Governing a shared hidden resource: A review of governance mechanisms for transboundary groundwater security

© 2017 Elsevier B.V. Globally, groundwater is by far the largest store of liquid freshwater, making it a key component of a secure water supply. However, over the past few decades the amount of usable groundwater available around the world has rapidly decreased. This depletion is caused primarily by mismanagement (e.g., overpumping, contamination, and under-regulation), but also by reduced natural recharge due to climate change and urbanization. Management of groundwater resources is particularly challenging for the nearly 600 aquifers that are transboundary, meaning that they extend across international political borders. To understand how governance mechanisms can reduce water insecurity in transboundary groundwater contexts, we review key literature from what we view as the most relevant fields: groundwater management, water security, international water law and international water governance. We then formulate a set of recommendations for improved groundwater governance that can address the specific physical nature of groundwater systems, enhance water security, and apply to transboundary groundwater settings. We argue that groundwater governance in transboundary contexts requires processes that (1) enhance context-specific and flexible international mechanisms; (2) address the perpetual need for groundwater data and information; (3) prioritize the precautionary principle and pollution prevention, in particular; (4) where appropriate, integrate governance of surface and subsurface water and land; and (5) expand institutional capacity, especially of binational or multinational actors

Challenges of mainstreaming green infrastructure in built environment professions

© 2019, © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Green infrastructure (GI) has been identified as a promising approach to help cities adapt to climate change through the provision of multiple ecosystem services. However, GI contributions to urban resilience will not be realized until it is more fully mainstreamed in the built environment and design professions. Here, we interrogate five key challenges for the effective implementation of GI: (1) design standards; (2) regulatory pathways; (3) socio-economic considerations; (4) financeability; and (5) innovation. Methods include a literature review, case studies, and interviews with resilience managers. We propose a people-centred and context-dependent approach to advance effective implementation of GI in urban planning. We highlight two underlying currents that run across all of the challenges–(1) the role of political will as a pre-condition for tackling all challenges holistically; and (2) the role of stakeholder engagement in achieving public support, harnessing funding, and maintaining and monitoring GI in the long term. Highlights: • The effective implementation of GI is context-specific and should adhere to the basic principles of appropriate technology. • Continuous community engagement is needed to ensure the inclusivity and multi-functionality of GI. • Challenges to successful GI are intersectional and therefore cannot be addressed singly in isolation

The role of valuation and bargaining in optimising transboundary watercourse treaty regimes

In the face of water scarcity, growing water demands, population increase, ecosystem degradation, climate change, and so on transboundary watercourse states inevitably have to make difficult decisions on how finite quantities of water are distributed. Such waters, and their associated ecosystem services, offer multiple benefits. Valuation and bargaining can play a key role in the sharing of these ecosystems services and their associated benefits across sovereign borders. Ecosystem services in transboundary watercourses essentially constitute a portfolio of assets. Whilst challenging, their commodification, which creates property rights, supports trading. Such trading offers a means by which to resolve conflicts over competing uses and allows states to optimise their ‘portfolios’. However, despite this potential, adoption of appropriate treaty frameworks that might facilitate a market-based approach to the discovery and allocation of water-related ecosystem services at the transboundary level remains both a challenge, and a topic worthy of further study. Drawing upon concepts in law and economics, this paper therefore seeks to advance the study of how treaty frameworks might be developed in a way that supports such a market-based approach to ecosystem services and transboundary waters

A Multidisciplinary Approach to Analyzing Questions of Justice Issues in Urban Greenspace

Greenspace can alleviate many of the negative effects of urbanization and help enhance human well-being yet, in most cities in the world, greenspace is inequitably distributed. In western societies, wealthy white neighborhoods typically have more access to greenspace, constituting an environmental and social justice issue. Although scholars from multiple disciplines and academic domains study questions of justice in greenspace, the scholarship remains fragmented. The purpose of this qualitative review is to explore the diverse disciplinary approaches to justice in urban greenspace to identify patterns and trends in how justice is conceptualized and realized. We analyze a set of case studies across multiple disciplines using a sample of 21 peer-reviewed articles following the framework set out by Bulkeley and colleagues that conceptualizes justice according to recognition, distribution, procedures, rights, and responsibilities. Our results suggest that the various solutions proposed in the diverse streams of scholarship often call for solutions that transcend individual disciplinary boundaries. This finding supports the need for collaborative and cross-disciplinary work to effectively address injustice in urban greenspace. In an effort to integrate findings, we identify five main objectives that need to be addressed by scholars, built environment practitioners, and policymakers, which include: (1) appropriate funding mechanisms for long-term maintenance; (2) recognition of safety concerns; (3) connectivity of greenspace; (4) multifunctionality in greenspace design; and (5) community engagement

One Basin at a Time: The Global Environment Facility and Governance of Transboundary Waters

Increased international attention to water resource management and integration has resulted in the creation of new institutional arrangements and environmental funding mechanisms. The Global Environmental Facility's (GEF) International Waters Program is at the heart of such novel collaborative approaches to managing transboundary resources. This paper assesses GEF-led efforts in twenty-three projects across ten geographic regions. It finds that the GEF has been successful in building scientific knowledge and creating linkages across social, economic and environmental issues. However, challenges of enhancing the contractual environment and building national capacity remain. While GEF efforts thus far do indicate that institutions can affect the growth of knowledge and cooperation around transboundary waters, long-lasting achievements of the GEF's International Waters Program have yet to be realized. Copyright (c) 2004 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Aligning green infrastructure to sustainable development: A geographical contribution to an ongoing debate

Blue and green infrastructure (BGI) is increasingly viewed as a promising solution to promoting a shift beyond traditionally engineered “grey” approaches towards more socially and environmentally sustainable infrastructure systems. The specific insights of geographical scholarship on how to address issues of processes, scale, and place in BGI design, implementation, and long-term management would help unlock the potential for BGI to be appropriate and inclusive, as well as support environmentally sound solutions. In this paper we unpack issues of processes for inclusive decision-making to design and implement BGI projects that can advance sustainable development. We present an assessment framework and its application to two case studies that highlight the potential for better alignment of BGI projects to the three pillars of sustainable development and that reveal key research challenges that geographical scholarship could address. We believe that co-produced geographical research in this domain is well placed to tackle these research challenges

The nexus: reconsidering environmental security and adaptive capacity

The water energy food nexus has emerged as a productive discourse and methodology in academic research, science policy dialogues, and development agendas. While the nexus provides a robust framework for interdisciplinary study, research remains focused on synergies and tradeoffs in resource 'security' and fails to adequately acknowledge the environment as the set of natural processes underpinning the nexus, particularly interactions among water, energy, and food. Resource security as a reductionist discourse does not address the limitations and potential of natural processes and the dynamic nature of human processes, especially adaptation to global change. A review of recent literature highlights the need to redefine the nexus to fundamentally incorporate the environment, and, drawing on social ecological systems thinking, to integrate considerations of adaptive capacity and resilience within nexus theory and practice. Future directions for this line of inquiry include identifying feasible ways of assessing the nexus in the context of dynamic social and ecological systems, and implications that adaptive actions have across resource-use sectors and the environment. A more holistic nexus framework enhances our options to manage environmental interactions, human activities, and policies to adapt to global-change uncertainties.International Water Security Network - Lloyd's Register Foundation (LRF); U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) [GEO-1138881, SGP-CRA005]; NSF [CRN3056, GEO-1128040, DEB-1010495]24 month embargo; Available online 22nd November 2016This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]