Introduction

There is increasing interest in the environmental and resource economics applied in regions of Asia-Paci?c among economists and engineers, policy analysts, and other social scientists. Problems of climate change, biodiversity, and air pollution clearly are growing globally but, more particularly, in Asia-Paci?c because of its economic importance and richness in nature. There is also a discernible increase in (under)graduate courses on environmental and resource economics and in the integration of applied content in traditional agricultural and development economics courses. At present there is no single handbook or textbook on the state of current knowledge in environmental economics in Asia-Paci?c or which offers a comprehensive guide to students and academics on the subjects of environmental economics research. More in general, there are three handbooks of environmental economics in the literature. None of these comprehensively surveys the subject area in the way intended by the proposed companion as a focus on Asia-Pacific.