Wicked Problems of Water Quality Governance

Wicked Problems of Water Quality Governance
Author: James E. Nickum
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2022-12-26
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1000815307

This book explores the many dimensions of water quality problems in different parts of the globe, with focus on problems of governance, from legal frameworks to social discourses and compensation measures. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.3 on Water and Sanitation emphasizes the centrality of improving water quality to attain sustainable development. Yet the obstacles to achieving this goal are significant. This book explores the variety of difficult, possibly intractable “wicked” problems of water quality governance around the world. Cases include the challenge of managing water from source to sea, exploring why attempts to do so have come up short in limiting harm to the Great Barrier Reef; differing social discourses on market based instruments in Canada; efforts to bring to closure the human legacies of Minamata methyl mercury poisoning half a century ago in Japan; current problems of mercury use in Andean mining; misalignment of established Eastern European water laws with those of the EU; water quality markets in China; the impacts of service coverage and quality on low income households in countries from New Zealand to Bangladesh and Malawi; the importance of perceptions, ranging from the use of treated wastewater by farmers in the MENA region to consumers in Fukushima and to users of the artificial river in Beijing’s Olympic Park; and finally the confluence of wicked problems in refugee camps facing COVID. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal, Water International.

Wicked Problems for Archaeologists

Wicked Problems for Archaeologists
Author: John Schofield
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2024-05-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0192659375

'Wicked Problems' are those problems facing the planet and its inhabitants, present and future, which are hard (if not impossible) to resolve and for which bold, creative, and messy solutions are typically required. The adjective 'wicked' describes the mischievous and even evil quality of these problems, where proposed solutions often turn out to be worse than the symptoms. This wide-ranging and innovative book encourages readers to think about archaeology in an entirely new way, as fresh, relevant, and future-oriented. It examines some of the novel ways that archaeology (alongside cultural heritage practice) can contribute to resolving some of the world's most wicked problems, or global challenges as they are sometimes known. With chapters covering climate change, environmental pollution, health and wellbeing, social injustice, and conflict, the book uses many and diverse examples to explain how, through studying the past and present through an archaeological lens, in ways that are creative, ambitious, and both inter- and transdisciplinary, significant 'small wins' can be achieved. Through these small wins, archaeologists can help to mitigate some of those most pressing of wicked problems, contributing therefore to a safer, healthier, and more stable world.

Water Governance: Retheorizing Politics

Water Governance: Retheorizing Politics
Author: Nicole J. Wilson
Publisher: MDPI
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2019-10-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3039215604

This republished Special Issue highlights recent and emergent concepts and approaches to water governance that re-centers the political in relation to water-related decision making, use, and management. To do so at once is to focus on diverse ontologies, meanings and values of water, and related contestations regarding its use, or its importance for livelihoods, identity, or place-making. Building on insights from science and technology studies, feminist, and postcolonial approaches, we engage broadly with the ways that water-related decision making is often depoliticized and evacuated of political content or meaning—and to what effect. Key themes that emerged from the contributions include the politics of water infrastructure and insecurity; participatory politics and multi-scalar governance dynamics; politics related to emergent technologies of water (bottled or packaged water, and water desalination); and Indigenous water governance.

Smart Water Management

Smart Water Management
Author: Henning Bjornlund
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2023-05-22
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1000877906

This book contributes to the debate about the suitability and challenges of the Smart Water Management (SWM) approach. Smart Water Management has increasingly been promoted to manage water and wastewater more efficiently and cost effectively by industries and utilities in urban contexts at regional or city scales, while reducing overall consumption. It is based on the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to provide real-time, automated data to resolve water challenges. Many of these technologies are complex and costly, however, and the approach tends to overlook cheaper and less high-tech (softer) approaches to address the same problems. Yet there may be opportunities for using them even in resource short rural communities in developing countries. The book includes examples of SWM systems in practice in diverse locations from Korea, Mexico, Paris, the Canary Islands and southern Africa, aimed at addressing a diverse set of problems, including monitoring water supply to refugees. Critical voices highlight the need for smart institutions to accompany smart technologies, the absurdity of applying SWM to dysfunctional legacy infrastructure systems, whether its adoption raises moral hazards, and whether SWM is the latest example of hegemonic masculinity in water management. The chapters in this book were originally published in Water International.

Handbook of Water Resources Management: Discourses, Concepts and Examples

Handbook of Water Resources Management: Discourses, Concepts and Examples
Author: Janos J. Bogardi
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 820
Release: 2021-06-12
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3030601471

This book provides an overview of facts, theories and methods from hydrology, geology, geophysics, law, ethics, economics, ecology, engineering, sociology, diplomacy and many other disciplines with relevance for concepts and practice of water resources management. It provides comprehensive, but also critical reading material for all communities involved in the ongoing water discourses and debates. The book refers to case studies in the form of boxes, sections, or as entire chapters. They illustrate success stories, but also lessons to be remembered, to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Based on consolidated state-of-the-art knowledge, it has been conceived and written to attract a multidisciplinary audience. The aim of this handbook is to facilitate understanding between the participants of the international water discourse and multi-level decision making processes. Knowing more about water, but also about concepts, methods and aspirations of different professional, disciplinary communities and stakeholders professionalizes the debate and enhances the decision making.

Handbook on the Governance and Politics of Water Resources

Handbook on the Governance and Politics of Water Resources
Author: Oliver Fritsch
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2024-06-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1800887906

This cutting-edge Handbook provides a global perspective on the current issues affecting water politics and governance. Focusing in particular on the policy-making process and the power dynamics that it involves, it showcases the emerging diversity of objectives, instruments and governance approaches in the field of water resources.

Sustainable Groundwater Development for Improved Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa

Sustainable Groundwater Development for Improved Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa
Author: Paul Pavelic
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2023-05-08
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1000866440

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the benefits and challenges of intensifying groundwater irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for improving smallholder agrarian livelihoods. Only about 3% of the groundwater resources of Sub-Saharan Africa are used for irrigated agriculture despite the subcontinent’s relative abundance of groundwater. The majority of the region’s smallholders are highly dependent on seasonal dryland cropping, making them extremely vulnerable to uncertain weather patterns and droughts. Improved irrigation capabilities through sustainable groundwater development could unleash smallholder farming and make it a major driver of economic growth, poverty reduction, climate resilience, and improved food security. So, why is groundwater so underused? Tapping into groundwater requires a major shift in farming practices and it has its own challenges and requirements – smallholder access to land and finance for irrigation infrastructure and equipment, gendered and equitable adoption options. This whole list is framed in terms of what the smallholder farmers need. Hence, this should also be put in this context, supply chains, energy access, resource availability, and institutional support. The chapters in this book present a picture that is not only heterogeneous across the region, but also hold some common denominators. They serve to enrich the discourse and help better understand the barriers along the pathways toward the sustainable and transformative adoption of groundwater irrigation. The scientific information provided herein would be of interest to researchers, practitioners, decision makers and planners with interest in the region. This book was originally published as a Special Issue of Water International journal.

Public Banks, Public Water

Public Banks, Public Water
Author: Thomas Marois
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2023-02-28
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1000842428

This book explores the potential for public banks to help finance the expansion, democratization, and sustainability of public water services in Europe, with implications for public water financing elsewhere in the world. Financing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 6 for water and sanitation will be enormously expensive and will also depend largely on public water operators. Where will this money to fund public water services come from? One option is public banks. These state-owned institutions constitute just under 20% of global banking assets, holding close to $50 trillion in assets. Many public banks have explicit mandates to finance public water management and related public goods, and they have been doing so for decades. And yet, despite a resurgence of interest in public banks, their roles and potential in funding public water services have been largely ignored by researchers and policy makers. This book aims to measure the scale and nature of interactions between public banks and public water operators in the European region; identify challenges and opportunities for deeper engagement between public banks and public water operators; recognize promising practices and how these might be transferred elsewhere in the world; and assess possibilities for more democratic forms of public bank and public water interactions. This volume will be of great use to students and researchers interested in political ecology and economy, development and cooperation, public policy as well as water governance and management. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Water International.

Groundwater

Groundwater
Author: Raya Marina Stephan
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 387
Release: 2023-02-21
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1000837629

Groundwater is invisible, but its impact is visible everywhere. Everything around us relies on groundwater, our drinking water and sanitation, our food supply and our natural environment. Yet because it is invisible, information, management and governance of groundwater is often poor and inadequate. This book contributes to UN Water Groundwater year (2022), and to the effort of “making the invisible, visible”. Through worldwide case studies ranging from the Americas (California, Brazil), to Asia (India, Iran, Lao PDR, Nepal), Africa (Malawi, Tanzania, South Africa) and the MENA region (Lebanon, Morocco, Yemen), including cases of transboundary aquifers, the chapters in this edited volume reflect important recent advances in interdisciplinary knowledge on the governance, management, practice and science-policy interfaces of groundwater. An insightful resource for researchers and planners in the field of environmental policies, water laws, climate change and groundwater governance, this book comes with a new Introduction. The other chapters were originally published in Water International.

Legal Perspectives on Bridging Science and Policy

Legal Perspectives on Bridging Science and Policy
Author: Mara Tignino
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2020-05-21
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1000730417

Legal Perspectives on Bridging Science and Policy deals with the interaction of science and policy from a legal perspective. Expert contributors outline the role of law in water management and suggest solutions to make laws flexible and adaptive to changes in scientific knowledge and environmental, social and economic conditions. Each chapter addresses the topic with a different focus and offers an in-depth analysis of legal challenges related to the creation of interdisciplinary bridges, clarifying how science may be assimilated into decision-making processes and can thereby contribute to build evidence-based policies. Legal Perspectives on Bridging Science and Policy will be of great interest to scholars of water law, water governance and environmental law. This book was originally published in the journal Water International, as a special issue prepared by the International Association for Water Law (known as AIDA from its Spanish acronym https://www.aida-waterlaw.org), gathering selected papers dealing with law and governance from the XVI World Water Congress of the International Water Resources Association (IWRA) (2017).