WP1: Analysing multilevel water and biodiversity governance in their context. Report

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Multi-level governance of natural resources: tools and processes for water and biodiversity governance in Europe - a European research and training network

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Liquid petroleum gas access and consumption expenditure: measuring energy poverty through wellbeing and gender equality in India

Despite the acceleration of electrification in India, many communities still suffer from the direct and indirect effects of energy poverty. We investigate whether access to liquified petroleum gas (LPG) and consumption expenditure can be used as measures of energy poverty in India, with a particular focus on gender equality. A district-level, quantitative analysis of household survey data was performed for the energy-poor states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. Wellbeing and gender equality indices were constructed from contextually relevant indicators, whilst LPG access was considered in terms of physical access, affordability, and awareness. Levels of consumption expenditure were considered based on the updated urban poverty line for India. We found that LPG access and consumption expenditure do not have significant relationship with wellbeing or gender equality. The result indicates that the traditional economic approach of using consumption expenditure cannot capture the multidimensionality of energy poverty. This has significant implications as it challenges the status quo of energy poverty measurement in India. The research also adds value to existing arguments that electricity access cannot be used as a sole indicator of energy poverty, by extending the argument to access to a modern cooking fuel. LPG access was however strongly associated with the education of women on the health effects of ‘chulha’ smoke. Consumption expenditure is also strongly associated with female property ownership which calls for future research on this novel relationship. Overall, this study calls for shifting energy poverty discussions to emerging concepts such as wellbeing and gender equality

Strongly sustainable development goals : Overcoming distances constraining responsible action

Sustainable development has been an important policy goal for the international community for over three decades. Still, the state of the planet continues to worsen. This conceptual article considers the failure largely a result of structural obstacles and the so-called weak sustainability discourse, popularized by the Brundtland report and manifested today in The 2030 Agenda. The article adopts a strong sustainability perspective for examining structural distances between actors and the consequences of their acts. We argue that these impede responsible action and that policy should aim to reduce or eliminate distances in the four dimensions of space, time, functions and relations. The article concludes by suggesting Strongly Sustainable Development Goals, which could help transitioning humanity towards sustainability, lower the anthropogenic environmental impact on the planet, and enable the continuity of diverse life on Earth.Peer reviewe

Governing the provision of insurance value from ecosystems

Highlights • Insurance value is a public good jointly produced with provisioning ecosystem services • Existing institutions do not lead to optimal provision of insurance value • Rights and responsibilities of providers and beneficiaries are often undefined • Trade-offs in ecosystem service provision, transaction costs and spatial considerations influence the choice of governance solutions • Polycentric governance supporting stakeholder collaboration, knowledge production and cost sharing is needed.Ecosystems can buffer against adverse events, such as storms or pest outbreaks by reducing the probability of harm and magnitude of losses. We conceptualise factors involved in the governance of insurance value provision, drawing on the notions of protection and insurance, exogeneity and endogeneity, and allocation of rights and responsibilities. Using riverine floods and forest pest outbreaks as examples, we explore the challenges of governing ecosystem-based risk management. We suggest that such governance should build on existing institutions, because insurance value is jointly produced with provisioning ecosystem services and the governance arrangements for them importantly shape insurance value provision. However, existing institutional arrangements do not acknowledge involved actors' rights and responsibilities and they do not facilitate landscape level management of risks. While PES schemes and other market-like solutions may govern the provision of insurance value when transaction costs and trade-offs between the provision of insurance value and private goods are low, regulation or public provision is needed when transaction costs and trade-offs are high. The complexity of challenges in governing the provision of insurance value highlights the need for polycentric governance involving collaboration, knowledge creation and dissemination and the funding of activities needed for them

Valuing Water Service Improvements through Revealed Preference: Averting Behaviour Method

Access to quality and adequate water supply is a basic need to sustain human life. Health risk of unsafe drinking water is a serious issue in many poor and underserved communities in developing countries. Therefore, the improvements of the health status of the people are considered as one of the main justifications of promoting investment in water infrastructure. People take a number of coping strategies for water service improvement and the expenditures on such measures implicitly reflect their preferences for water service improvements. This paper leads to estimation of the benefits of water service improvements using the Averting Expenditure Method. This study examines the determinants of averting actions and the prevailing health impacts using the Probit models aiming to examine why some households practice averting measures and have experienced with health impacts while others not. Study found that the respondent’s socio-economic attributes significantly determine the choice of averting behaviours. Then this study calculates the monitory values of number of averting measures and it was found that the mean averting expenditures of the household are Rs. 577 and Rs,. 740 per month respectively the households connected to the system and un-connected to the system. piped households spending an average about Rs. 500 per month as a damage cost of water related health impacts which is unseen but part of the real cost of lack of access to good quality water supply. Study conclude that the WTP estimates are much higher than the payments for existing piped schemes hence cost of clean and consistent water supply could be finance through a user payment scheme

Pragmatic Knowledge Services

Peer reviewe