Masculinities and hydropower in India:A feminist political ecology perspective

Mainstreaming gender in water governance through "how to do gender" toolkits has long been a development focus. It has been widely argued that such toolkits simplify the complex, nuanced realities of inequalities by gender in relation to water and fail to pay attention to the fact that the proposed users of such gender-water toolkits, i.e. mostly male water sector professionals, lack the skills, motivation and/or incentives to apply these toolkits in their everyday work. We adopt a feminist political ecology lens to analyse some of the barriers to reduce social inequalities in the management of global commons such as international rivers. Our findings highlight the leap of faith made in the belief that gender toolkits, as they exist, will filter through layers of a predominantly masculine institutional culture to enable change in ground realities of complex inequalities by gender. Analysing the everyday workings of two hydropower development organisations in India, we show how organisational structures demonstrate a blatant culture of masculinity. These two organisations, like many others, are sites where hierarchies and inequalities based on gender are produced, performed and reproduced. This performance of masculinity promotes and rewards a culture of technical pride in re-shaping nature, abiding by and maintaining hierarchy and demonstrating physical strength and emotional hardiness. In such a setting, paying attention to vulnerabilities, inequalities and disparities are incompatible objectives

Towards a standard typology of endogenous landslide seismic sources

The objective of this work is to propose a standard classification of seismic signals generated by gravitational processes and detected at close distances (1 Hz) where most of the seismic energy is recorded at the 1 km sensor to source distances. Several signal properties (duration, spectral content and spectrogram shape) are used to describe the sources. We observe that similar gravitational processes generate similar signals at different slopes. Three main classes can be differentiated mainly from the length of the signals, the number of peaks and the duration of the autocorrelation. The classes are the “slopequake” class, which corresponds to sources potentially occurring within the landslide body; the “rockfall” class, which corresponds to signals generated by rock block impacts; and the “granular flow” class, which corresponds to signals generated by wet or dry debris/rock flows. Subclasses are further proposed to differentiate specific signal properties (frequency content, resonance, precursory signal). The signal properties of each class and subclass are described and several signals of the same class recorded at different slopes are presented. Their potential origins are discussed. The typology aims to serve as a standard for further comparisons of the endogenous microseismicity recorded on landslides.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Change in Sleep Quality of Residents the Night Before High-Fidelity Simulation: Results From a Prospective 1-Year National Survey.

peer reviewed[en] OBJECTIVE: The stress level of participants in high-fidelity simulation stems from various factors but may result in anticipatory anxiety causing sleep disturbances during the night prior to simulation. The objective of this survey was to determine the change in sleep quality of residents during the night prior to the simulation. METHODS: The survey was proposed for 1 year to all residents at the beginning of the simulation, in 10 simulation centres. The questionnaire combined demographics and the Leeds Sleep Evaluation Questionnaire using visual analogue scales divided into 4 sleep qualitative domains. The primary outcome was the prevalence of sleep disturbance (>10 mm on 1 domain). Secondary outcomes were the prevalence of severe sleep disturbance (>25 mm), as well as qualitatively and quantitatively reported explanatory sleep parameters. RESULTS: Among respondents, 66% [95% CI: 63 to 69] of residents had more than 10 mm and 27% [95% CI: 24 to 30] had more than 25 mm of sleep disturbance. Residents with a sleep disturbance of more than 10 mm had fewer hours of sleep (6.4 [standard deviation=1.8] vs 7.3 [standard deviation=1.3], difference: -0.9 [95% CI: -1.1 to -0.7]; P < .0001), with a higher number of night-time awakenings (1.3 [standard deviation=1.5] vs 0.7 [standard deviation=0.9], difference: 0.6 [95% CI: 0.4 to 0.8]; P < .0001). CONCLUSION: Among residents participating in the simulation, a high prevalence of change in sleep quality during the night before the simulation was noted. Strategies to help residents achieve better sleep prior to simulation should be explored

L’analgésie péridurale déambulatoire en salle de naissance au CHU de Caen : état des lieux et perspectives d’amélioration

Objectives: implementation of an assessment of professional practices in order to understand obstacles to widespread use of ambulatory epidural analgesia in delivery room at Caen University Hospital. Method: prospective study on the evaluation of professional practices carried out at the Caen University Hospital by means of a survey delivered by e-mail to midwives, doctors et residents anesthetists and qualified anesthetic nurses working in the delivery room. 160 people were questioned, 81 answers were analyzed. Results: ambulatory analgesia was used by 35% of the population, the majority of them on small occasions. It is rarely mentioned during prenatal consultations. The main obstacles are lack of experience, knowledge and time. Conclusion: the development of the technique must involve the creation of a protocol available to all, the training of professionals and information for patients.Objectif : mise en place d’une évaluation des pratiques professionnelles afin de comprendre les freins à une large utilisation de l’analgésie péridurale déambulatoire en salle de naissance au CHU de Caen. Matériels et méthode : étude prospective sur l’évaluation des pratiques professionnelles menée au CHU de Caen grâce à un questionnaire distribué par mail aux sages-femmes, médecins et internes anesthésistes-réanimateurs et infirmiers anesthésistes diplômés d’État travaillant en salle de naissance. 160 personnes ont été interrogées, 81 réponses ont pu être analysées. Résultats : l’analgésie péridurale déambulatoire a été pratiquée par 35% de la population, pour la majorité à de faible reprises. Elle est très peu évoquée lors des consultations prénatales. Les freins principaux sont le manque d’expérience, de connaissances et de temps. Conclusion : le développement de la technique doit passer par la création d’un protocole disponible pour tous, la formation des professionnels et l’information des patientes

Women’s participation in irrigation management – the case of IMT in Nepal

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Deliberative governance on vulnerability to climate change: voices from madhesi farmers

International audienceThe design of climate change policies and programs has been based on the assumptions that policy-makers, scientists, and development practitioners make about what constitutes and causes the vulnerability of others. There is little space for those who are targeted by these policies and programs to voice how they perceive and experience their vulnerabilities in policy debates. Taking the case study of Nepal, this chapter discusses the use of deliberative governance to negotiate a shared understanding of vulnerability among stakeholders with different identities, power, and interests. It builds on a 2-year action research project led in the Tarai-Madhesh region of Nepal, which included participatory video and participatory deliberative practices, gathering men and women farmers, district and central level government officials, and representatives from the civil society. Using discourse analysis, the study highlights how farmers’ and policymakers’ framings of vulnerability are socially constructed. It calls for using storylines and narratives on what “is” rather than top-down arguments on what “should be” to guide governance processes

IWRM discourses, institutional holy grail and water justice in Nepal

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) still stands today as one of the most influential governance models in the water sector. Whereas previous analyses of IWRM have focused on the effectiveness of the institutional models it embodies and on policy implementation gaps, we examine the meanings that IWRM discourses have given to water management issues and how these meanings have in turn supported certain policy choices, institutions and practices. We use discourse analysis to study IWRM discourses in Nepal, where IWRM was introduced as the guiding policy principle for water management more than a decade ago, but not yet operationalised. We argue that IWRM discourses have operated a discursive closure in policy debates, thereby limiting the range of policy and institutional choices perceived as politically possible. In particular, we found that the promotion of IWRM as an institutional holy grail has obscured critical issues of social (in)justice related to water resources development by promoting an apolitical and techno-managerial vision of water development, largely centralised and relying on expert knowledge. We defend the need to move away from institutional panaceas and towards deliberative processes that allow alternative voices, discourses and knowledge

Understanding the non-institutionalization of a socio-technical innovation: the case of multiple-use water services (MUS) in Nepal

Multiple-use water services (MUS) have been promoted and piloted globally for two decades as a socio-technical innovation. Yet the MUS approach has hardly extended beyond donor-funded projects to public policies. We use a collective action framework to analyze the non-institutionalization of MUS in Nepal. We find that MUS has much cognitive legitimacy, but discourse fragmentation has reduced its socio-political legitimacy. Yet the latter is essential to overcome the institutional challenges of a fragmented public water sector and to mainstream MUS into policy debate

Monitoring ice-calving at the Astrolabe glacier (Antarctica) with seismological and Sentinel-2 satellite data

International audienceBetter understanding the global (e.g. ice mass balance, ice motion) and local (e.g. fissures and calving processes, basal melting, sea-ice interactions) dynamics of tidewater Antarctic outlet glaciers is of paramount importance to simulate the ice-sheet response to global warming. The Astrolable glacier is located in Terre Adélie (140°E, 67°S) near the Dumont d'Urville French research station. Recently, a large fissure of around 3km has been observed in the western shore of the glacier which could lead to a calving of ca. 28km2. We used two monitoring techniques: optical remote sensing and seismology to analyze changes in the activity of the glacier. We computed the surface velocity and strain rates from time series of multispectral Sentinel-2 imagery. The joint analysis of the seismological data and the velocity and strain maps are discussed with the recent evolution of the ice-shelf. The strain maps show complex patterns of extension and compression areas with a seasonal increase during the summer months. The number of calving events significantly increased during 2016-2021 in comparison with the period 2012-2016

Automatic identification of rockfalls and volcano-tectonic earthquakes at the Piton de la Fournaise volcano using a Random Forest algorithm

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