Performance evaluation of lake basin water governance using composite index

A Lake Basin Water Governance Performance Composite Index (LBWGPCI) framework was developed to test and evaluate the performance of water governance for lake basins using the Songkhla Lake Basin (SLB), Thailand as a case study. The LBWGPCI integrates a range of water resources and environmental related indicators together to provide a holistic profile of lake basin key water governance issues. The purpose of this work was to identify, examine, develop and analyze key lake basin water governance performance indicators, test them on the SLB, and make appropriate recommendations for improvement. In the light of the results obtained in this study, overall composite index of the LBWGPCI indicated poor performance, which required high priority, urgent and critical actions. We conclude that the water governance performance of the SLB is still evolving and has a lot of great potential to grow in the right direction if the current focus and commitment of government and stakeholders at all levels, are maintained and sustained.     

Integrated management of land and water resources based on a collective approach to fragmented international conventions

Interlinked crises of land degradation, food security, ecosystem decline, water quality and water flow depletion stand in the way of poverty reduction and sustainable development. These crises are made worse by increased fluctuations in climatic regimes. Single-purpose international conventions address these crises in a piecemeal, sectoral fashion and may not meet their objectives without greater attention to policy, legal, and institutional reforms related to: (i) balancing competing uses of land and water resources within hydrologic units; (ii) adopting integrated approaches to management; and (iii) establishing effective governance institutions for adaptive management within transboundary basins. This paper describes this global challenge and argues that peace, stability and security are all at stake when integrated approaches are not used. The paper presents encouraging results from a decade of transboundary water projects supported by the Global Environment Facility in developing countries that test practical applications of processes for facilitating reforms related to land and water that are underpinned by science-based approaches. Case studies of using these participative processes are described that collectively assist in the transition to integrated management. A new imperative for incorporating interlinkages among food, water, and environment security at the basin level is identified.     

Fragmentation,Cooperation and Power: Institutional Dynamics in Natural Resource Governance in North-Western Namibia

Contemporary theoretical accounts of common pool resource management assume that communities are able to develop institutions for sustainable resource management if they are given security of access and appropriate rights of management. In recent years comprehensive legal reforms of communal rural resource management in Namibia have sought to create an institutional framework linking the sustainable use of natural resources (game, water, forest) and rural development. The state, however, ceded rights to rural communities in an ambiguous and fragmented manner, creating a number of instances of overlapping property rights and different legal conditions for different natural resources. Nowadays communities grapple with the challenge of developing institutions for these resource-centered “new commons”. This paper describes the process of local institutional development, focusing on the challenges arising from the necessity to define group boundaries, the issues arising from monitoring and sanctioning within newly defined institutions, and the ideological underpinnings of different trajectories of communal resource management.     

Discursive Shifts in Dutch River Management: ‘Deep’ Institutional Change or Adaptation Strategy?

This paper argues that a discursive shift is taking place in Dutch water policy, from ‘a battle against water’ to ‘living with water’ or ‘accommodating water’. Yet we ask ourselves whether this shift is just an adaptation strategy of the existing elite group of water managers, who pay lip-service to new management approaches in order to maintain their vested interests, as some authors claim, or whether it implies ‘deep’ institutional change, e.g. in terms of the emergence of new water institutions, power relations and procedures. While investigating this question, we make use of the ‘policy arrangement approach’, which pays attention to institutional and discursive aspects of policy making alike. Our conclusion is that we are currently observing institutional changes beyond ‘policy talk’, particularly in terms of new legislation and procedures. However, it is too early to speak of ‘deep’ institutional change in Dutch water management, because the former water institutions are still maintaining their power positions, despite the availability of additional resources for policy and research as well as the emergence of several new modes of governance.     

A systems approach to unravel complex water management institutions

The study unravels the complexity of water management institutions by analysing the interactive nature of actors and rules to a particular water-related problem, using a systems approach in a hamlet in the Indian Himalayas. The approach builds on the strengths of institutional analysis development framework, but makes amendments to suit complex and adaptive water management institutions. It applies multiple research methods to collect both qualitative and quantitative information at different contextual levels. The information collected is applied in Bayesian belief network model to identify differential rules in influencing water management. Systems perspective in a problem context helped to comprehensively understand the socio-political process of water management by identifying broad array of actors and rules constraining water management, and at the same time identify actors and rules facilitating agents and their agency for a change in the water management process. In this socio-political process, the study reveals human entities – stakeholders, actors and agents – occupy different positions, which they actively shift in a problem context and when agents pursue ‘projects’ by integrating diverse rules and resources to remain adaptive. It is this adaptive and dynamic behaviour that contemporary programmes and policies fail to acknowledge. In this dynamic behaviour of the transformative capacity or power is everywhere, but they are displayed, maintained and upheld, only when agents pursue their ‘project’ by negotiating with other agents. The paper highlights the importance of comprehensive approach, in contrast to simplistic, linear and single package reforms to manage water. Such approach calls for conscious designing of rules and, at the same time, enabling actors to design rules. A conscious designing of rules is required to regulate water distribution, to build the capabilities of the poor, and to be adaptive to institutional and bio-physical crises. It calls for the development of infrastructures to further actors and agent's capabilities to design rules for informed water-related decisions. Such an approach will contribute towards sustainable water resource management.     

A Case of Greenlandic Fisheries Co-Politics: Power and Participation in Total Allowable Catch Policy-Making

Greenlandic governance institutions have been criticised for their colonial heritage of centralisation and lack of democratic participation. In the same manner, Greenlandic fisheries management is notorious in the academic literature for its centralised and locally illegitimate character. While recognising the lack of localised co-management fisheries governance institutions in Greenland, we argue that something has yet to be said about power and user participation in the centralised institutions that have developed. From a symbolic interactionist perspective we dissect the centralised institutions in terms of a differentiated cast of actors and their interaction and argue that participation and power come in many institutional guises as the complex cast of actors within the centralised system represent themselves and others. If we are to understand power and participation in Greenlandic fisheries governance, we need to understand the creation of alliances of the subject-positions that seek control of the self-rule fisheries governance decision-making.     

Minimizing the Livelihood Trade-Offs of Natural Resource Management in the Eastern African Highlands: Policy Implications of a Project in “Creative Governance”

The highlands of Eastern Africa are characterized by high population densities and tightly coupled interactions between adjacent landscape units and users. Effective formal or informal natural resource governance is necessary to mitigate the potential negative social and environmental effects of individuals’ behavior. Yet many natural resource management and development problems that require or benefit from collective solutions remain unresolved (German et al. Environ Dev Sustain 8: 535–552, 2006a; German et al. 2006b; German et al. Q J Int Agr 47(3): 191–216, 2008). We argue that many of the more intractable problems in improving governance stem from the trade-offs that underlie them, which may include a loss of livelihood options for at least some households, leading to governance break down. Following a brief introduction to natural resource management and governance in Eastern Africa, we analyze the results of participatory by-law deliberations by distilling the restrictions proposed governance reforms pose to certain local stakeholders. We recommend that future policy for improved landscape governance couple institutional reforms with livelihood alternatives that reduce the burden of good governance on households.     

滇池流域水文生态系统服务权衡与协同时空异质性及其归因分析

城市化扩张影响流域水文生态系统服务供给,导致水文生态环境压力增加。明晰滇池流域水文生态系统服务权衡与协同关系及归因,对于滇池流域社会经济发展与生态可持续管理的双赢具有重要意义。基于InVEST模型估算了滇池流域2000、2010、2018年碳存储、氮输出、土壤保持和产水量4种水文生态系统服务,分析了水文生态系统服务时空格局变化,利用双变量Moran′s I指数分析了滇池流域水文生态系统服务间时空异质性,通过冗余分析和条件效应分析等方法识别水文生态系统服务归因。结果表明：(1)水文生态系统服务的高值分布与土地利用覆盖有密切关系。(2)水文生态系统服务空间变化主要体现在滇池周边人类活动干扰强烈的区域,表现为氮输出、土壤保持和产水量增加,碳存储减小。(3)水文生态系统服务权衡与协同关系变化明显。碳存储和土壤保持为协同;氮输出和产水量先呈协同后呈权衡;产水量、氮输出均与碳存储和土壤保持为权衡,前者空间变化不明显,后者协同范围扩大,权衡范围缩小。(4)水文生态系统服务主要受多个因素共同影响,主要包括：高程、耕地比例、林地比例、建设用地比例。研究结果可为研究区水文生态系统环境治理和土地利用优化配置...     

Adapting Agricultural Water Use to Climate Change in a Post-Soviet Context: Challenges and Opportunities in Southeast Kazakhstan

The convergence of climate change and post-Soviet socio-economic and institutional transformations has been underexplored so far, as have the consequences of such convergence on crop agriculture in Central Asia. This paper provides a place-based analysis of constraints and opportunities for adaptation to climate change, with a specific focus on water use, in two districts in southeast Kazakhstan. Data were collected by 2 multi-stakeholder participatory workshops, 21 semi-structured in-depth interviews, and secondary statistical data. The present-day agricultural system is characterised by enduring Soviet-era management structures, but without state inputs that previously sustained agricultural productivity. Low margins of profitability on many privatised farms mean that attempts to implement integrated water management have produced water users associations unable to maintain and upgrade a deteriorating irrigation infrastructure. Although actors engage in tactical adaptation measures, necessary structural adaptation of the irrigation system remains difficult without significant public or private investments. Market-based water management models have been translated ambiguously to this region, which fails to encourage efficient water use and hinders adaptation to water stress. In addition, a mutual interdependence of informal networks and formal institutions characterises both state governance and everyday life in Kazakhstan. Such interdependence simultaneously facilitates operational and tactical adaptation, but hinders structural adaptation, as informal networks exist as a parallel system that achieves substantive outcomes while perpetuating the inertia and incapacity of the state bureaucracy. This article has relevance for critical understanding of integrated water management in practice and adaptation to climate change in post-Soviet institutional settings more broadly.     

Restoration dialogues: improving the governance of ecological restoration

Ecological restoration activities should be conceptualized as a form of governance, as this lens best captures the multiactor, collaborative processes by which societies through governments and nonstate entities seek to achieve environmental outcomes. Successful restoration governance depends on addressing a cluster of challenges concerning optimal spatiotemporal scales, biological feasibility, sociocultural acceptability, financial viability, and institutional tractability. Changes to private law, company law, and taxation are some of the governance reforms available to tackle these challenges.     

Biodiversity pattern of fish assemblages in Poyang Lake Basin: Threat and conservation

Poyang Lake Basin is of great importance to maintain regional ecological balance. However, fish biodiversity in this basin has rapidly declined as the result of anthropogenic habitat alteration, such as dam construction, sand mining, and water pollution. Here, we aimed to analyze the temporal and spatial changes in biodiversity patterns of fish in Poyang Lake Basin over the last 37 years. The number of fish species underwent a significant decrease in the current period. In particular, 36.7% of the migration of fish was extirpated. Twenty‐seven fish species have been formally assessed using the Chinese Red List were currently listed as Critically Endangered (9), Endangered (3), Vulnerable (10), and Near Threatened (5). Alpha and gamma diversity revealed that fish diversity had also decreased, and beta diversity showed significant composition dissimilarity in two periods. PCoA showed that the historical fish composition dissimilarity was significantly different from that of the current period. We found a significant effect of the geographical distance on the spatial turnover component for the historical and current periods. In addition, the nestedness component was the main contributor to beta diversity, which indicated one large protected area should be established in Poyang Lake and the Ganjiang River Basin with higher species richness. These results indicated that fish biodiversity declined in the current period likely caused by anthropogenic habitat alteration and other threatened factors. Therefore, we suggest that the habitat reconstruction and biodiversity conservation for fish have become imperative in this basin, and a complete management plan should be carried out.     

Criticizing and Reforming Segregated Facilities for Persons with Disabilities

In this paper, we critically appraise institutions for people with disabilities, from residential facilities to outpatient clinics to social organizations. While recognizing that a just and inclusive society would reject virtually all segregated institutional arrangements, we argue that in contemporary American society, some people with disabilities may have needs that at this time can best be met by institutional arrangements. We propose ways of reforming institutions to make them less isolating, coercive, and stigmatizing, and to provide forms of social support the larger society denies many people with disabilities. Although these reforms far fall far short of abolition, they draw heavily on the work of disability scholars and advocates who call for the complete replacement of institutional arrangements with systems of supported living. The consideration of non-ideal-solutions is useful not only in reforming existing institutional arrangements, but in bringing disability scholarship and advocacy to bear on bioethics, which has paid little attention to institutions for people with disabilities. We intend this paper to redress the neglect within mainstream bioethics of the complex ethical problems posed by institutions.     

巢湖流域生态安全评价研究

目前,巢湖流域的生态安全问题非常突出,已严重影响流域社会经济的可持续发展。基于巢湖流域社会经济、水体环境质量及水生生态系统的数据资料,应用驱动力-压力-状态-影响-响应(DPSIR)模型,提出了基于水环境和水生态的巢湖流域生态安全评价框架模型和指标体系,并采用熵权物元模糊评价法进行巢湖流域生态安全评价研究。研究结果表明,2003和2007年巢湖流域整体处于生态安全中度风险状态,水体环境质量的变化和水生生态系统的演替将严重威胁巢湖流域的生态安全,水体中的TP浓度、NH-N浓度以及TN浓度是决定巢湖流域生态安全的最关键因子。     

文本挖掘在生物医学领域中的应用文献计量学分析

目的:近年来,随着生物医学领域文献数量的急骤增长,大量隐含的规律和新知被掩埋在浩如烟海的文献之中,而将文本挖掘技术应用于生物医学领域则可以对海量生物医学文献数据进行整合、分析,从而获得有价值的信息,提高人们对生物医学现象的认识。本文就我国近十年来文本挖掘技术在生物医学领域的应用现状进行文献计量学分析,旨在为我国科研工作者对该领域的进一步研究提供参考。方法:对国内正式发表的生物医学领域文本挖掘相关文献进行检索和筛选,分别从年度变化、地区分布、研究机构、期刊来源、研究领域等方面进行分析。结果:国内生物医学文本挖掘文献总量呈上升趋势,主要集中在挖掘算法的研究和文本挖掘技术在中医药及系统生物学领域的应用方面;北京、上海、广东等地的研究处于领先地位。结论:相比其他较为成熟的研究课题来说,目前文本挖掘技术在生物医学中的应用在国内还属于一个比较新的研究领域,但国内对该领域的认识正不断提高、研究正不断深入,初步形成了一批在该领域的核心研究地区、核心研究机构和核心研究领域,而对其进一步的研究,必将为生物医学领域的发展注入新的活力。     

不同管理模式对农田生态系统服务的影响模拟研究——以太湖流域为例

高强度的农业生产给生态环境带来诸多负面影响,如何权衡农田生态系统服务是农业可持续发展面临的重要问题之一。本文以太湖流域稻麦轮作农田生态系统为研究对象,利用基于0—10cm土壤温度、10—20cm土壤温度、水稻生物量和小麦生物量等为目标函数的PEST软件校准APSIM模型,遴选三类重要生态系统服务——粮食供给(粮食产量)、水质调节(氮流失)和气候调节(N_2O排放、固碳-土壤有机碳),针对不同秸秆还田(无秸秆还田、稻秆还田麦秆不还田、麦秆还田稻秆不还田、稻麦秆全还田)和施肥模式(0、-5%,-10%,-20%)等设定16种情景模拟1986—2015年太湖流域生态系统服务变化趋势,利用自组织映射法(SOM)分析其权衡协同关系变化,以期为农田生态系统管理提供科学依据。结果表明:(1)相对秸秆还田,粮食产量、N_2O排放、氮流失和土壤有机碳受施肥影响更为显著,均随施肥量减少而下降;(2)不同管理模式对固碳影响较弱,对N_2O排放和水质调节影响明显,稻麦秆全还田且减量施肥5%、10%或20%情景对N_2O排放抑制最为有效,减排量均超过30%,氮流失量减量大于7%;(3)粮食供给与固碳、N_2O排放均存在显著的协同关系,粮食供给与水质调节、固碳与水质调节、水质调节与N_2O排放呈显著权衡关系,固碳与N_2O排放呈弱权衡关系;(4)基于N_2O排放量和氮流失量均低于基准模拟且粮食单位产量减少低于5%的情景下,无秸秆还田且减量施肥5%(S0_F1)和稻麦秆全还田且减量施肥5%(S3_F1)两种模式相对有利于整体提升太湖流域农田生态生态系统服务。此外,APSIM模型有待更多的野外监测数据进一步校准改进以提高模型率定精度,同时需扩展不同模式影响下太湖流域农田生态系统服务综合效应评估,以获取更加科学、合理的优化模式与途径。     

An indicator framework for assessing the technology aspect of Integrated Lake Basin Management for Lake Malawi Basin

Lake Malawi is one of the African Great Lakes and is well known for its fish biodiversity which is the greatest in the world for freshwaters. The lake basin is a valuable resource to the riparian countries. Activities associated with the derivation of the values offered by the lake basin, however, result in the generation of wastes and pollutants that also impact on the lake basin. Such anthropogenic activities within the lake basin place considerable strain on the lake system and may lead to the degradation of the lake basin. Proper application of technology can effectively supplement command-and-control measures and economic instruments for better lake basin management. Currently, no comprehensive framework exists to assess the management of the lake basin. Such a framework is necessary to guide managers and policy-makers in the formulation of management plans and strategies for the sustainable management and utilization of the lake basin. We propose an indicator framework for assessing the technology aspect of Integrated Lake Basin Management (ILBM) in the context of the Lake Malawi Basin. We further demonstrate applicability of the proposed framework through a study conducted in the Malawian side of the basin. We applied a five point Likert-type scale in our indicator assessment. Overall, our results show that the technology aspect of the management of the lake basin is weak to moderate. This threatens the sustainability of the lake especially in the areas of solid waste management, sanitation services, pollution control and protection of wetlands and lagoons which performed from very low to moderate. The major challenges are weak institutional capacity, weak regulation enforcement, and insufficient resources.     

Continental impacts of water development on waterbirds,contrasting two Australian river basins: Global implications for sustainable water use

The world's freshwater biotas are declining in diversity, range and abundance, more than in other realms, with human appropriation of water. Despite considerable data on the distribution of dams and their hydrological effects on river systems, there are few expansive and long analyses of impacts on freshwater biota. We investigated trends in waterbird communities over 32 years, (1983–2014), at three spatial scales in two similarly sized large river basins, with contrasting levels of water resource development, representing almost a third (29%) of Australia: the Murray–Darling Basin and the Lake Eyre Basin. The Murray–Darling Basin is Australia's most developed river basin (240 dams storing 29,893 GL) while the Lake Eyre Basin is one of the less developed basins (1 dam storing 14 GL). We compared the long‐term responses of waterbird communities in the two river basins at river basin, catchment and major wetland scales. Waterbird abundances were strongly related to river flows and rainfall. For the developed Murray–Darling Basin, we identified significant long‐term declines in total abundances, functional response groups (e.g., piscivores) and individual species of waterbird (n = 50), associated with reductions in cumulative annual flow. These trends indicated ecosystem level changes. Contrastingly, we found no evidence of waterbird declines in the undeveloped Lake Eyre Basin. We also modelled the effects of the Australian Government buying up water rights and returning these to the riverine environment, at a substantial cost (>3.1 AUD billion) which were projected to partly (18% improvement) restore waterbird abundances, but projected climate change effects could reduce these benefits considerably to only a 1% or 4% improvement, with respective annual recovery of environmental flows of 2,800 GL or 3,200 GL. Our unique large temporal and spatial scale analyses demonstrated severe long‐term ecological impact of water resource development on prominent freshwater animals, with implications for global management of water resources.     

基于生态系统服务的青海湖流域生态风险评估及其空间异质性影响因素分析

青海湖流域是我国西北部的"气候调节器"和"空气加湿器",其生态风险管控对青藏高原乃至我国西部的生态保护和可持续发展都有着重要意义。基于InVEST模型对青海湖流域2005年、2010年、2015年、2020年产水量、土壤保持、生境质量和碳储存4项生态系统服务进行定量评估,借助熵权-TOPSIS法,以生态系统服务的相对损失量来构建区域生态风险指数,并运用地理探测器和地理加权回归模型分析自然-社会要素对青海湖流域生态风险空间异质性的影响。结果表明:(1)2005-2020年青海湖流域产水量、土壤保持、生境质量和碳储存均呈现波动增加的趋势,增幅分别为10.17%、18.36%、9.84%、3.47%,各项生态系统服务的高值区分布于河流上游的河源区和植被覆盖率高的林地区域;(2)2005-2020年青海湖流域生态风险较高,但呈现波动降低的趋势。高风险区主要位于湖区、环湖区、布哈河河谷以及流域西北部;(3)青海湖流域生态风险的空间格局受地形及高程因子主导,但人为干扰度的影响力呈逐年上升趋势。驱动因子交互作用的解释力显著高于单因子;(4)主要驱动因子对研究区生态风险的作用方向及强度存在明显的空间分异特征,坡度呈正相关,年平均气温呈负相关,归一化植被指数(NDVI)和人为干扰度呈现出正负两种效应,但以正向效应为主。研究结果对青海湖流域生态风险管控和高原生态环境保护有一定借鉴意义。     

The role of community-based wild resource management in Zimbabwe

Wildlife was in decline in Zimbabwe while the resource was being managed centrally by the State in terms of conventional protectionist legislation. The legislation was changed in 1960 and this led to cautious institutional reforms, whereby responsibility for wildlife was gradually devolved to landholders who were encouraged to use it profitably. This was achieved without the State abrogating its ultimate responsibility for the wellbeing of the resource.The CAMPFIRE programme was a response to the particular requirements of communally managed wild resources. Successful implementation required that appropriate institutions were in place. These allowed the peasants a meaningful say in the management of their wildlife and permitted them to use it profitably to generate a sufficient incentive to persuade them to conserve the resource on their land. As on large-scale commercial ranches, socio-economic factors proved more significant than ecological considerations in preserving wildlife on communally occupied land that is representative of much of Africa and the Third World.Former Director of National Parks and Wild Life Management, Zimbabwe.     

Institutional refusal to offer assisted dying: A response to Shadd and Shadd

Ever since medical assistance in dying (MAID) became legal in Canada in 2016, controversy has enveloped the refusal by many faith‐based institutions to allow this service on their premises. In a recent article in this journal, Philip and Joshua Shadd have proposed ‘changing the conversation’ on this issue, reframing it as an exercise not of conscience but of an institutional right of self‐governance. This reframing, they claim, will serve to show how health‐care institutions may be justified in refusing to provide MAID on moral or religious grounds. I argue that it will not make it easier to justify institutional refusal, and is likely to make it harder.