The potential role of socio-hydrological models for participatory water governance in Burkina Faso

Halting and reversing water quality degradation is a major global concern. The variety of needs and priorities placed on water resources make the issue of water pollution multifaceted and complex. Addressing water quality management requires an approach that can tackle the diversity of requirements and concerns to achieve effective strategies. In Burkina Faso, stakeholder participation plays an important role in effective catchment management. The Participatory Water Governance Project in Rural Burkina Faso has developed support strategies to strengthen the capacity of local-level Water User Committees. Research conducted by TU Wien (Technical University Vienna) and International Water Management Institute (IWMI) aims to support the project by exploring the potential role of socio-hydrological models in water management decision making. The areas around the River Kou and Bapla Reservoir were the focus for this part of the study. The specific question addressed by TU Wien was: can a socio-hydrological model be developed that accurately captures the relationships between people and water quality in the study area

Intérêt des modèles socio-hydrologiques dans la gouvernance participative de l’eau au Burkina Faso

Pouvoir arrêter la dégradation de la qualité des ressources en eau, voire inverser la tendance, est une préoccupation mondiale majeure. Compte tenu de la diversité des besoins et des priorités en matière de ressources en eau, la question de la pollution de l’eau est devenue complexe et multidimensionnelle. La gestion de la qualité de l’eau exige la prise en compte de la diversité des exigences et des préoccupations pour mettre en œuvre des stratégies efficaces. Au Burkina Faso, la participation des différents acteurs, ou parties prenantes, est d’une importance capitale dans la gestion efficace des bassins versants. Le projet Planification participative pour une gestion plus inclusive et durable de l’eau en milieu rural au Burkina Faso (PP4MIS) a élaboré des stratégies d’appui pour renforcer les capacités des Comités Locaux de l’Eau (CLE) au niveau local. La recherche menée par l’Université Technique de Vienne (TU Wien) vise à soutenir ce projet en explorant le rôle que pourraient jouer les modèles socio-hydrologiques dans la prise de décision en matière de gestion des ressources en eau. Les zones autour de la rivière Kou et du barrage de Bapla ont fait l’objet de cette partie de l’étude. Elles correspondent aux espaces de gestion des CLE Kou et Bougouriba 7

Military, movement, and (mis)understanding: service families navigating ‘inclusive’ education systems

This research explores Service Families’ experiences of navigating inclusive education systems and investigates the range of factors which shape these experiences. It also investigates the particular experiences of Service Families who have a child or children with a Special Educational Need or Disability (SEND) and demonstrates how the itinerant nature of the Military lifestyle impacts Service Families with children. Using a mixed methods approach, this research builds on the limited empirical evidence within the UK on Service Families. Further, it has explored how education systems intersect with the moral obligations of the Armed Forces Covenant, how the Covenant is (mis)understood by Service Parents and Key Stakeholders, and whether the rights of Service Families and Children, to quality inclusive education have been assured. Overall, this research examined what measures should be in place to ensure Service Families and their children are being supported adequately. The findings show that Service Families cycle in and out of periods of (in)stability, which has a direct impact on the education of their children. This is additionally exacerbated when a child has a SEND. Whilst the majority of Key Stakeholders who work with Service Families and children are highly experienced, Service Parents reported a general lack of understanding from Local Authorities. Perceptions of Service Families are further bound up in assumptions of resilience which often affects the levels of support which they receive. Overall, the expectations of Service Families with children are clear, in that they expect the moral obligations underpinned in the Armed Forces Covenant to be upheld. This thesis highlights and demonstrates the unique challenges experienced by Service Families and their children when navigating inclusive education systems and provides recommendations and best practice examples for policy makers, Local Authorities, and schools. Additionally, this research has highlighted and recommended the requirement for further in-depth investigation of Service Children with a SEND

Conceptualizing socio-hydrological drought processes: The case of the Maya collapse

With population growth, increasing water demands and climate change the need to understand the current and future pathways to water security is becoming more pressing. To contribute to addressing this challenge, we examine the link between water stress and society through socio-hydrological modeling. We conceptualize the interactions between an agricultural society with its environment in a stylized way. We apply the model to the case of the ancient Maya, a population that experienced a peak during the Classic Period (AD 600-830) and then declined during the ninth century. The hypothesis that modest drought periods played a major role in the society's collapse is explored. Simulating plausible feedbacks between water and society we show that a modest reduction in rainfall may lead to an 80% population collapse. Population density and crop sensitivity to droughts, however, may play an equally important role. The simulations indicate that construction of reservoirs results in less frequent drought impacts, but if the reservoirs run dry, drought impact may be more severe and the population drop may be larger

Learning from the Ancient Maya: Exploring the Impact of Drought on Population Dynamics

Understanding the relationship between drought and population dynamics is increasingly important, particularly in areas where high population growth corresponds with increasing drought risk due to climate change. We examine the relationship between drought events and population dynamics using a stylized hydrology-demography model that has been calibrated to simulate plausible feedbacks for the population decline of the Ancient Maya of Central America. We employ a deterministic and a stochastic approach. We find that the impact of drought increases abruptly once a critical threshold of population density is exceeded. The critical threshold depends on the intensity and duration of the drought as well as on the level of technology adopted by society, the extent of markets and societal behavior. The simulations show that, for a society to be as food secure post-climate change as they are pre-climate change, strategies would have to be adopted to not only increase the region's capacity to provide sufficient resources for its growing population, but also to buffer the impact of a drier climate on productivity. This study provides suggestions on how technological, societal and economic development can modify the system to mitigate the impacts of climate change on the human population

A transdisciplinary account of water research

TK acknowledges funding by the German Excellence Initiative through IRI THESys. GC acknowledges funding from the Austrian Science Funds (FWF) as part of the Vienna Doctoral Programme on Water Resource Systems (DK-plus W1219-N22).Water research is introduced from the combined perspectives of natural and social science and cases of citizen and stakeholder coproduction of knowledge. Using the overarching notion of transdisciplinarity, we examine how interdisciplinary and participatory water research has taken place and could be developed further. It becomes apparent that water knowledge is produced widely within society, across certified disciplinary experts and noncertified expert stakeholders and citizens. However, understanding and management interventions may remain partial, or even conflicting, as much research across and between traditional disciplines has failed to integrate disciplinary paradigms due to philosophical, methodological, and communication barriers. We argue for more agonistic relationships that challenge both certified and noncertified knowledge productively. These should include examination of how water research itself embeds and is embedded in social context and performs political work. While case studies of the cultural and political economy of water knowledge exist, we need more empirical evidence on how exactly culture, politics, and economics have shaped this knowledge and how and at what junctures this could have turned out differently. We may thus channel the coproductionist critique productively to bring perspectives, alternative knowledges, and implications into water politics where they were not previously considered; in an attempt to counter potential lock‐in to particular water policies and technologies that may be inequitable, unsustainable, or unacceptable. While engaging explicitly with politics, transdisciplinary water research should remain attentive to closing down moments in the research process, such as framings, path‐dependencies, vested interests, researchers’ positionalities, power, and scale.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Written evidence from the NCECJS to the HoC Justice Committee: implications of Brexit for justice

Forensic biometric sharing within the EU (Prüm) is a specialist form of cooperation. Nevertheless research into this activity and the context in which it occurs places some of the implications of Brexit into sharp relief: a) Brexit (in any form) will not result in a major reduction in the need for effective criminal justice and security cooperation. The UK will still receive millions of foreign citizens a year and a very small proportion of them will be serious criminals who present major threats. The challenge is to identify this small group within the generally law-abiding and tax-paying crowd. b) The effectiveness, continued extension and form of such cooperation will also have a major impact on the safety and rights of UK citizens abroad, whether they are in the diaspora or simply travelling for work or holidays. c) The value of individual criminal justice and security cooperation agreements (however good) will only be realised fully within a comprehensive framework (e.g. with access to the European Arrest Warrant (EAW)) that is underpinned institutionally (e.g. by Europol and Eurojust) and subject to parliamentary and legal scrutiny. d) UK global economic and political status was significantly reduced on 23rd June and a badly handled Brexit will further diminish this country’s influence. There will be little or no scope for UK bespoke arrangements for police and judicial cooperation or scientific standardisation. e) The resilience of both UK science and technology, and our criminal justice system – including responses to transnational cybercrime - are likely to be weakened significantly if British forensic scientists are no longer influential within EU collaborative scientific research, professional working groups and standardisation decisions. Opting-out of the EU arrangements, such as Prüm, the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS) and EAW, to which the UK belongs only after recent Protocol 36 reviews by criminal justice professionals, government and Parliament would be inexplicable and may prove to be reckless

Carbon on the Northwest European Shelf: Contemporary Budget and Future Influences

A carbon budget for the northwest European continental shelf seas (NWES) was synthesized using available estimates for coastal, pelagic and benthic carbon stocks and flows. Key uncertainties were identified and the effect of future impacts on the carbon budget were assessed. The water of the shelf seas contains between 210 and 230 Tmol of carbon and absorbs between 1.3 and 3.3 Tmol from the atmosphere annually. Off-shelf transport and burial in the sediments account for 60–100 and 0–40% of carbon outputs from the NWES, respectively. Both of these fluxes remain poorly constrained by observations and resolving their magnitudes and relative importance is a key research priority. Pelagic and benthic carbon stocks are dominated by inorganic carbon. Shelf sediments contain the largest stock of carbon, with between 520 and 1600 Tmol stored in the top 0.1 m of the sea bed. Coastal habitats such as salt marshes and mud flats contain large amounts of carbon per unit area but their total carbon stocks are small compared to pelagic and benthic stocks due to their smaller spatial extent. The large pelagic stock of carbon will continue to increase due to the rising concentration of atmospheric CO2, with associated pH decrease. Pelagic carbon stocks and flows are also likely to be significantly affected by increasing acidity and temperature, and circulation changes but the net impact is uncertain. Benthic carbon stocks will be affected by increasing temperature and acidity, and decreasing oxygen concentrations, although the net impact of these interrelated changes on carbon stocks is uncertain and a major knowledge gap. The impact of bottom trawling on benthic carbon stocks is unique amongst the impacts we consider in that it is widespread and also directly manageable, although its net effect on the carbon budget is uncertain. Coastal habitats are vulnerable to sea level rise and are strongly impacted by management decisions. Local, national and regional actions have the potential to protect or enhance carbon storage, but ultimately global governance, via controls on emissions, has the greatest potential to influence the long-term fate of carbon stocks in the northwestern European continental shelf

Twenty-Three Unsolved Problems in Hydrology (UPH) – a Community Perspective

This paper is the outcome of a community initiative to identify major unsolved scientific problems in hydrology motivated by a need for stronger harmonisation of research efforts. The procedure involved a public consultation through online media, followed by two workshops through which a large number of potential science questions were collated, prioritised, and synthesised. In spite of the diversity of the participants (230 scientists in total), the process revealed much about community priorities and the state of our science: a preference for continuity in research questions rather than radical departures or redirections from past and current work. Questions remain focused on the process-based understanding of hydrological variability and causality at all space and time scales. Increased attention to environmental change drives a new emphasis on understanding how change propagates across interfaces within the hydrological system and across disciplinary boundaries. In particular, the expansion of the human footprint raises a new set of questions related to human interactions with nature and water cycle feedbacks in the context of complex water management problems. We hope that this reflection and synthesis of the 23 unsolved problems in hydrology will help guide research efforts for some years to come