Transboundary River Basin Management in Europe

human development, water, sanitation

How can international donors promote transboundary water management?

"This paper discusses how international donors can promote the development of transboundary water management. It assumes, first, that cooperation will take place whenever the major stakeholders consider cooperation to be a better option than non-cooperation. The perceptions and motivations of the stakeholders are therefore crucial. Secondly, this paper assumes that the major stakeholders are not 'states', but specific groups and individuals: individual politicians, sectoral government bureaucracies, regional and local governments, farmers, electricity companies, etc. Some of these may be involved in the international negotiations themselves, others may be needed to get international agreements ratified or implemented, and still others may be affected by transboundary water management but lack the means to exert any influence." (author's abstract

The Growing Importance of Social Learning in Water Resources Management and Sustainability Science

The perceptions of what is required for sustainable water resources management and sustainability science in general have undergone major changes over the past decade. Initially, water resources management followed an instrumental “prediction and control” approach, dominated by technical end-of-pipe solutions. Pollution control, for example, relied primarily on waste water treatment instead of source control, and flood management was based on dykes and reservoirs rather than non-structural measures such as land-use zoning. This approach has yielded important results, but it came at a price. In many places, the natural dynamics of the river environment have been destroyed. Moreover, this approach no longer works very well. It cannot adequately deal with the growing uncertainties, increasing rates of change, different stakeholder perspectives, and growing interdependence that are characteristic for today’s resource management issues. What we need then is a new understanding of sustainable water resource management as a societal search and learning process (e.g., Pahl-Wostl 2002, Wals 2007)

Introduction

This chapter provides an introduction to the volume on conflicts over natural resources in the Global South and situates the various contributions made. The authors note that such conflicts frequently involve poor, mainly rural people who are struggling to maintain access to the resources on which they depend for a living. The volume is concerned mainly with conceptual approaches to the issue of conflict. Given the diversity of conflict and cooperation dynamics and their relation with natural resources, the authors argue that general causal theories are problematic. Rather than aiming for grand explanations, the volume therefore is aimed to realise what Merton (1949) has termed ‘middle-range theory’

Model Prediction Control For Water Management Using Adaptive Prediction Accuracy

In the field of operational water management, Model Predictive Control (MPC) has gained popularity owing to its versatility and flexibility. The MPC controller, which takes predictions, time delay and uncertainties into account, can be designed for multi-objective management problems and for large-scale systems. Nonetheless, a critical obstacle, which needs to be overcome in MPC, is the large computational burden when a large-scale system is considered or a long prediction horizon is involved. In order to solve this problem, we use an adaptive prediction accuracy (APA) approach that can reduce the computational burden almost by half. The proposed MPC scheme with this scheme is tested on the northern Dutch water system, which comprises Lake IJssel, Lake Marker, the River IJssel and the North Sea Canal. The simulation results show that by using the MPC-APA scheme, the computational time can be reduced to a large extent and a flood protection problem over longer prediction horizons can be well solved

Expanding the molecular toolbox for Lactococcus lactis: construction of an inducible thioredoxin gene fusion expression system

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The development of the Nisin Inducible Controlled Expression (NICE) system in the food-grade bacterium <it>Lactococcus lactis </it>subsp. <it>cremoris </it>represents a cornerstone in the use of Gram-positive bacterial expression systems for biotechnological purposes. However, proteins that are subjected to such over-expression in <it>L. lactis </it>may suffer from improper folding, inclusion body formation and/or protein degradation, thereby significantly reducing the yield of soluble target protein. Although such drawbacks are not specific to <it>L. lactis</it>, no molecular tools have been developed to prevent or circumvent these recurrent problems of protein expression in <it>L. lactis</it>.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Mimicking thioredoxin gene fusion systems available for <it>E. coli</it>, two nisin-inducible expression vectors were constructed to over-produce various proteins in <it>L. lactis </it>as thioredoxin fusion proteins. In this study, we demonstrate that our novel <it>L. lactis </it>fusion partner expression vectors allow high-level expression of soluble heterologous proteins Tuc2009 ORF40, Bbr_0140 and Tuc2009 BppU/BppL that were previously insoluble or not expressed using existing <it>L. lactis </it>expression vectors. Over-expressed proteins were subsequently purified by Ni-TED affinity chromatography. Intact heterologous proteins were detected by immunoblotting analyses. We also show that the thioredoxin moiety of the purified fusion protein was specifically and efficiently cleaved off by enterokinase treatment.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study is the first description of a thioredoxin gene fusion expression system, purposely developed to circumvent problems associated with protein over-expression in <it>L. lactis</it>. It was shown to prevent protein insolubility and degradation, allowing sufficient production of soluble proteins for further structural and functional characterization.</p

Exploring issues surrounding mental health and wellbeing across two continents : a preliminary cross-sectional collaborative study between the University of California, Davis, and University of Pretoria

Mental health and wellness research continue to be a topic of importance among veterinary students in the United States of America (US). Limited peer reviewed literature focusing on South African veterinary students is available. South African veterinary medical students might benefit from approaches to improve mental health and wellness similar to those recommended in the US. However, these recommendations may not address the underlying risk factors for mental health and wellness concerns or mismatch resources available to South African veterinary medical students. The purpose of this collaborative study was to compare the mental health and wellness among veterinary students enrolled at the University of California, Davis (UCD), and the University of Pretoria (UP), the only veterinary school in South Africa. Our primary research question was; Are the measures of mental health and wellness for students at similar stages in the veterinary curriculum different between the two schools? We hypothesized that mental health and wellness as determined by assessment of anxiety, burnout, depression, and quality of life between the two schools is different. A cross-sectional study of 102 students from UCD and 74 students from UP, at similar preclinical stages (Year 2 for UCD and Year 4 for UP) of the veterinary curriculum was performed. Anxiety, burnout, depression, and quality of life were assessed using the Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7), Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), and Short Form-8 (SF-8), respectively. Students from both schools had moderate levels of anxiety, high levels of burnout, mild to moderate levels of depression, poor mental health, and good physical health. Our results suggest that similar mental health and wellness concerns in South African veterinary students is comparable with concerns in veterinary medical students in the US. Recommendations and resources to improve mental health and wellness in US veterinary medical students might be applicable to South African veterinary medical students.The University Capacity Development Grant of the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) of South Africa, and the UC Davis Faculty Discretionary Support funds.http://www.plosone.orgam2021Production Animal Studie

Opportunities and Barriers for Water Co-Governance—A Critical Analysis of Seven Cases of Diffuse Water Pollution from Agriculture in Europe, Australia and North America

Diffuse Water Pollution from Agriculture (DWPA) and its governance has received increased attention as a policy concern across the globe. Mitigation of DWPA is a complex problem that requires a mix of policy instruments and a multi-agency, broad societal response. In this paper, opportunities and barriers for developing co-governance, defined as collaborative societal involvement in the functions of government, and its suitability for mitigation of DWPA are reviewed using seven case studies in Europe (Poland, Denmark, Sweden, The Netherlands and UK), Australia (Murray-Darling Basin) and North America (State of Minnesota). An analytical framework for assessing opportunities and barriers of co-governance was developed and applied in this review. Results indicated that five key issues constitute both opportunities and barriers, and include: (i) pressure for change; (ii) connected governance structures and allocation of resources and funding; (iii) leadership and establishment of partnerships through capacity building; (iv) use and co-production of knowledge; and (v) time commitment to develop water co-governance