usual cited barrier to siting wind turbines: lack of public support. The research question is: what are the structural determinants of success and failure in wind power implementation, when we compare similar (international) geographical entities?

Selected publications (international publications only)

• Wolsink, M & P de Jong (2001). Waste Sector Structure: Institutional Capacity for Planning Waste Reduction. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 92 (2): 148-163.
• Carvalho, S. & M. Wolsink (2001). Instrumentos da Política de Reduçao de Resíduos: a Experiência Holandesa. Industria & Ambiente 21 (1): 10-17.
• Wolsink, M. & K. Wortmann (ed.) (2001). Further than ever from Kyoto? Rethinking energy efficiency can get us there: Dynamics of consumption, pp.274-436. ECEEE/ ADEME, Paris.
• Wolsink, M. (2000). Wind Power and the nimby-Myth. Institutional Capacity and the Limited Significance of Public Support. Renewable Energy 21 (1) 49-64.
• Tellegen, E. & M. Wolsink (1998). Society and its Environment. An Introduction. Gordon and Breach Publishers, Reading UK, pp.276.
• Jong, P. de & M. Wolsink (1997). The Structure of the Dutch Waste Sector and Impediments for Waste Reduction. Waste Management & Research 14 (6): 641-658.
• Wolsink, M. (1997). New Experimental electricity Tariff Systems for Household End Use. In: I. Spliid (ed.), Sustainable Energy Options for a Greater Europe. European Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Prague/Kopenhagen, pp. ID-54:1-14.
• Wolsink, M. (1996). Dutch Wind Power Policy. Stagnating Implementation of Renewables. Energy Policy 24 (12): 1079-1088.
• Wolsink, M. (1994). Entanglement of interests and motives: assumptions behind the 'nimby-theory' on facility siting. Urban Studies 31 (6): 851-866.
• Wolsink, M. & M. Sprengers (1993). Windturbine noise: a new environmental threat? In: M.Vallet (ed.), Noise as a public health problem, vol.2 p.235-238. Inst. Nat. de Recherche sur les Transports et leurs Sécurité. Bron (F).
• Wolsink, M. (1989). Attitudes and Expectancies about Wind Turbines and Wind Farms. Wind Engineering 13 (4): 196-206.
• Wolsink, M. (1988). The social impact of a large wind turbine. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 32, 8 (4): 324-325.
• Wolsink, M. (1987). Wind Power for the Electricity Supply of Houses. The Netherlands Journal of Housing and Environmental Research 2 (3): 195-214.

Miscellaneous

• Beyond the domain of environmental impact, environmental policy and decision making on infrastructure, a general question arises on how to structure these decision-making processes. Growing complexity of these processes puts pressure on governments. They try to change the framing of decisions by speed-up legislation in physical planning procedures. In the Netherlands this is the so-called nimby-policy, an attempt to speed-up procedures by strengthening the planning hierarchy. Within planning literature since 1992 a growing number of very publications criticizes this tendency and questions the assumptions that decision making is primarily blocked by calculating citizens, the 'nimby syndrome'. This common sense notion, but nevertheless misleading (and ill-defined) concept has not only been applied to physical infrastructure (roads, railways, waste facilities, nuclear facilities, wind farms etc.) but on human service facilities as well (mental health facilities, aids-homes, etc.) Key publications are Freudenburg & Pastor (1992), Lake (1993; 1997), Wolsink (1994; 2000), Hunter & Leyden (1995), Repper & Brooker (1995), Luloff et al. (1998), Kuhn & Ballard (1998), Pendall (1999). All these references are listed in the publications of 1998-2000. See for more information my website at the research institute AME, and for example http://www.gre.ac.uk/~bj61/talessi/tlr42.html (Talessi, Environmental Risk and Nimby-ism).