Toward a feminist political ecology of household food and water security during drought in northern Nicaragua

Few studies assess the relationship between food and water access, despite global concerns about people’s inability to maintain access to both food and water. We conducted a mixed-methods comparative case study in northern Nicaragua, with smallholders from two neighboring communities that differed in water availability and institutional strength, using a feminist political ecology framework and food and water security definitions that focus on access, availability, use, and stability. We adopted a participatory approach that included: a sex-disaggregated survey in 2016; interviews, participant observation, and community-based water quality testing from 2014 to 2019; and analysis of a severe drought that occurred from 2014 to 2017. Our results suggest that uneven power relations, biophysical conditions, gender, and institutions shape food and water access, and indicate that households across both communities average 2 months of drinking water insecurity during the dry season followed by an average of 2.5 months of food insecurity early in the growing season. The average duration of lean food months was similar across communities and sex, but water insecurity lasted longer in the community that had weaker local institutions and less surface water availability. Ethnographic research helped to document uneven and gendered experiences of water access and to illustrate how they were also shaped by conflicts over water for irrigation vs. domestic uses and cross-scalar limitations in water and land governance. Although we found that gender and institutions were not strong predictors of several food and water insecurity indicators on their own, both factors influenced the terms of access, conflict, and cooperative governance needed to secure resources and well-being. Our study highlights the need for theory, methods, and field research that integrate the analysis of food and water security, and it contributes to developing a feminist political ecology approach that unifies this analysis with a focus on gender

Water Quality Assessments for Urban Water Environment

This special issue entitled “Water Quality Assessments for Urban Water Environment,” strives to highlights the status quo of water environment, opportunities and challenges for their sustainable management in lieu of rapid global changes (land us eland cover changes, climate change, population growth, change in socio-economic dimension, urbanization etc.), in the urban space particularly in developing nations around the world. It also highlights the effect of COVID19 pandemic on water resources and way forward to minimize the risk of spreading health risk associated with wastewater management. Considering the complex nature of the urban water security, it highlights the importance of emerging approaches like socio-hydrology, landscape ecology, regional-circular-ecological sphere etc., which presents a perfect combination of hard (infrastructure) and soft (numerical simulations, spatial technologies, participatory approaches, indigenous knowledge) measures, as the potential solutions to manage this precious water resource in coming future. Finally, what is the way forward to enhance science-policy interface in a better way to achieve global goals e.g., SDGs at local level in a timely manner. It provides valuable information about sustainable water resource management at the urban landscape, which is very much useful for policy-makers, decision-makers, local communities, and other relevant stakeholders

COMPLEMENTING THE GSP ROUTING PROTOCOL IN WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS

Gossip-Based Sleep Protocol (GSP) is a routing protocol in the flooding family with overhead generated by duplicate packets. GSP does not have other sources of overhead or additional information requirements common in routing protocols, such as routing packets, geographical information, addressing or explicit route computation. Because of its simple functionality, GSP is a candidate routing protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks. However, previous research showed that GSP uses the majority of energy in the network by keeping the nodes with their radios on ready to receive, even when there are no transmissions, situation known as Idle Listening. Complementing GSP implies creating additional protocols that make use of GSP particular characteristics in order to improve performance without additional overhead. The research analyzes the performance of GSP with different topologies, number of hops from source to destination and node densities, and presents one alternative protocol to complement GSP decreasing idle listening, number of duplicate packets in the network and overall energy consumption. The study compared the results of this alternative protocol, MACGSP6, to a protocol stack proposed for Wireless Sensor Networks: Sensor MAC (S-MAC) with Dynamic Source Routing (DSR), showing the advantages and disadvantages of the different approaches

Never the Same: Using Short-term Missions as a Tool for Spiritual Formation

It is estimated that over one and a half million American Christians will travel abroad this year on a short-term mission project, and that doesn\u27t include the number who travel on similar domestic trips. However, in spite of the phenomenal growth, the modern short-term missions movement continues to suffer from what could only be described as an identity crisis. Many pastors, educators, and mission leaders continue to be engaged in missiological soul-searching, dialoging about the fundamental questions concerning the value and purpose of short-term mission trips. The insistence on using the same language to describe and discuss both long-term and short-term missions has contributed to the confusion, and has in some ways, pitted the two philosophies against each other. Certainly there is overlap, but the two approaches ought to be considered as two very distinct elements of Kingdom work. This project will attempt to present and defend that to maximize the effects of a short-term mission trip, it should focus on the spiritual formation of the participant. These trips have much in common with pilgrimages in which one leaves behind his or her normal life in order to engage in an activity with the hope that a personal transformation will occur. Paradoxically, by focusing on real spiritual transformation, the short-term participant will actually be a better short-term missionary, and the trip will be a greater blessing to the host/receiver. Chapter 1 provides a basic over-view of the problems and promises of short-term mission projects and presents the spiritual formation of the traveler as a primary purpose for doing short-term missions. Chapter 2 discusses spiritual formation in very broad strokes. A biblical and historical view of spiritual formation will show how service and mission contribute to the spiritual growth of the individual. The short-term mission experience, specifically as it has developed in North America, is examined in Chapter 3. This chapter looks at God\u27s mission in the world and how short-term missions has changed the way the North American church has engaged in missions and cross-cultural ministry. Also included is an assessment of the short-term rnission enterprise. Chapter 4 examines the short-term missions program of Northwestern College in Orange City, lowa. Chapters 5 and 6 argue that the spiritual formation of the participants should be given priority in a short-term experience and explains why this is crucial to an effective short-term missions program. The chapters propose a new role for the traveler, a structure for designing the program, and a philosophy for maximizing the contributions an STM can make to one\u27s spiritual life. Attention is given to pre-field preparation., on-field processing, and post-field debriefing. Finally, Chapter 7 offers a summary and conclusion of the project while proposing some methods and tools for assessment and evaluation. Included in the project are appendices that contain an evaluation of the program at Northwesten College, assessment tools to aid in measuring the growth of the student and effectiveness of the experience, and sample programs for weekend retreats to equip Spring Service Project (SSP) leaders and students involved in the Summer of Service (SOS) program. The heart of the project is two manuals to guide students through the training, debriefing, and processing phases of the short-term mission experience. The first manual is designed for student leaders to use with their SSP teams. The second is to help guide the SOS interns through the preparation and debriefing phases of their summer missionary internship

Water Stress and Early Childhood Development in Palestine: Making the Link, and Implications for Policy and Practice

Introduction: The percentage of the Palestinian children considered “below level” – or “not on track” in their early childhood development is higher than their peers in neighbouring countries. This research presents a framework to explain pathways between water stress, child health, family wealth, parental support, and early childhood development in Palestine, and presents a different perspective in water stress and policies and services addressing children. Objective: To assess evidence of the link between water stress and vulnerability in early childhood development and to examine the implications of this relationship for services and policies in Palestine. Method and Results: Demographic and health data obtained from nationally representative surveys were merged and analysed. Descriptive analysis was used to investigate the features of household water stress and show its association with risk for delayed early childhood development in Palestine. Data on social, economic, health, and environmental conditions in 52 communities in Palestine were aggregated to develop a Child-Water Stress Index to be used as a single summary measure that captures the multidimensional influence of water stress. At the household level, a Mediation Model was developed and applied to investigate the pathways through which water stress interacts with child health, family care, and wealth level and in turn, influences early childhood development. An evaluation strategy is presented, with new perspectives for enhancing the effectiveness of early childhood programmes and policies in the Palestinian context. Qualitative data using focus group discussions with parents and semi structured interviews with practitioners were conducted to provide in depth analysis of the findings. Conclusion: Children experiencing water stress are more likely to not be on track in their early childhood development. Water stress is more likely to influence childhood development through indirect pathways by interacting with determinants of optimal early childhood development including disrupted family support, wealth level, and child health. Water stress exacerbates the impact of limited wealth and inadequate family support on early childhood health and development, suggesting the need for a holistic perspective in evaluating services and policies