COLLABORATIVE DECISION-MAKING FOR DROUGHT MANAGEMENT: IMPROVING MULTI-ACTOR APPROACHES

Drought management can be highly challenging and complex. To address this, Ontario uses a collaborative approach through Water Response Teams that are convened by the provincial government; teams provide policy and program recommendations. However, in some instances, the recommendations from teams are not included in final decisions. Uncertainties on the role and expectations of these collaborative groups can lead to challenges in implementing government programs and policies related to drought management. This project explores the role of Water Response Teams in low water decision-making, and draws lessons from international drought management processes

COLLABORATIVE DECISION-MAKING FOR DROUGHT MANAGEMENT: IMPROVING MULTI-ACTOR APPROACHES

Drought management can be highly challenging; droughts can be experienced over a large geographic area, and the extent and severity of impacts can be exacerbated by local water uses.1 In Ontario, these uses might include agriculture, aggregate washing, and watering at golf courses. Oftentimes, droughts are part of normal ecological cycles, but the risk and hardship faced by water-based industries and the public make drought a particularly important policy challenge. Technical approaches to managing drought promote the use of monitoring standards, early warning systems, and planned management actions. Building social capital and strengthening relationships can also contribute to reducing vulnerability through building adaptive capacity and reducing exposure and sensitivity.2 Collaborative approaches, created by government to generate policy and program recommendations for drought management, can provide a local view on drought challenges and a balanced viewpoint that includes all voices affected by decisions. An example of this type of collaborative relationship is Ontario Low Water Response and Water Response Teams. Ontario Low Water Response convenes collaborative groups – known as Water Response Teams – to determine the severity of drought in local watersheds and provide recommendations to the provincial government, including recommendations to declare a drought ‘emergency’, which triggers water restrictions in affected areas. One key challenge of this process is that Water Response Teams have recommended declaring water restrictions during severe low water conditions. However, the province has never enforced restrictions. Governments not following the recommendations of collaborative groups they have created to comment on policy problems is a common finding in collaborative governance research. The key focus of this research is to understand the role of Water Response Teams in decision-making, and to explore how international experiences can inform the Ontario drought management process

Evaluating collaborative approaches to governance for water allocation in Canada: Lessons from Ontario

Collaborative approaches to environmental governance are becoming commonplace around the western world. In Canada, all jurisdictions are using various forms of collaboration to address water issues. With few exceptions, the collaborative processes address problems that exist in whole or in part in rural areas. Thus, the agriculture sector is a critical participant. This certainly is the case in Ontario, especially in the case of collaborative processes designed to address low water conditions and droughts. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of collaborative approaches to dealing with water scarcity and conflicting demands for water. The Province of Ontario provided the institutional setting for the study. We were particularly concerned with the extent to which collaboration provides an effective and appropriate basis for water sharing in cases where agriculture is a prominent user. This led us to a focus on the Ontario Low Water Response (LWR) program. Ontario's Low Water Response program is the primary vehicle through which water shortages and droughts are addressed in the province. The program's overall functioning and effectiveness have been studied previously, but little or no attention has been given to understanding the extent to which this collaborative has produced outcomes that have been protected by the provincial government. This is a particularly important concern because the Province of Ontario, through the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (and Climate Change) has ultimate authority for dealing with water shortages through its Permit to Take Water Program. Experiences from around the world demonstrate that a failure to respect the outcomes of collaborative processes undermines their effectiveness and leads to considerable dissatisfaction. At the same time, from the perspective of democratic legitimacy, the province remains accountable. All jurisdictions are struggling to resolve the tension between these two objectives

Évaluation des approches collaboratives en matière de gouvernance de la répartition de l’eau au Canada : leçons provenant de l’Ontario

Les approches concertées en matière de gouvernance de l’environnement sont devenues monnaie courante dans le monde occidental. Au Canada, toutes les administrations ont recours à diverses formes de collaboration pour aborder les enjeux de l’eau. À quelques exceptions près, les processus collaboratifs permettent de régler, en totalité ou en partie, les problèmes existant dans les zones rurales. C’est pourquoi le secteur agricole est un participant essentiel. C’est certainement le cas en Ontario, en particulier dans les processus de collaboration conçus pour gérer les niveaux d’eau insuffisants et la sécheresse. Cette recherche a pour objectif d’évaluer l’efficacité et la pertinence des approches de collaboration visant à gérer les manques d’eau et les demandes d’eau concurrentes. La Province de l’Ontario a fourni le cadre institutionnel de l’étude. Nous étions particulièrement intéressés par la mesure dans laquelle la collaboration offre une base efficace et appropriée pour le partage de l’eau dans des situations où l’agriculture en est un utilisateur de premier plan. Cela nous a amenés à nous concentrer sur le Programme d’intervention en matière de ressources en eau de l’Ontario. C’est principalement par le biais de ce programme que la province traite les pénuries d’eau et les sécheresses. Le fonctionnement et l’efficacité du programme ont déjà été étudiés dans leur ensemble, mais on n’avait alors que peu ou pas cherché à comprendre la mesure dans laquelle la collaboration avait donné des résultats entérinés par le gouvernement provincial. Il s’agit d’un sujet de préoccupation particulièrement important parce que la Province de l’Ontario, par le biais du ministère de l’Environnement (et de l’Action en matière de changement climatique) de l’Ontario détient le pouvoir ultime de gérer les pénuries d’eau par le biais de son Programme de réglementation des prélèvements d’eau. Des expériences dans le monde entier ont prouvé que le non-respect des résultats des processus collaboratifs compromet leur efficacité et mène à un mécontentement considérable. En outre, la province demeure responsable sur le plan de la légitimité démocratique. Toutes les administrations essaient de résoudre les divergences entre ces deux objectifs

Gut microbiome biogeography in reindeer supersedes millennia of ecological and evolutionary separation

publishedVersionpublishedVersio

Hidden geometric correlations in real multiplex networks

Real networks often form interacting parts of larger and more complex systems. Examples can be found in different domains, ranging from the Internet to structural and functional brain networks. Here, we show that these multiplex systems are not random combinations of single network layers. Instead, they are organized in specific ways dictated by hidden geometric correlations between the individual layers. We find that these correlations are strong in different real multiplexes, and form a key framework for answering many important questions. Specifically, we show that these geometric correlations facilitate: (i) the definition and detection of multidimensional communities, which are sets of nodes that are simultaneously similar in multiple layers; (ii) accurate trans-layer link prediction, where connections in one layer can be predicted by observing the hidden geometric space of another layer; and (iii) efficient targeted navigation in the multilayer system using only local knowledge, which outperforms navigation in the single layers only if the geometric correlations are sufficiently strong. Our findings uncover fundamental organizing principles behind real multiplexes and can have important applications in diverse domains.Comment: Supplementary Materials available at http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v12/n11/extref/nphys3812-s1.pd

Thyroid function is associated with insulin resistance markers in healthy adolescents with risk factors to develop diabetes

Introduction: The prevalence of obesity and Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) among children and adolescents is rising. Thyroid function has been associated with insulin resistance. There is scarce information about how thyroid function could be related with cardiovascular risk or glucose homeostasis in adolescent. Aim: To analyze how thyroid function is associated with insulin resistance and another cardiovascular risk factors in healthy adolescents with risk factors to develop diabetes. Methods: A prospective cross-sectional analysis was carried out on euthyroid, adolescents. considered at high risk to develop Type 2 diabetes. Fasting blood samples were obtained. Thyroid function test and another cardiometabolic parameters were assessed. A 75 grams oral glucose tolerance test was performed to calculate insulin resistance. Results: One hundred adolescents were evaluated. The mean age was 15.9 ± 0.8 years, There is a negative correlation between Fasting insulin, post glucose load insulin and HOMA IR. There were no correlation with Matsuda index. We could not found any correlation with TSH values. Conclusions: We found a correlation between fasting insulin, HOMA IR and serum thyroid hormones, we did not find any relation with serum TSH. In euthyroid adolescents with risk factors to develop diabetes

An Exploratory Study into the Factors Impeding Ethical Consumption

Although consumers are increasingly engaged with ethical factors when forming opinions about products and making purchase decisions, recent studies have highlighted significant differences between consumers’ intentions to consume ethically, and their actual purchase behaviour. This article contributes to an understanding of this “ethical purchasing gap” through a review of existing literature, and the inductive analysis of focus group discussions. A model is suggested which includes exogenous variables such as moral maturity and age which have been well covered in the literature, together with further impeding factors identified from the focus group discussions. For some consumers, inertia in purchasing behaviour was such that the decision-making process was devoid of ethical considerations. Several manifested their ethical views through post-purchase dissonance and retrospective feelings of guilt. Others displayed a reluctance to consume ethically due to personal constraints, a perceived negative impact on image or quality, or an outright negation of responsibility. Those who expressed a desire to consume ethically often seemed deterred by cynicism, which caused them to question the impact they, as an individual, could achieve. These findings enhance the understanding of ethical consumption decisions and provide a platform for future research in this area

ERS statement on standardisation of cardiopulmonary exercise testing in chronic lung diseases

The objective of this document was to standardise published cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) protocols for improved interpretation in clinical settings and multicentre research projects. This document: 1) summarises the protocols and procedures used in published studies focusing on incremental CPET in chronic lung conditions; 2) presents standard incremental protocols for CPET on a stationary cycle ergometer and a treadmill; and 3) provides patients’ perspectives on CPET obtained through an online survey supported by the European Lung Foundation. We systematically reviewed published studies obtained from EMBASE, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science and the Cochrane Library from inception to January 2017. Of 7914 identified studies, 595 studies with 26 523 subjects were included. The literature supports a test protocol with a resting phase lasting at least 3 min, a 3-min unloaded phase, and an 8- to 12-min incremental phase with work rate increased linearly at least every minute, followed by a recovery phase of at least 2–3 min. Patients responding to the survey (n=295) perceived CPET as highly beneficial for their diagnostic assessment and informed the Task Force consensus. Future research should focus on the individualised estimation of optimal work rate increments across different lung diseases, and the collection of robust normative data.The document facilitates standardisation of conducting, reporting and interpreting cardiopulmonary exercise tests in chronic lung diseases for comparison of reference data, multi-centre studies and assessment of interventional efficacy. http://bit.ly/31SXeB