Search results

The management of inter-regional basins in the Spanish case is a clear example of the complexity of water policy. The entry into force of the Water Framework Directive changed the objective and design process of public policy, prioritizing the conservation of river ecosystems and establishing the mandate for participation and inter-administrative coordination. This expanded the number of participants, creating a network of public and private actors with different interests and perceptions, bringing the water issue closer to what is often referred to in public policy as a wicked problem. In this chapter, we highlight how the Spanish political sphere has approached water policy in this new context, paying special attention to the role played by river basin organizations. To this end, we deal with two conflicts: the first concerning the Ebro Delta and the second on the water transfer between the Tajo and Segura rivers. Both cases show the inability of the central bodies of the State, the autonomous communities, and private agents to reach a consensus on water policy, which ends up shaping a decision-making system in which, although the legislative resources of the stakeholders are key, and the policy capacity of the basin organizations is reduced.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the everyday practices and routines undertaken by an authority to support internal coordination and deal with sector-specific interests and conflicting goals, and how exclusive interests and objectives in policy work are construed, understood, and negotiated in practice.

An institutional ethnographic approach was adopted to investigate how policy-formulated goals, bureaucratic aims, and rules establish a frame for action procedures and alternatives available for agency-level collaboration.

The results of this study reveal how compromise and agreement may be difficult to achieve in practice since each concerned administrative unit has its own sets of criteria concerning what constitutes valid or valuable knowledge of aspects relating to river restoration. The study illustrates how lack of knowledge affects collaboration, how the policy process is informed by sector-specific rules and norms for organizational conduct, and how the professions in their discussions and interaction concerning the issue of river restoration uphold, demarcate, and negotiate what knowledge and interests should take centre stage in the decision-making process.

The paper contributes to policy anthropology literature and highlights how the policy process is informed politically and regulatorily but is also guided by sector-specific norms, values, and differently construed ideas of temporality and heritage. In this case, policy work exposes contrasting ideas of the past, present, and future, and mobilize diverse conceptual models and structural arrangements that are continually performed and contested in everyday policy work.

The purpose of this paper is to better understand landscape dynamics in arid and semi‐arid environments. Land degradation has recently become an important issue for land management in western China. The oasis ecosystem is especially sensitive to environmental disturbances, such as abnormal/extreme precipitation events, variations in the water supply from the upper watersheds, fluctuations in temperature, etc. Satellite remote sensing of terrestrial ecosystems can provide us with the temporal dynamics and spatial distributions of green cover over large areas of landscape. Seasonal green cover data are especially important in assessing landscape health (e.g. desertification, rate of urban sprawl, natural disturbances) in arid and semi‐arid regions. In this study, green cover data are derived from vegetation indices retrieved from moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors onboard the satellite Terra.

Satellite images recorded during the period from April 2000 to December 2005 are analyzed and the spatial distribution and temporal changes of the Ejin Oasis quantified.

This study shows that it is possible to derive important parameters linked to landscape sensitivity from MODIS and the derived imagery, such as normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) time‐series data. Such a MODIS‐based time‐series monitoring system is particularly useful in arid and semi‐arid environments. The results of landscape sensitivity analysis prove the effectiveness of the method in assessing landscape sensitivity from the years 2001‐2005.

The novel strategy used in this investigation is based on the T‐S fuzzy model, which is in turn based on fuzzy theory and fuzzy operations.

Simulation results based on fuzzy models will help to improve the monitoring techniques used to evaluate land degradation and to estimate the newest tendency in landscape green cover dynamics in the Ejin Oasis.

This paper aims to describe an exploratory study aiming to identify the mechanisms adopted by social enterprises for effective operations based on volunteer work.

An inductive multiple case study method was used addressing three social enterprises whose operations rely on a volunteer workforce.

Volunteer-based operations benefit from the establishment of a formal structure, involving different levels of volunteering complemented with other mechanisms, namely, educate and train, empower and connect. Special attention must be given to first-level volunteers, reinforcing the range of practices to motivate and engage them, as they serve as intermediaries between the paid employees and lower-level volunteers.

The study provides valuable insights for managers for the implementation of effective operations, building on volunteer work, aiming at the generation of social and economic value.

Due to their innovative character, social enterprises are well-positioned to mobilize more and more qualified volunteers for a significant change in their communities. Adopting a more strategic and structured approach to volunteer management can enable these organizations to take advantage of it.

This study contributes to the literature on social enterprise by identifying a set of mechanisms adopted for effective volunteer-based operations. It also contributes to the literature on volunteer management by addressing an underexplored context.

Across societies, gendered climate response decisions remain top-down and have limited progress because the influenced risk dynamics and their interrelations are not adequately understood. This study aims to address this gap by proposing an interdisciplinary innovative method, called women climate vulnerability (WCV) index, for measuring and comparing a diverse range of risks that threaten to undermine the adaptive capacity and resilience of rural women.

This paper builds on the literature to identify 12 risk categories across physical, economic and political sectors that affect rural women. These categories and attendant 51 risk indicators form the WCV index. A case study in Ben Tre Province (Vietnam) was used to demonstrate the application of the WCV methodology to rural contexts. The authors combined empirical, survey and secondary data from different sources to form data on the indicators. Structured expert judgment was used to address data gaps. Empirical and expert data were combined using a few weighting steps and a comprehensive coding system was developed to ensure objective evaluation.

The WCV assessment results reveal a reasonably worrisome picture of women’s vulnerability in Ben Tre as top highest-likelihood and deepest-impact risks predominate in physical and economic risk sectors. Stability, human security and governance categories have lowest scores, demonstrating a fairly politically favourable condition in the province. The medium risk scores captured in land and infrastructure categories reveal promising determinants of the adaptation of women in this rural province. The results demonstrate the usefulness of the WCV index in collecting bottom-up data, evaluating a wide variety of risks that rural women face and pinpointing priority areas that need to be addressed.

The WCV is systematic, customisable and localised. It combines field research and empirical data through structured expert judgment, thus enables researchers to fill data gaps and to do evidence-based assessment about diverse risk vulnerabilities. By doing so, the WCV index gives critical insights into the challenges that rural women face. This enables local governments to better understand cross-sectoral risks, pinpoint priority areas of action and timely channel funding and policy resources to support women where they need it most.

This paper aims to explore the biodiversity and threatened species extinction reporting of 54 biodiversity-indexed companies on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). The primary objectives are to explore the rhetoric of biodiversity disclosure as a practice of virtue ethics and to identify instances of emancipatory extinction accounts on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

The research sample comprised 54 biodiversity-indexed companies on the IDX. A content analysis of the narrative text of their annual and sustainability reports for 2020 was conducted to discern the rhetoric of biodiversity disclosure as an ethical practice using Aristotle’s rhetoric (ethos, logos and pathos). The identification of extinction accounts listed on the IUCN Red List was conducted based on criteria established in the conceptual framework of Atkins and Maroun (2018).

All 54 companies used ethos, logos and pathos in their biodiversity disclosure as a virtuous practice. These disclosures improve the tone of corporate communications and enhance accountability and transparency. Low-profile companies showed a greater propensity for reporting biodiversity disclosures compared to high-profile companies. Additionally, the authors identified 14 companies informing extinction accounts that qualify as emancipatory accounts, with high-profile companies disclosing extinction more frequently than low-profile ones. Emancipatory accounting highlighted species such as turtles, orangutans, elephants, rhinos, turtles and medicinal plants. These accounts are intended as a form of accountability to the species.

The limitation of this research is the observation of annual reports in one period. Future studies can add more observation periods to see the consistency of companies in disclosing biodiversity and extinction.

Companies can adopt the rhetorical strategy of ethos, logos and pathos in disclosing their biodiversity. For policymakers, it is important to establish regulations to encourage companies to disclose biodiversity. The implications for accountants, to contribute more to biodiversity and extinction reporting, considering that previously sustainability accounting reporting was mostly carried out by nonaccountants.

Regarding social implications, emancipatory accounts aimed at preventing the extinction of animals such as birds, orangutans and rhinos will have significant social and natural impacts.

This research represents the first use of Aristotelian rhetoric and virtue to understand biodiversity disclosure as virtue rhetoric and extinction disclosure as emancipatory accounting. This rhetoric is a benevolent persuasion tool that can shape the audience’s thinking and behavior in a more ethical manner concerning biodiversity issues. It provides evidence of the role of accounting as a social and moral practice, which is particularly relevant in the face of a complex reality and increasing concerns, notably regarding the threat of biodiversity loss and extinction.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the potential impact of human-induced intervention on hydrological regimes of Gomti river, one of the important tributaries of the Ganga Alluvial Plain in India aiming at an overall assessment of the status quo.

The research methodology includes following four components: study of basin morphology, sub-surface geology and sediments profile of Gomti river; a comparison of LANDSAT satellite data of 1978 and IRS-1C/LISS-III satellite data of 2008 to study the changes occurring in the built-up area, forest and water bodies of the basin; study of flow patterns in different stretches of river Gomti from 1978 to 2012; and water quality assessment at different sites from origin of the river to its confluence in the Ganges.

The paper shows that over the years, the water source in the tributaries feeding the river Gomti has shrunk, reducing the flow in the river. A steady increase in developed land area due to rapid urban sprawl has occurred in recent decades, due to which forest cover and wetlands are decreasing, the river and floodplains are getting fragmented, the hydromorphology changed considerably and several tributaries are getting dried as a result of indiscriminate exploitation of groundwater. There is no flow in the initial 57 km stretch of the river with wide encroachment in active floodplains. Groundwater over-extraction to meet the demands of increasing population and intensive agriculture has led to reduction in base-flows and in some reaches even negative. Extensive land-use changes in the Gomti river basin (GRB) severely impact the river and floodplain connectivity, the impacts are already evident as several tributaries are getting dried during the non-monsoon months.

The information provided by the paper for GRB is significant for the understanding of the basin and to formulate integrated management and development plan of the basin. Significant changes have taken place in the GRB over the recent past and are still continuing. Because of the chosen river basin and the site-specific research approach, the research results may lack generalization. However, it provides a general framework of analysis which could be applied to other regions.

River channels with their floodplains and adjoining ecosystems have to be addressed as interconnected ecological entity in a holistic way. This requires comprehensive observations of the river systems and catchment characteristics using long-term data. The paper could be used as the starting point in the development of management and development strategies for the basin.

River and its floodplain offer multiple ecosystem services and deserve an integrated approach for their conservation and restoration. Conservation and protection of ecologically intact river-floodplain systems is extremely important and urgently needs integrated planning and management. This paper has adopted a integrated approach to study the integrity of river ecosystems and the potential pressures on them.

The purpose of this paper is to emphasize passive energy refurbishment of vernacular building heritages and propose new application principles of sustainability from these vernacular heritages into contemporary architecture.

This paper is based on a research project (The Creation of a Prototype Project within the Application of Traditional Methods in Kastamonu, Küre Rural Settlements, 2017), through which vernacular architecture examples were analyzed, projecting for future interpretations for rural environments. Defining vernacular rural design principles is centrally important for the purposes of this project. As a case study from the Black Sea Region in Turkey, this example is investigated, and the outcomes of the analysis are used to reproduce in contemporary architectural terms the energy efficiency and rural patterns of the flexible rural house experience.

The research provides design principles for developing a new living experience in rural environments. The overall planning and architectural analysis are made in five neighborhoods in Küre, and three of unique vernacular architecture examples are chosen according to several criteria defined in “Kastamonu-Küre Ersizlerdere Village Design Guideline Project, 2014” to get the optimum data. Materials, orientation, form, spatial organization and building's indoor-outdoor relationship were analyzed by Autodesk's “Ecotect Analysis” simulation program.

Results of the proposed design principles of rural housing will be useful for new housing interpretations related to better rural development.

While defining energy efficiency criteria of vernacular itself, the results of this paper suggest new local solutions to ecological building design and engage with critical regionalism principles referring to the potentials of what traditional dwellings can teach contemporary design.

The purpose of this study at the level of sustainability of oxbow lake was intended to determine the status of sustainability, leverage attributes and driving factors in the management of oxbow lake in Buluh Cina village in Kampar, Riau, Indonesia.

The types of data collected include primary data and secondary data. Data was collected using survey methods, library research, laboratory analysis and interviews. The analytical method used this study is multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis and prospect analysis. Sustainability analysis is done using the MDS analysis approach with the help of RapOxbow software and compared to Monte Carlo analysis results.

The current sustainability status of the management of Lake Baru ecosystem according to a number of dimensions is considered sustainable with a sustainability index value of 50.95. Meanwhile, the analysis results of each dimension shows that the sustainability index for the ecological dimension is 42.56 and the sustainability index for the economic dimension is 47.44, which means that the index is less sustainable.

The approach of this research is MDS analysis and prospect analysis and research locations in Buluh Cina village in Kampar, Indonesia which have never been studied before. This is one of few studies that investigates comprehensively the analysis of management sustainability, especially in the dimensions of ecology, economics and socio-culture, especially in Indonesia.

This paper aims to study dams on transboundary rivers. In this study, the case of the Nu–Salween–Thanlwin River is reviewed. This study is an attempt toward developing a conceptual model to explain the unequal hydropower exchange of hydropower dams on transboundary rivers.

This paper reviews big dam project plans on the Salween–Thanlwin River near the Myanmar–Thailand border from the perspective of critical hydropolitics. The evidence is drawn from an extensive review of academic literature, reports, newspapers and websites on this topic. Cascao and Zeitoun’s (2010) four pillars of power, namely, geographical, material, bargaining and ideational power, are reviewed in the case of the Salween–Thanlwin River and its riparian states.

On the basis of a realist discourse, power relationships between dams and their socio-environmental effects are discussed from the perspective of critical hydropolitics. Multiple levels of power asymmetry regarding geographical, material, bargaining and ideational power are observed. The powerful states are high electricity consumers and importers. They invest in hydroelectric dams of adjacent developing states and buy back most of the electricity generated to fuel their industrialization and urbanization. Weak states generally do not have high bargaining power. They depend on the investment of high material power states for domestic and economic development and gain from the export of electricity. However, the externalities of hydropower dams are transferred to these weak states. This contributes to an unequal hydropower exchange model.

The model provides an analytical framework for hydropower dam projects through which comprehensive and multidimensional views are extracted. Academia, policymakers, private developers, international development agencies and nongovernment organizations will have a better understanding of hydropower dam projects and the interactions among riparian states.

This conceptual model stems from Cascao and Zeitoun’s (2010) four pillars of power – geographical, material, bargaining and ideational power. The author limits the framework to hydroelectric dams in transboundary rivers. The powerful states are high electricity consumers and importers that dominate the dam development projects and exchange process.