Water security in the Syr Darya Basin

The importance of water security has gained prominence on the international water agenda, but the focus seems to be directed towards water demand. An essential element of water security is the functioning of public organizations responsible for water supply through direct and indirect security approaches. Despite this, there has been a tendency to overlook the water security strategies of these organizations as well as constraints on their operation. This paper discusses the critical role of water supply in achieving sustainable water security and presents two case studies from Central Asia on the management of water supply for irrigated agriculture. The analysis concludes that existing water supply bureaucracies need to be revitalized to effectively address key challenges in water security

Understanding the rights of nature : working together across and beyond disciplines

Recognising the rights of nature is seen by many as the paradigm shift needed to truly embed ecology and the environment into nature-based policy and management solutions to address biodiversity loss, climate change, and sustainable development. However, despite its potential, research across and beyond disciplinary boundaries remains very limited, with most located in the humanities and social sciences and often lacking connection with environmental sciences. Based on a multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary project, we identify some critical common themes among the humanities, social sciences, and environmental sciences to support future research on the potential of the rights of nature to address contemporary social-environmental challenges. We argue that future research needs to be not only interdisciplinary but also transdisciplinary since the movement of rights of nature is often driven by and based on knowledge emerging outside of academic disciplines

Channeling environmentalism into climate policy: an experimental study of Fridays for Future participants from Germany

This study argues that scholars and policy-makers need to understand environmental activists better to bridge the gap between growing activism and policy. Conventional wisdom is that environmental activists generally support stronger climate policies. But there is still little understanding about diversity of views within activist groups when it comes to specific policies, and existing studies indicate that their views are not uniform, which can weaken their impact as a group. Activists might unite to demand change, but not necessarily agree on details of the desired change. Exploring the differences within the group, this paper focuses on how to nudge those who already share favorable attitudes towards policies that mitigate climate change. The motivation has been to see, in presence of general support for stronger environmental policies, whether this support could be channeled into more specific policies. We first take on a methodological challenge to construct an index of environmental predisposition. Then drawing from existing social-behavioral scholarship, we analyze results of an experimental survey with select treatments previously reported as promising. In November and December 2019, we collected responses from 119 participants at the Fridays for Future demonstrations in Germany. The results indicate that there are indeed important differences within the group, and nudging effects exist even in this rather strongly predisposed group, with participants assigned to the experimental group showing higher levels of support for the introduction of a carbon tax that is traditionally seen as a difficult policy to gain widespread public support. We find that those who score neither too high nor too low are more likely to respond to nudging. Yet, the effects vary for general outcomes such as policy support, behavioral intentions, and environmental citizenship. Overall, the findings show the value of understanding the heterogeneity of individual views within environmental movements better and directing interventions in large resource systems such as climate to specific issues and target groups for accelerating transformations towards sustainability

Ecologized Collaborative Online International Learning:Tackling Wicked Sustainability Problems through Education for Sustainable Development

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is increasingly embedded in higher education (HE) due to the current emphasis on tackling the environmental crisis. Similarly, Civic Society Organisations are expanding their mobilization and practical action in communities. These approaches can reach almost all people on the planet and open avenues for effective global action around sustainable development. It is important to connect both learners and develop agents of change in society. In this paper, we focus on how digital resources can support democratization of knowledge production and improve equitable citizen participation in ESD and practical action at the local and global levels. The paper investigates structures, processes and components that support transnational collaboration in digital spaces, particularly, around the enhancement of sustainable environmental attitudes. We use Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) as a basis to develop EcoCOIL as a versatile model for expanding coalition building tools and principles, to promote environmental citizenship and develop multi-layered communities of practice. Stakeholders include university students and staff, technical experts, business leaders and entrepreneurs, social innovators, policy makers, Community Social Organisations (CSOs), etc. EcoCOIL focuses on co-created wisdom sharing across intercultural, intergenerational and transdisciplinary actors; it brings an innovative, participatory angle to curriculum development by integration of lifelong learning principles and practical facilitation of sustainable behavior within communities in real time

Using biodiversity to persuade: A discourse analysis

Using biodiversity to persuade: A discourse analysis. Insights from the biodiversity discourse in Europe

Report on biodiversity and related concepts perceptions. Delivrable number: D1.1

• This report provides insight into the biodiversity discourse by biodiversityrelevant actor groups in Europe • The absence of a common understanding of biodiversity allows actor groups to choose rhetoric strategically • Biodiversity discourse is used strategically to persuade, gather custom or support, or justify action or inaction • Anthropocentric values are mostly used when arguing both for and against biodiversity conservation • The biodiversity discourse is dominated by rhetoric of warning, persuading, calling for action, accusing, and informing • The rhetoric used in biodiversity discourse differs between countries • Knowledge of societal discourses are valuable to tailor interventions to promote biodiversity, such as those in PLANET4B case studie

Transdisciplinary diagnostic framework for biodiversity decision-making assessment. D1.7

This deliverable describes the process of developing a transdisciplinary diagnostic framework for biodiversity decision-making carried out in Work Package 1 (WP1) of the EU funded research project PLANET4B. The aim of the process was to help researchers and practitioners in our project become more conscious of the theoretical approaches and languages that may condition the interventions we study and the policy and additional recommendations that we make to societal actors. The starting proposition for this work was that we as PLANET4B partners come from a wide range of different disciplines and practices. Therefore, we needed a shared learning process of our different theoretical and practical lenses and languages. This is necessary to increase our potential as a project to design for transformational change in Work Packages to follow. We report on our testing of Meadows’ (1999) leverage points framework (LPF) as a potential shared conceptual language for transformational change across the places, actors and theories that situate both placebased and sectoral case studies in the project. We report on the opportunities and limitations of the LPF in connecting to (i) theories of change used by research partners in their cases, as well as (ii) bridging conceptually to other “integrating analytical approaches” where PLANET4B has partner expertise; namely “intersectionality analysis”, “discourse analysis” and “reflexivity-contextualisation of interventions”. The report recognises that these integrating approaches are but a subset of possible systems analysis tools in transformative change research. The process of understanding and applying Meadows’ (1999) leverage points framework achieved some shared language and understanding across research disciplines. It helped us to compare assumptions about transformative change across our different case studies. As such, we think we achieved the “process objective” of this initial stage of PLANET4B of using a common framework to diagnose our case studies. However, case studies and experts on other integrating analytical approaches identified several limitations of the LPF. Limitations include the LPF itself being a particular theoretical systems analysis lens which in some cases could exclude practitioners through its unfamiliar concepts. Furthermore, the LPF was identified as being ‘structuralist’ or ‘mechanistic’ in the particular way we tested it in our case studies, not addressing concepts such as agency, power and decision-making. It was critiqued for not being specific to decisions about biodiversity and the related nature values.publishedVersio

Gewährleistung eines erfolgreichen Benefit-Sharing : Mehr-Ebenen-Institutionenanalyse des Benefit-Sharing im Management grenzüberschreitender Wasserresourcen, eine Fallstudie aus Zentralasien

In the light of growing global water crises, benefit sharing has been increasingly suggested to transform a potential conflict over transboundary water resources into an opportunity to enhance cooperation and turn the zero-sum game into a positive sum. This thesis argues that a rigorous and multi-level institutional analysis is needed for making benefit sharing a success. First, the thesis analyzes the long-term dynamics of transboundary institutions governing water and land in the Ferghana Valley, Central Asia. The specific attention is paid to the sources leading to establishment and shifts in institutions on different levels and implications for the ways costs and benefits from transboundary projects are shared as a result. Second, it is argued that four groups of identified indirect costs as well as direct operational and maintenance costs need to be better integrated into benefit sharing arrangements for these new arrangements to be sustainable in the long run. The four groups of indirect costs of benefit sharing include: costs related to equity of sharing as well as toward affected population, costs to the environment, increased transaction costs due to complexity of issue linkages, as well as costs as a result of possible misuse of asymmetric issue linkages. Finally, key sources of path dependency are examined to understand the degree of change in reallocation under various socio-economic, techno-environmental and institutional conditions. It is identified that interplay among vested interests, infrastructure control and network effects will determine how far the economic rationale of benefit sharing, which envisages reallocation of water resources to more beneficial uses, can be satisfied. A large collection of data representing interaction and decisions among riparians in the Ferghana Valley on international, national and sub-national levels such as agreements, protocols and correspondence is analyzed for the last 100 years. In addition, technical reports of the Ferghana province water management department from 1978 to 2010 are analyzed to identify operational and maintenance costs related to transboundary benefit sharing arrangements. Evidence is presented on institutional arrangements to identify (1) how institutions affecting water and land development projects with shared benefits evolved over the last century and (2) how institutional and infrastructure linkages established earlier affect cooperative solutions proposed at present. The research demonstrated that benefit sharing indeed helped to facilitate negotiation and achieve win-win solutions. However, focusing on short-term opportunities made future negotiations less effective. Unaccounted path dependency and accumulated tension in risk categories burst during later negotiations leading to disagreements on various degrees. Hence, should reforms aimed at achieving water security and facilitating transboundary cooperation pursue solutions stable in the long-run and use benefit sharing as an approach, its risks and costs must be taken into account. Finally, the findings of the thesis stress that in an environment of high institutional complexity making benefit sharing a success requires a correspondingly high level of personnel and technical capacity of involved actors to understand and cope with complex challenges.Im Lichte der wachsenden globalen Wasserkrise wird Benefit Sharing zunehmend als eine Möglichkeit angesehen, potenzielle grenzüberschreitende Konflikte um Wasserressourcen in Kooperationen zu transformieren und somit aus einem Null-Summen-Spiel ein Positiv-Summen-Spiel zu machen. Die vorliegende Dissertation zeigt, dass eine strikte Mehr-Ebenen-Institutionenanalyse nötig ist, um ein erfolgreiches Benefit Sharing zu gewährleisten. In einem ersten Schritt wird die langfristige Entwicklungsdynamik grenzüberschreitender Institutionen analysiert, welche die Land- und Wassernutzung im Ferghana Tal, Zentralasien regeln. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit wird hierbei denjenigen Ursachen gewidmet, die zur Etablierung und Veränderung von Institutionen auf verschiedenen Ebenen beigetragen haben. Zudem werden die hieraus resultierenden Konsequenzen für die Aufteilung grenzüberschreitender Kosten und Nutzen analysiert. Im nächsten Schritt wird herausgestellt, dass es für einen nachhaltigen Erfolg des Benefit Sharings notwendig ist, die indirekten Kosten sowie direkte Betriebs- und Wartungskosten in Benefit Sharing-Abkommen zu integrieren. Die vier Arten indirekter Kosten beinhalten Kosten einer gerechten Aufteilung auf lokaler und zwischenstaatlicher Ebene, Umweltkosten, gestiegene Transaktionskosten aufgrund komplexer Paketlösungen (issue linkages) sowie Kosten, welche durch einen möglichen Missbrauch von asymmetrischer Paketlösungen hervorgerufen werden. Abschließend werden wichtige Ursachen einer Pfadabhängigkeit untersucht, um der Veränderungsgrad einer Umverteilung unter verschiedenen sozi-ökonomischen, umwelttechnischen und institutionellen Bedingungen zu erfassen. Hierbei stellt sich heraus, dass das Zusammenspiel von Eigeninteressen, Infrastruktursteuerung und Netzwerkeffekten determiniert, inwieweit das ökonomische Rational des Benefit Sharings, welches eine vorteilhafte Umverteilung von Wasserressourcen vorsieht, erreicht werden kann. Im Rahmen der Arbeit wurde eine umfangreiche Sammlung von Daten wie Übereinkommen, Protokolle, Korrespondenzen, etc. hinsichtlich von Interaktionen und Entscheidungen zwischen Anrainerstaaten des Ferghana Tals untersucht. Berücksichtigt wurden hierbei Dokumente der letzten einhundert Jahre auf regionaler, nationaler und internationaler Ebene. Des weiteren wurden technische Berichte der Wassermanagement-Abteilung der Ferghana-Provinz der Jahre 1978 bis 2010 untersucht, um Betriebs- und Wartungskosten bezüglich grenzüberschreitender Benefit Sharing-Abkommen zu identifizieren. Es wird Evidenz zu institutionellen Vereinbarungen präsentiert, um zu zeigen (1) wie Institutionen, welche Wasser- und Landeentwicklungsprojekte mit geteiltem Nutzen beeinflussen, sich über die letzten Jahrhundert herausgebildet haben, und (2) wie institutionelle und infrastrukturelle Verbindungen, die zu einem früheren Zeitpunkt etabliert wurden, gegenwärtig vorgeschlagene kooperative Lösungsansätze beeinflussen. Diese Dissertation zeigt, dass Benefit Sharing in der Tat geholfen hat Verhandlungen zu ermöglichen und zu Win-Win-Lösungen zu führen. Hierbei zeigt sich jedoch auch, das ein Fokus auf kurzfristigen Nutzen die Effektivität anschießender Verhandlungen vermindert hat. Unberücksichtigte Pfadabhängigkeiten und über die Zeit aufgestaute Spannungen in verschiedenen Risikokategorien führen zu Meinungsverschiedenheiten auf verschiedenen Ebenen. Hieraus ergibt sich, dass Risiken und Kosten des Benefit Sharings bei zukünftigen Reformen, die darauf abzielen, langfristig stabile Wassersicherheit herzustellen und Lösungen grenzüberschreitender Kooperationen zu ermöglichen, berücksichtigt werden sollten. Abschließend betont diese Forschungsarbeit, dass es im Umfeld einer hohen institutionellen Komplexität für das Gelingen des Benefit Sharings eines hohen Maßen an technischer und personeller Ausstattung bedarf, um die komplexen Herausforderungen zu verstehen und zu bewältigen

Reframing for Sustainability: Exploring Transformative Power of Benefit Sharing

It is broadly agreed that development needs and effects from changing environment will increase pressure on the ways natural resources are utilized and shared at present. In most parts of the world, resource stress has already reached unprecedented levels setting resource sustainability high on the policy agenda on multiple governance levels. This paper aims to explain how the benefit sharing approach can help reframe the debate for sustainability, its advantages and disadvantages for transforming governance challenges and adapting to increasing resource stress. We bring together fragmented discussions of benefit sharing from three resource domains: water, land, and biodiversity. Both theoretical and empirical examples are provided to aid understanding of how benefit sharing can facilitate adaptive governance processes in complex socio-ecological systems. The findings highlight importance of integrating the long-term perspective when societies move from volumes toward values of shared natural resources, as well as setting environmental conservation and equitable allocation as the top priority for benefit sharing to be sustainable