Governing Water as a Common Good in the Mekong River Basin: issues of scale

Transboundary water governance has received special attention in the wake of the World Bank vice-president Ismail Serageldin’s famous prediction in 1995 that, “if the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water”. The water wars scenario ensures that in the world’s more than 260 river basins that flow across national boundaries, primary attention is given to managing water as an international commons. A framework for such transboundary management has been in place more or less continuously in the Mekong for half a century, and it would appear that water has indeed been a force for cooperation even when brutal conflict has torn at the region. Despite the appearance of successful basin-scale management, inter-governmental management of water as an international commons in a transboundary river basin context can also hide some troubling ways in which water as a commons is eroded in the process of development. This paper considers common property dimensions of water and the livelihood systems that they support at multiple scales within the Mekong. It goes on to look at ways in which these are impacted upon by bureaucratisation, infrastructure and commodification processes. Ironically, basin organisations can both enhance and undermine governance for the common good, depending on how they deal with commonality of interest in freshwater at various scales. The paper draws on brief case studies of current trends in water governance including river basin organisations in the Mekong (the Mekong River Commission and River Basin Committees at national levels), of infrastructure (Thailand’s proposed Water Grid and Laos’ Nam Theun 2 dam) and of commodified notions of water (as a development resource and as a scarce commodity to be managed through market mechanisms)

Beyond the Nation State: Natural Resource Conflict and National Interest in Mekong Hydropower Development

In this article, I examine environmental, social and legal issues associated with Mekong hydropower development in three main arenas. Each of these arenas takes discussion beyond the nation state, and in so doing I argue that the framework for the Mekong River Commission, which is designed to balance interests of riparian states, is quite limited. The first sense in which decision making in Mekong development goes beyond the nation state is the most obvious, in that the international nature of the river, which flows through six countries, raises transboundary issues of water sharing, fisheries management and other resource and environmental management questions. The second sense in which influence is exerted beyond the nation state is that the Mekong Region has become subject to multifarious international influences, mostly in the name of development (in place of Cold War geopolitical and military intervention), both by governmental and corporate interests from countries that have largely ceased large-scale hydropower development within their own territories. The third way in which this article transcends the nation state as a framework for decision making is by suggesting that the divergent interests in many aspects of Mekong development are not primarily those of one country versus another. Rather, there are divergent social, economic and ideological interests within countries, and convergent interests that transcend national borders. The nation state is thus only partly able to represent its citizens\u27 interests and aspirations, but the term national interest is nevertheless still applied forcefully in promoting many of the larger and more controversial schemes

Beyond the Nation State: Natural Resource Conflict and National Interest in Mekong Hydropower Development

In this article, I examine environmental, social and legal issues associated with Mekong hydropower development in three main arenas. Each of these arenas takes discussion beyond the nation state, and in so doing I argue that the framework for the Mekong River Commission, which is designed to balance interests of riparian states, is quite limited. The first sense in which decision making in Mekong development goes beyond the nation state is the most obvious, in that the international nature of the river, which flows through six countries, raises transboundary issues of water sharing, fisheries management and other resource and environmental management questions. The second sense in which influence is exerted beyond the nation state is that the Mekong Region has become subject to multifarious international influences, mostly in the name of development (in place of Cold War geopolitical and military intervention), both by governmental and corporate interests from countries that have largely ceased large-scale hydropower development within their own territories. The third way in which this article transcends the nation state as a framework for decision making is by suggesting that the divergent interests in many aspects of Mekong development are not primarily those of one country versus another. Rather, there are divergent social, economic and ideological interests within countries, and convergent interests that transcend national borders. The nation state is thus only partly able to represent its citizens\u27 interests and aspirations, but the term national interest is nevertheless still applied forcefully in promoting many of the larger and more controversial schemes

BK virus infection, replication, and diseases in pediatric kidney transplantation

Polyomavirus-associated nephropathy is diagnosed in 2-8% of pediatric renal transplants and often precedes renal allograft dysfunction. Without intervention, however, significant graft dysfunction is observed in more than 50% of cases, although progressive early graft loss is reported in only three of 32 (9%) of cases. No specific treatment is available, but early decrease in immunosuppression is followed by declining human polyomavirus type 1 (BK virus) replication and improved outcome. The data suggest differences between pediatric and adult kidney transplantation. Possibly, pediatric patients might be able to mount a more vigorous BK virus-specific immune response than adult patients under similar modulation of immunosuppression. Also the role of cidofovir and leflunomide is still unresolved in pediatric patients. Larger prospective trials are needed to better define the impact of BK virus immunity for replication and disease as well as the role of reducing immunosuppression with or without cidofovir or leflunomide in pediatric transplant patient

In Praise of Unstable Fixed Points: The Way Things Actually Work

In recent years a fashion has grown up to ascribe great importance to ``quantum critical points'' at T=0, at the boundary between the basins of attraction to the stable fixed points of ordered ground states. I argue that more physical significance in connecting microscopic interactions with observed phenomena lies in the common phenomenon of partially ordered ``liquid'' states at higher temperatures, unstable phases which define the relevant degrees of freedom and may order in many different ways as the temperature is further lowered.Comment: 6 figure

Emergency Department Pain Management Following Implementation of a Geriatric Hip Fracture Program

Introduction: Over 300,000 patients in the United States sustain low-trauma fragility hip fractures annually. Multidisciplinary geriatric fracture programs (GFP) including early, multimodal pain management reduce morbidity and mortality. Our overall goal was to determine the effects of a GFP on the emergency department (ED) pain management of geriatric fragility hip fractures. Methods: We performed a retrospective study including patients age ≥65 years with fragility hip fractures two years before and two years after the implementation of the GFP. Outcomes were time to (any) first analgesic, use of acetaminophen and fascia iliaca compartment block (FICB) in the ED, and amount of opioid medication administered in the first 24 hours. We used permutation tests to evaluate differences in ED pain management following GFP implementation. Results: We studied 131 patients in the pre-GFP period and 177 patients in the post-GFP period. In the post-GFP period, more patients received FICB (6% vs. 60%; difference 54%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 45–63%; p<0.001) and acetaminophen (10% vs. 51%; difference 41%, 95% CI 32–51%; p<0.001) in the ED. Patients in the post-GFP period also had a shorter time to first analgesic (103 vs. 93 minutes; p=0.04) and received fewer morphine equivalents in the first 24 hours (15mg vs. 10mg, p<0.001) than patients in the pre-GFP period. Conclusion: Implementation of a GFP was associated with improved ED pain management for geriatric patients with fragility hip fractures. Future studies should evaluate the effects of these changes in pain management on longer-term outcomes

Participation, rural development, and changing production relations in recently settled forest areas of Thailand.

This study examines aspects of change and development in two peripheral Thai communities. Rural development is seen as a generic term used to describe processes of change occurring or meant to occur in rural areas of countries such as Thailand, its desirability or direction depending on the point of view of the analyst or practitioner concerned. It is observed that participation is stressed increasingly as an essential element in such development. Since a dynamic common to most forms of rural development is incorporation into the wider structures of state and capital, participation becomes an issue of the "terms of incorporation". These differ significantly depending on which point of view among the many groups of "developers" and "developed" we choose to adopt. The main argument of the thesis is illustrated with reference to the situation of two recently settled communities on the northwestern periphery of the Central Plains of Thailand. Issues of rural development and participation are related to changes in production relations being brought about to show that incorporation in the name of increasing control within the wider system leads to a loss of control over local material and social resources necessary for production on the part of the poor. Alternative attempts to regain control are discussed, and implications for participatory development as a struggle over terms of incorporation on the part of the rural poor are drawn. The study first examines rural development from a theoretical perspective, and relates it to historical processes and the Thai social formation. It goes on to set out the general and local geographical contexts of recently settled areas. An account of production in the study villages is followed by a discussion of differentiation. Finally, the themes of cooperation and participation are taken up and related to issues of control and power

Engineering soil organic matter quality: Biodiesel Co-Product (BCP) stimulates exudation of nitrogenous microbial biopolymers

Biodiesel Co-Product (BCP) is a complex organic material formed during the transesterification of lipids. We investigated the effect of BCP on the extracellular microbial matrix or ‘extracellular polymeric substance’ (EPS) in soil which is suspected to be a highly influential fraction of soil organic matter (SOM). It was hypothesised that more N would be transferred to EPS in soil given BCP compared to soil given glycerol. An arable soil was amended with BCP produced from either 1) waste vegetable oils or 2) pure oilseed rape oil, and compared with soil amended with 99% pure glycerol; all were provided with 15N labelled KNO3. We compared transfer of microbially assimilated 15N into the extracellular amino acid pool, and measured concomitant production of exopolysaccharide. Following incubation, the 15N enrichment of total hydrolysable amino acids (THAAs) indicated that intracellular anabolic products had incorporated the labelled N primarily as glutamine and glutamate. A greater proportion of the amino acids in EPS were found to contain 15N than those in the THAA pool, indicating that the increase in EPS was comprised of bioproducts synthesised de novo. Moreover, BCP had increased the EPS production efficiency of the soil microbial community (μg EPS per unit ATP) up to approximately double that of glycerol, and caused transfer of 21% more 15N from soil solution into EPS-amino acids. Given the suspected value of EPS in agricultural soils, the use of BCP to stimulate exudation is an interesting tool to consider in the theme of delivering sustainable intensification

Real and virtual experiential learning on the Mekong: Field schools, e-sims and cultural challenge

This poster describes two innovative and linked approaches to teaching the environmental geography of a region remote from students’ normal experiential options. The first approach is field-based learning through Field Schools carried out over five weeks as a collaboration between Sydney University students and students in Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. The second approach is a structured role-playing web-based simulation exercise (e-sim) on Mekong Basin environmental management challenges, run over four weeks for students at three Australian universities from both social and physical science backgrounds (human and environmental geography; groundwater management and engineering). All 20 students who participate in the Field School also go on to join the approximately 150 students who are part of the e-sim. Both the Field School and the e-sim have multiple objectives, including substantive learning about development and environmental challenges as experienced and dealt with by different social actors in the six countries of the Mekong Region and by Australian and other external interests in that region. Another significant objective is to give students experiential skills in dealing with cultural difference, particularly in the field of environmental and natural resource management. Two dimensions of culture are part of this process: the cultures of different societies and countries, and the discipline cultures of the social and natural sciences