Shifting currents in water diplomacy: negotiating conflict in the Danube and Nile River basins

This chapter analyzes conflict management strategies across three cases of water diplomacy in the Danube and Nile River basins during periods of high tensions and rapid change. Each water diplomacy case involved significant conflicts over access to water resources and benefits from its use, as well as conflicts over access to participate in water decision-making. This chapter is part of the edited book The Politics of Fresh Water: Access, conflict and identity

The politics of fresh water: setting the stage

This chapter identifies insights into the politics of fresh water and introduces the contributions to the book The Politics of Fresh Water: Access, conflict and identity. First, the social, physical, and ecological components of water systems are interconnected, forming a hydro-social system. Second, instead of being inevitable, freshwater crisis is a socially constructed experience, a lived phenomenon. Water scarcity is not simply the result of what nature has to offer but always involves power relations and political decisions. The water crisis is not only about who is granted access to safe, clean water (when, where, and why), but also about the extent to which the shrinking of available fresh water influences people’s everyday lives at the national and subnational scales. The water crisis also reflects the impact of modernization and neoliberal policies on identity and sense of community. After all, water is the source of livelihood and survival for all people, in every location, at every geographical scale, and the meaning of access to water is inextricably connected to cultural, societal, and political identities. This chapter is part of the edited book The Politics of Fresh Water: Access, conflict and identity

Nature-Based Municipal Flood Resilience: Land Conservation Strategies in New Hampshire’s Coastal Watershed

Land conservation is a nature-based approach to managing flood risks from fluvial flooding, coastal storm surge, and sea-level rise. This poster presents the design of ongoing research that aims to understand how New Hampshire’s (NH) coastal watershed municipalities implement land protection and conservation to reduce flood risk, the roles of local communities, land conservation organizations, and regional planning agencies in land conservation for flood risk management, how local decision-makers and stakeholders perceive flooding risks, and what institutional changes are needed to facilitate nature-based flood risk management. Research methods include (1) semi-structured interviews with individuals in New Hampshire representing a broad range of professional roles related to land conservation, including town officials, land trusts, environmental and planning organizations, and state agencies, and (2) analysis of existing studies, plans, and reports on flood risk management in New Hampshire. This poster also presents a framework to categorize how municipalities develop their land conservation priorities. This poster was presented virtually at the UNH Annual Graduate Research Conference on April 20 – 21, 2020

Nature-Based Municipal Flood Resilience and Conservation Priorities in New Hampshire’s Coastal Watershed

Land conservation is a non-structural approach to managing flood hazards through water retention, protecting areas where floodwaters can be stored to prevent downstream flooding, and prevention, protecting floodplains to avoid added risks from new construction and infrastructure. This presentation presents preliminary findings from ongoing research investigating how New Hampshire’s coastal watershed municipalities are implementing land conservation to manage coastal and riverine flood risks. Specifically, we analyze (1) the kinds of criteria municipalities are using to prioritize land conservation and whether managing flood risks is incorporated into the criteria, and (2) the factors that may explain variation observed across municipal land conservation strategies. This research is based on an analysis of publicly available planning documents and 28 semi-structured interviews conducted with municipal staff and officials during 9/2018 – 4/2019 including conservation commission chairs and town planners. Qualitative analysis of the interviews is ongoing. Preliminary analysis suggests there is significant variation across municipalities in the use of criteria for land conservation and that flood risk mitigation is often part of multi-objective selection criteria. Common land conservation criteria include: water resources protection, flood mitigation, climate regulation, nutrient cycling and uptake, soil retention and formation, aesthetic and scenic value, community character, recreation, public access, historic value, and wood supply. Even though nearly all municipalities include land conservation criteria in planning documents, a surprising percent of interviewees (29%) report not using criteria to prioritize land conservation, which suggests a possible disconnect between strategic planning and implementation. Many communities integrate local and regional priorities in developing their land conservation strategies. And, many communities struggle to prioritize flood risk mitigation relative to other competing needs. We conclude with a few examples of data presentation products from this research and ideas for next steps. This presentation was given at the September 10th, 2020 meeting of the Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership. More information about the Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership can be found at: http://www.greatbaypartnership.org

New England Food Policy Council Survey Instrument

This document is a survey instrument implemented with food policy councils (FPCs) in New England in October – December 2017. The survey’s purpose is to understand New England FPCs’ policy priorities, identify recent policy and planning processes, and learn about how FPC’s incorporate public participation

Framework for Implementing Socially Just Climate Adaptation (Post-Print)

The previous two decades of scholarship devoted to the role of social justice in climate change adaptation has established an important theoretical basis to evaluate the concept of just adaptation, or, in other words, how the implementation of climate adaptation policy affects socially vulnerable groups. This paper synthesizes insights from relevant literature on urban climate change governance, climate adaptation, urban planning, social justice theory, and policy implementation to develop three propositions concerning the conditions that must occur to implement just adaptation. First, just adaptation requires the inclusion of socially vulnerable as full participants with agency to shape the decisions that affect them. Second, just adaptation requires that adaptation framings explicitly recognize the causes of systemic injustice. Third, just adaptation requires a focus on incremental evaluations of implementation to avoid timeframes inconsistent with advancing justice. We then integrate the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) with the just adaptation literature to develop a framework to evaluate the implementation of climate adaptation. We present two novel modifications to the ACF aimed at fostering policy analysis of the previously presented three propositions for implementation of just adaptation

New England Food Policy Council Survey Results

This document provides the results of a survey of 12 food policy councils (FPCs) in New England conducted during October – December 2017. The survey’s purpose is to understand New England FPCs’ policy priorities, identify recent policy and planning processes, and learn about how FPC’s incorporate public participation. This survey also incorporates results from another survey, the annual survey conducted by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF), which surveys all FPCs in North America

New England food policy councils: An assessment of organizational structure, policy priorities and public participation

Food policy councils (FPCs) are an increasingly common mechanism to improve participation in food system decision-making. Including individuals from under-represented groups can foster greater understanding of their needs and experiences with food system barriers and is an important part of food justice. However, engaging under-represented groups in food systems decision-making remains challenging for FPCs. This paper presents the results from a survey of FPCs and networks in New England to: (1) identify FPC policy priorities, (2) characterize FPCs engaged in policy initiatives based on attributes which, based on the literature, may impact effective public participation: geographic scale, organization type, capacity, policy priorities, and membership, and (3) analyze methods for engaging the public in FPC policy initiatives and demographic groups and sectors engaged. Findings indicate only half of New England FPCs work on policy efforts. Many surveyed FPCs engage multiple food system sectors and under-represented groups through a combination of different public participation opportunities. However, results indicate that New England FPCs could benefit from a greater focus on engaging under-represented audiences. FPCs interested in engaging more diverse participants should commit to a focus on food justice, strive for representative membership through intentional recruitment, and offer multiple methods to engage the public throughout policy initiatives

Access to Nature and Economy in Rochester, NH: StoryMap of a walking tour

This StoryMap provides photos and short descriptions of a walking tour held on October 6, 2022 in Rochester, NH focused on exploring how access to nature supports a community’s economy and quality of life. The walking tour was organized by the Nature Economy Collaborative in partnership with the City of Rochester, Granite Outdoor Alliance, and the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension. Funding was provided by the University of New Hampshire Collaborative Research Excellence (CoRE) Initiative. The interactive StoryMap is available at: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/9d7dc7cf7b0e4d349d082ac90b832d60/prin

A Rising Tide: Oyster Aquaculture Survey Instrument

This document provides the survey instrument for the oyster aquaculture survey that was conducted throughout August and October of 2021. The purpose of the survey was to gain a food system-wide perspective on gender dynamics in the region’s aquaculture industry, inclusive of different genders and identify potential gender-based barriers and opportunities to participation for men, women, and non-binary/third gender oyster aquaculturists