A sweet deal? Sugarcane,water and agricultural transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Globally, the area of sugarcane is rising rapidly in response to growing demands for bioethanol and increased sugar demand for human consumption. Despite considerable diversity in production systems and contexts, sugarcane is a particularly “high impact” crop with significant positive and negative environmental and socio-economic impacts. Our analysis is focused on Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), which is a critical region for continued expansion, due to its high production potential, low cost of production and proximity, and access, to European markets. Drawing on a systematic review of scientific evidence, combined with information from key informants, stakeholders and a research-industry workshop, we critically assess the impacts of sugarcane development on water, soil and air quality, employment, food security and human health. Our analysis shows that sugarcane production is, in general, neither explicitly good nor bad, sustainable nor unsustainable. The impacts of expansion of sugarcane production on the environment and society depend on the global political economy of sugar, local context, quality of scheme, nature of the production system and farm management. Despite threats from climate change and forthcoming changes in the trade relationship with the European Union, agricultural development policies are driving national and international interest and investment in sugarcane in SSA, with expansion likely to play an important role in sustainable development in the region. Our findings will help guide researchers and policy makers with new insights in understanding the situated environmental and social impacts associated with alternative sugar economy models, production technologies and qualities of management.     

Water security: Debating an emerging paradigm

This paper presents a comprehensive review of the concept of water security, including both academic and policy literatures. The analysis indicates that the use of the term water security has increased significantly in the past decade, across multiple disciplines. The paper presents a comparison of definitions of, and analytical approaches to, water security across the natural and social sciences, which indicates that distinct, and at times incommensurable, methods and scales of analysis are being used. We consider the advantages and disadvantages of narrow versus broad and integrative framings of water security, and explore their utility with reference to integrated water resources management. In conclusion, we argue that an integrative approach to water security brings issues of good governance to the fore, and thus holds promise as a new approach to water management.     

Is irrigated agriculture in the Murray Darling Basin well prepared to deal with reductions in water availability?

The “Big Dry”, a prolonged dry period in Australia from 1997 to 2009, dried out much of the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) and resulted in large agricultural losses and degraded river ecosystems. Climate projections are that dry conditions in the MDB are likely to be more regular and severe than ever before, and recent policy initiatives are likely to reduce consumptive water use and redirect water to ecosystem management. This paper aims to develop an understanding of the interactions between water policy and irrigation practices by deriving lessons from drought management in irrigated agriculture of the MDB during the Big Dry, and furthermore, to draw out lessons to enhance the preparedness of irrigated agriculture for a future drier climate and reduced water availability. Reviews of irrigation farmers’ practices, attitudes and capacity to manage during prolonged droughts in the MDB, and the evolution of agricultural water policy in Australia since 1990 were made. It is clear that farmers could be better prepared to deal with a drier climate if their water management practices, e.g. irrigation methods and soil moisture measuring tools are improved, if the impediments to the uncertainty of water allocation and low water availability could be overcome, and if well-targeted research and extension could assist farmers to use water more wisely. It is also clear that Australian water policy could be better prepared in terms of assisting irrigated agriculture to deal with a drier climate. Key areas are reduction of barriers and distortions to water trading, optimizing the environmental water allocation, and seeking mutual benefits between environmental water allocation and irrigated agriculture, improvement of the cost-effectiveness of investments in water supply infrastructure, facilitating carryover and capacity sharing at larger scales, and provision of accurate, accessible and useful water information at different scales. An approach to irrigation practice and water policy is proposed based on past experience and potential opportunities. The approach is a set of linked strategies for more robust agricultural production and a more sustainable environment under a drier climate and reduced water availability.     

IPCC AR6报告解读：气候变化与水安全

保障水安全是应对和缓解气候变化的核心问题,也是实现可持续发展的前提。IPCC第六次评估报告（AR6）第二工作组报告单独设立第四章“水”,分析了气候变化对全球水循环的影响,评估了水循环变化对人类社会和生态系统的影响,指出了当前与未来的水安全风险,分析了与水相关适应措施的收益与成效。报告显示,人类活动导致的气候变化加速了全球水文循环,对水安全产生负面影响,面临水安全风险的人口与地区增多,并增加了由社会经济因素造成的水资源脆弱性。水安全风险随全球升温水平的升高而增加,在水安全脆弱地区表现更为显著。将全球升温限制在1.5℃可有效降低未来的水安全风险,有助于实现水安全、可持续发展和具有气候恢复力的发展三重目标。我国水安全问题突出,急需在“灰-绿”基础设施生态水文效应、三维水资源短缺、水-粮食-能源耦合、地球系统模拟器研发应用等方面重点开展研究工作。     

A green-gray path to global water security and sustainable infrastructure

Sustainable development demands reliable water resources, yet traditional water management has broadly failed to avoid environmental degradation and contain infrastructure costs. We explore the global-scale feasibility of combining natural capital with engineering-based (green-gray) approaches to meet water security threats over the 21st century. Threats to water resource systems are projected to rise throughout this period, together with a significant expansion in engineering deployments and progressive loss of natural capital. In many parts of the world, strong path dependencies are projected to arise from the legacy of prior environmental degradation that constrains future water management to a heavy reliance on engineering-based approaches. Elsewhere, retaining existing stocks of natural capital creates opportunities to employ blended green-gray water infrastructure. By 2050, annual engineering expenditures are projected to triple to $2.3 trillion, invested mainly in developing economies. In contrast, preserving natural capital for threat suppression represents a potential $3.0 trillion in avoided replacement costs by mid-century. Society pays a premium whenever these nature-based assets are lost, as the engineering costs necessary to achieve an equivalent level of threat management are, on average, twice as expensive. Countries projected to rapidly expand their engineering investments while losing natural capital will be most constrained in realizing green-gray water management. The situation is expected to be most restrictive across the developing world, where the economic, technical, and governance capacities to overcome such challenges remain limited. Our results demonstrate that policies that support blended green-gray approaches offer a pathway to future global water security but will require a strategic commitment to preserving natural capital. Absent such stewardship, the costs of water resource infrastructure and services will likely rise substantially and frustrate efforts to attain universal and sustainable water security.     

Climates of urbanization: local experiences of water security,conflict and cooperation in peri-urban South-Asia

ABSTRACT

This article explores changing water (in)securities in a context of urbanization and climate change in the peri-urban spaces of four South-Asian cities: Khulna (Bangladesh), Gurugram and Hyderabad (India), and Kathmandu (Nepal). As awareness of water challenges like intensifying use, deteriorating quality and climate change is growing, water security gets more scientific and policy attention. However, in peri-urban areas, the dynamic zones between the urban and the rural, it remains under-researched, despite the specific characteristics of these spaces: intensifying flows of goods, resources, people, and technologies; diversifying uses of, and growing pressures on land and water; and complex and often contradictory governance and jurisdictional institutions. This article analyses local experiences of water (in-)security, conflict and cooperation in relation to existing policies. It uses insights from the analysis of the case studies as a point of departure for a critical reflection on whether a ‘community resilience’ discourse contributes to better understanding these cases of water insecurity and conflict, and to better policy solutions. The authors argue that a community resilience focus risks neglecting important insights about how peri-urban water insecurity problems are experienced by peri-urban populations and produced or reproduced in specific socio-economic, political and policy contexts. Unless supported by in-depth hydro-social research, such a focus may depoliticize basically political questions of water (re) allocation, prioritization, and access for marginalized groups. Therefore, the authors plead for more critical awareness among researchers and policy-makers of the consequences of using a ‘community resilience’ discourse for making sense of peri-urban water (in-)security.

Key policy insights

• There is an urgent need for more (critical) policy and scientific attention to peri-urban water insecurity, conflict, and climate change.

• Although a changing climate will likely play a role, more attention is needed to how water insecurities and vulnerabilities in South Asia are socially produced.

• Researchers and policy-makers should avoid using depoliticized (community) resilience approaches for basically socio-political problems.

     

Towards integrated governance for water, health and social–ecological systems: The watershed governance prism

This article proposes a shift toward the integrated governance of watersheds as a basis for fostering health, sustainability and social–ecological resilience. The authors suggest that integrated watershed governance is more likely when different perspectives, including health and well-being, are explicitly understood, communicated, and sought as co-benefits of watershed management. A new conceptual device – the watershed governance prism – is introduced in relation to the multiple facets of governance that characterize contemporary water resources management and examined as an integrative framework to link social and environmental concerns with the determinants of health in the watershed context. The authors assess the diagnostic and communicative potential of such a framework, discussing its utility as a concise depiction of multiple, interacting policy priorities and as a guide to integrate different research and policy domains into the governance of water, health and social–ecological systems.     

Contestations around water allocation during a climate crisis in India: The case of ‘IPL vs. drought’

In this paper, we analyze a major controversy regarding the allocation of water for Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket matches during a period of extreme drought in the state of Maharashtra in India. We use a discursive approach to public policy to understand water policy production and to analyze the competing narratives on water advanced by opposing discourse coalitions during the ‘IPL vs. drought’ controversy. We find that the neoliberal view of ‘water as an economic good’ is dominant and institutionalized in the water allocation priorities determined by the Maharashtra State government. This is resisted by civil society actors like Loksatta and by the Indian judiciary, who view ‘water as a Human Right.’ Our reading of the ‘IPL vs. drought’ public interest litigation (PIL) shows that Loksatta’s decision to target water allocation for the IPL through the Courts leverages the popularity of the IPL in the Indian media, as well as the uneven unfolding of neoliberalism across institutions of the state in India. At the same time, Loksatta’s PIL focuses solely on the IPL and does not pay attention to the water allocation to larger users like industry and sugarcane cultivation that best represent the institutionalization of the neoliberal view of water in Maharashtra. We argue that the focus on the IPL makes it the site of contesting water policy on ideological grounds. We conclude by examining the challenge provided by Loksatta’s PIL to the dominant neoliberal view of water in Maharashtra.     

Challenges and opportunities for re-framing resource use policy with practice theories: The change points approach

Concerns about the climate crisis and the escalating pace of global consumption are accelerating the pressure on governments to moderate public demand for resources like water, food and energy. Notwithstanding their increasing sophistication, standard behavioural change approaches continue to be criticised for a narrow understanding of what shapes behaviour. One alternative theoretical position comes from practice theories, which draw on interpretive and relational understandings to focus on practices rather than people's behaviour, and hence highlight the complex and distributed set of factors shaping resource use. While practice theories have gained considerable interest from policy institutions within and beyond the UK they so far have had limited impact upon policy. It has even been argued that there are insurmountable challenges in reconciling the ontological commitments of practice theories with the realities of policy processes. This article advances academic and policy debates about the practical implications of practice theories. It works with evidence from transdisciplinary research intended to establish whether and how key distinctive insights from social practice research can usefully be brought to bear on policy. We pursued this through co-productive research with four key UK national policy partners, focusing on effective communication of social practice research evidence on agreed issues. A key outcome of collaboratively negotiating challenging social theory to usefully influence policy processes is the ‘Change Points’ approach, which our partners identified as offering new thinking on initiatives promoting reductions in people's use and disposal of resources. The Change Points approach was developed to enable policy processes to confront the complexities of everyday action, transforming both how problems are framed and how practical initiatives for effecting change are developed. We discuss the case of food waste reduction in order to demonstrate the potential of Change Points to reframe behaviour change policy. We end the paper by addressing the potential and limitations of informing policy with insights from practice theories based upon the successes as well as the challenges we have met. This discussion has broader implications beyond practice theories to other fields of social theory, and to debates on the relations between academic research and policy more broadly. We argue that, through a co-productive approach with policy professionals, and so engagement with the practices of policy making, it is possible to provide a partial and pragmatic but nevertheless effective translation of key distinctive insights from practice theories and related research, to reframe policy problems and hence to identify spaces for effecting change for sustainability.     

From Bullets to Boreholes: A Disaggregated Analysis of Domestic Water Cooperation in Drought-prone Regions

Does water shortage incentivize cooperation? Case studies suggests that water scarcity can rarely, if at all, explain violence, instead such shortages rather facilitate cooperative actions around water. Another major argument from qualitative research holds that water scarcity and armed conflict often occur side by side. These insights have rarely been tested empirically across cases on a sub-national level. Earlier quantitative work instead focused on basin or state level interactions. This article fills these gaps by using disaggregated data to analyze the effect of water scarcity on incidences of domestic water cooperation. Using event data covering the Mediterranean area and Northern Africa (1997–2009), this article first shows that water-related actions, cooperative or conflictual, in general are more frequent in water scarce areas. Second, the analysis demonstrates that water cooperation occurs in areas with difficult access to groundwater and with a history of violence. Third, the findings suggest that the relationship between water scarcity and water cooperation is conditional on levels of democracy. The presented results also differ depending on whether state or non-state actors collaborate in domestic water initiatives. Taken together, these findings provide crucial insights to our understanding of environmental peacebuilding and water security.     

Climate-smart agriculture: perspectives and framings

This paper offers a systematic analysis of the concepts and contexts that frame the climate-smart agriculture (CSA) discourse in the academic and policy literature. Documents (n?=?113) related to CSA and published in peer-reviewed journals, books, working papers, and scientific reports from 2004 to 2016 were reviewed. Three key trends emerged from the analysis: studies are biased towards global policy agendas; research focuses on scientific and technical issues; and the integration of mitigation, adaptation, and food security (the three pillars of CSA) is becoming a popular scholarly solution. Findings suggest that CSA is a fairly new concept used to describe a range of adaptation and mitigation practices without a specific set of criteria. Although CSA is often framed around the three pillars, the underlying issues constructing the discourse differ at global, developing, and developed country scales. Although there is increasing research on developing countries, particularly in relation to how CSA can transform smallholder agriculture, there is a paucity of research documenting the experiences from developed countries. The findings suggest that research on CSA needs to move beyond solely focussing on scientific approaches and only in certain geographical contexts. If CSA is to be applicable for farmers across the globe, then cross-disciplinary research that is underpinned by broad socio-economic and political contexts is essential to understand how differences in narratives might affect implementation on-the-ground in both developing and developed countries.

POLICY RELEVANCE

Although policy makers are increasingly supportive of the climate-smart agriculture (CSA) approach, the rhetoric has largely been developed on the basis of scientific and technical arguments. The political implications of varying perspectives have resulted in a growing divide between how developing and developed countries frame solutions to the impacts of climate change on agriculture under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Different framings are part of the explanation for why the scope of CSA is being rethought, with the scientific community redirecting attention to seeking a separate work programme under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The current policy framing of CSA will give no new policy direction unless it grounds itself in the smallholder farmer and civil society contexts.     

Civil society lobbying and countries’ climate change policies: a matching approach

Does civil society lobbying affect states’ policies on climate change? Does it facilitate or hamper cooperation towards ‘greener’ policies? Environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) and business lobbying groups alike are increasingly seeking to access states’ negotiation delegations at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in order to affect or even change official delegates’ policies. Previous studies have failed to control for the fact that the set of states that have granted civil society access to their delegations is unlikely to be a random sample. Moreover, the fact that a delegation's policy outputs may converge with the preferences of a civil society group cannot be taken as evidence that it was caused by civil society lobbying. A matching approach that addresses both problems is proposed, which corrects for the non-random assignment of civil society organizations to state delegations and forms quasi-experimental contrasts by sampling a set of ‘most similar’ cases that only differ in their treatment; i.e. civil society lobbying. This approach facilitates a causal interpretation of lobbying efforts. The results indicate that only business groups are likely to exert a causal influence on states’ climate delegations. However, contrary to expectations, these groups appear to have enhanced states’ efforts towards environmentally friendly policies.

Policy relevance

What impact can non-governmental actors have in influencing states’ policies at the climate change negotiations? This question is addressed empirically using a matching approach, which corrects potential challenges in the research on interest group influence. It is shown that business groups are likely to influence states’ policies at the UNFCCC – unlike green interest groups or civil society in general. In light of these findings, three policy implications are derived that might be of importance for states and non-governmental decision makers alike. Most importantly, ENGOs should refocus their efforts for exerting their influence. ENGOs could make their lobbying more effective by first identifying the states that may be more receptive to their preferences and positions.     

Hydro-climatic change,conflict and security

Climate change is likely to increase the frequency and intensity of water-related hazards on human populations. This has generated security concerns and calls for urgent policy action. However, the simplified narrative that links climate change to security via water and violent conflict is wanting. First, it is not confirmed by empirical evidence. Second, it ignores the varied character and implications of hydro-climatic hazards, the multi-faceted nature of conflict and adaptive action, and crucial intricacies of security. Integrating for the first time research and findings from diverse disciplines, we provide a more nuanced picture of the climate-water-security nexus. We consider findings from the transboundary waters, armed conflict, vulnerability, and political ecology literatures and specify the implications and priorities for policy relevant research. Although the social effects of future hydro-climatic change cannot be safely predicted, there is a good understanding of the factors that aggravate risks to social wellbeing. To reduce vulnerability, pertinent democratic and social/civil security institutions should be strengthened where they exist, and promoted where they are still absent.     

Shared injustice,splintered solidarity: Water governance across urban-rural divides

In response to rapid urbanization and intensifying climatological instability, cities are implementing major water infrastructure projects to mitigate water supply and flood risks. Drawing on four cases from South and Southeast Asia, we show how megacities’ search for additional water supplies or sites to store floodwater repeatedly disadvantage the most vulnerable groups in rural and urban areas. Rather than rehashing urban–rural conflicts, we argue these outcomes demonstrate the continuous reproduction of water insecurity for a class of society that is dispossessed of water and rural livelihoods, excluded from water and land access within the cities they migrate to, and evicted from flood-securitized cities back to the periphery. Water-related injustices confronting the urban poor mirror injustices along the entire water governance spectrum that begins and ends in rural areas. These shared vulnerabilities suggest opportunities for solidarity across urban–rural divides and novel directions for research and coalition building. A fundamental challenge ahead will be whether and how urban and rural poor groups can build regional or national alliances across geographic and identity divides.     

Sources of human insecurity in the face of hydro-climatic change

Policy agendas increasingly respond to the perceived security threats of climate change, not least via its effects on water. Yet, solid links between climate, water, conflict and security have seldom been substantiated empirically. Drawing from the conceptual framework and empirical results of the EC-funded research project CLICO (‘Climate Change, Hydro-Conflict and Human Security’) which is presented in this Special Issue, this opening article looks at the conditions that shape conflict and insecurity, with a focus on the role of adaptation policies. We find three main sources of human insecurity: first, democratic deficits, which are more influential than hydro-climatic stresses; second, mal-adaptations, i.e. adaptations that have adverse effects for the security of some groups; and third, structural violence, often related to economic and state development. There is a systemic contradiction insofar as the pursuit of adaptation through state-led economic growth projects ends up producing new insecurities for parts of the population. Adaptation to hydro-climatic change, therefore, is likely to be a contested and painful process. Research on security and climate change must move beyond narrow investigations of conflict and study the links between structural violence and human insecurity, in particular the conditions and processes that reduce the options available to deal with potential insecurities.     

Quantifying urban water supply security under global change

Urban water supply security is commonly measured in terms of per capita water availability at the city level. However, the actual services that citizens receive are influenced by several components, including (1) a city's access to water, (2) infrastructure for its treatment, storage and distribution, (3) financial capital for building and maintaining infrastructure, and (4) management efficacy for regulating and operating the water system. These four types of "capital" are required for the provision of public water supply services. A fifth capital “community adaptation” is needed when public services are insufficient. Here, we develop and test an integrated framework for the quantification of urban water supply security based on these five capitals. “Security” involves three dimensions: 1) the level of system function (i.e., supply services); 2) risks to these services; and 3) robustness of system functioning. We apply this Capital Portfolio Approach (CPA) to seven urban case studies selected from a wide range of hydro-climatic and socio-economic regions on four continents. Detailed data on urban water infrastructure and services were collected in two cities, and key stakeholder interviews and household surveys were conducted in one city. Additional cities were assessed based on publicly available utility and globally available datasets. We find that in cities with high levels of public services, adaptive capacity remains inactive, while cities with high levels of water insecurity rely on community adaptation for self-provision of services. Inequality in the capacity to adapt leads to variable levels of urban water security and the vulnerability of the urban poor. Results demonstrate the applicability of the presented framework for the assessment of individual urban water systems, as well as for cross-city comparison of any type of cities. We discuss implications for policy and decision-making.     

Input–output and life-cycle emissions accounting: applications in the real world

A considerable body of academic literature has emerged that addresses methods for consumption-based accounting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as opposed to the territorial approach used under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The consumption-based approach attributes emissions to consumers of final goods and services by accounting for the GHG emissions ‘embedded’ in raw materials and intermediate goods and services. Many authors have advocated the wider adoption of a consumption-based approach. This article does not take one side or another in the consumption-based versus territorial debate. Instead, it explores the extent to which consumption-based thinking has already found practical application by companies and public authorities and assesses the potential for further adoption. The methodologies underlying consumption-based approaches are critically reviewed to note criteria such as accuracy and the timeliness of data generation, which suggest the potential for practical application. A typology of applications is then developed and each category of application is systematically explored citing real-world examples where possible. The article concludes with a discussion of the potential for the wider application of consumption-based approaches and identifies further research needs.Policy relevanceConsumption-based approaches to accounting for GHG emissions are gradually being adopted in the policy domain, albeit in a haphazard way. This article (1) identifies the strengths and weaknesses associated with top-down input–output approaches and bottom-up life cycle assessment approaches to consumption-based accounting in terms of criteria such as accuracy and timeliness of data generation; (2) provides a comprehensive review of actual and proposed applications to date; (3) constructs a taxonomy of applications drawing on the analysis of strengths and weaknesses; and (4) considers the prospects for further application. The article will help policy makers and policy analysts to assess the feasibility and desirability of future applications of consumption-based approaches and address implementation barriers.     

Climate adaptation and development: Contradictions for human security in Gambella,Ethiopia

It is clear that we need a climate adaptation policy agenda that is sensitive to the special political, social, and ecological circumstances of highly vulnerable regions, most of which are located in the African Sahel. While the existing literature on climate variability and climate change makes important theoretical contributions on development, vulnerability, and adaptation more broadly, with few exceptions it has not acknowledged that contradictions arise in addressing insecurities via the implementation of development, vulnerability reduction, and adaptation programs. An empirical assessment of how such contradictions are both driven by and negotiated in such programs is particularly useful if we are to design a more robust and grounded adaptation agenda. In this article, we focus on the paradigmatic case of Gambella in Ethiopia, a region that lies near the bottom of many development indices, but has also been the site for recent efforts to reduce climate vulnerability through village and agricultural modernization programs. Drawing on recent research in the region and on these programs, we demonstrate how the politics of development and adaptation lead to differential and contradictory impacts on four arenas of human security (a) elements of water security, (b) temporal aspects of water security and livelihoods security, (c) personal, state and community security, and (d) differentiated geographies economic security which privilege the national and international scale. The result of this complex political economy is that responses have served to increase rather than decrease tensions in the region.     

An integrative assessment of water vulnerability in First Nation communities in Southern Ontario,Canada

Assessing vulnerability related to water is a global concern and especially important to populations experiencing multiple exposures and sensitivities. Approaches are required that span social and physical concerns, and that bridge multiple types and forms of knowledge. This research investigates the water vulnerability of three First Nation communities in Ontario, Canada. A collaborative process was used to build an integrative understanding of water vulnerability, develop an associated instrument, and undertake the community scale assessments. Results from the assessment provided communities with a comprehensive overview of water vulnerability, and pointed to gaps in knowledge and specific areas where attention was needed. Conducting assessments at a community scale following the methodology employed in this research responds to the need for integration and context sensitivity when engaging in water vulnerability assessments and introduces innovations to existing assessment tools. A holistic approach to water vulnerability assessment provided decision-makers with the context-specific details and empirical insights they require to prioritize issues and allocate resources.     

Crowdsourced Delphis: Designing solutions to complex environmental problems with broad stakeholder participation

There is a well-established need for increased stakeholder participation in the generation of adaptive management approaches and specific solutions to complex environmental problems. However, integrating participant feedback into current science, research, and decision-making processes is challenging. This paper presents a novel approach that marries a rigorous Delphi method, borrowed from policy and organizational sciences, with contemporary “crowdsourcing” to address the complex problems of water pollution exacerbated by climate change in the Lake Champlain Basin. In an online Delphi forum that occurred over a six-week period during the Spring of 2014, fifty-three participants proposed and commented on adaptive solutions to address water quality in the context of climate change. In a follow up Multi-Stakeholder workshop, thirty-eight stakeholders participated in refining and synthesizing the results from the forum. To inform modeling and policy dialogue, the resulting list of interventions was analyzed by time horizon, domain, type of adaptation action, and priority level. The interventions suggested by stakeholders within the crowdsourcing forum have contributed to the current policy dialogue in Vermont including legislation to address phosphorus loading to Lake Champlain. This stakeholder approach strengthens traditional modeling scenario development to include solutions and priorities that have been collectively refined and vetted.