Towards understanding governance for sustainable urban water management

Shifting from traditional, large, centralised infrastructure to alternative, distributed technologies is widely accepted as essential for enabling sustainable water management. Despite technical advances in sustainable urban water management over recent decades, the shift from traditional to more sustainable approaches remains slow. Current research on socio-institutional barriers suggests this poor implementation relates to a limited understanding of the different forms of governance needed to support alternative approaches, rather than the potential ineffectiveness of the technologies and practices. While some governance scholars express preferences for ideal hierarchical, market or network governance approaches, others suggest a hybrid of these approaches may be more appropriate for achieving sustainability. Currently, there is limited commentary about the potential characteristics of sustainable urban water governance. To extend the current scholarship, this paper systematically draws on the tacit knowledge of expert sustainability practitioners to identify potential governance characteristics of sustainable urban water management. In comparison with current urban water scholarship, which is supportive of a network governance approach at a conceptual level, the results strongly suggest that sustainability practitioners see the need for hybrid governance arrangements at a practical and operational level. These hybrid arrangements tended to comprise network and hierarchical approaches with market governance instruments. These insights from practitioners to help identify future research needs, focused on examining interaction among governance approaches at a variety of scales and locations.     

气候变化对跨境水资源影响的适应性评估与管理框架

气候变化增加了国际河流冲突的可能性,加强跨境水资源适应性管理是流域国可持续发展的必然选择。梳理了适应性相关研究的国内外最新进展,认识到适应性管理的关键问题是要发展一套科学评估未来气候变化影响及适应性策略的程序。通过论述气候变化下跨境水资源的适应性评估与管理框架,提出一个气候变化影响决策评估工具,包括信息收集、需求分析、对策分析、综合评估以及实施与调控5个阶段。该项研究将适应性管理与气候变化、定量化脆弱性及适应能力关联评价、成本效益分析、多目标优化决策和动态调控等有机结合,为从跨界层面制定具有针对性的适应性管理对策提供了思路与方法,有利于促进国际河流流域可持续发展。     

The future nexus of the Brahmaputra River Basin: Climate,water, energy and food trajectories

Advance knowledge of conflicting trajectories of water–energy–food (WEF) nexus is highly relevant for water policy and planning, especially for basins that cross national boundaries. The Brahmaputra River Basin in South Asia, home for 130 million people, is such a basin. Development of new hydropower projects, upstream water diversions and possible climate changes introduce concerns among riparian countries about future water supply for energy and food production in the basin. This study presents a new hydro-economic water system model of the basin coupled with ex post scenario analysis under the “nexus thinking” concept to identify and illustrate where development paths are in conflict. Results indicate that the ability of future development to remain free of conflict hinges mostly on the amount of precipitation falling in the basin in the future. Uncertain future precipitation along with uncertain future temperature and the unknown amount of upstream water diversion combine to strongly influence future water, energy and food production in the basin. Specifically, decreases in precipitation coupled with large upstream diversions (e.g., diversion in the territory of China) would leave one or more riparian countries unable to secure enough water to produce their desired energy and food. Future climate projected by General Circulation Models suggest a warmer and wetter climate condition in the region, which is associated with an increase in streamflow and easing of conflicts at the WEF nexus in the basin. The methodology presented here is expected to be generally useful for diagnosing the conditions that may cause water resources development goals to not be achieved due to either changes in climate or water use among competing users.     

天山地区水汽再循环量化研究

利用传统气候学的Brubaker二元模型和降水同位素平衡模型定量研究了新疆天山地区水汽再循环特征。结果表明:(1)气候学角度,天山地区水汽再循环率为9.32%。当地蒸发的水汽形成的降水量为41.8 mm,外来水汽输送到山区形成的降水量为407.2 mm;(2)同位素水汽氘盈余为精细化的分析水汽再循环提供了新的思路,进一步证实天山地区水汽主要来自于西风带的水汽输送,而乌鲁木齐站平均再循环水汽仅占到8%。随着海拔的增加,水汽再循环率逐渐下降,在海拔2000 m以上的水汽再循环可以忽略不计。在西风带关键水汽输送路径建立降水同位素观测断面,使两种方法相结合,共同研究水汽的来源和路径问题,是下一步需要关注的问题。     

Partnerships in forest governance

One of the major current global environmental challenges is the conservation of forest biodiversity. Deforestation and forest degradation continue despite international governmental agreements on forest conservation. In recent years private regulation in the international forest governance system has increased. Numerous partnerships between governments, business and/or civil society have been developed. Most of them focus on a single threat to forest biodiversity. This private regulation has had a limited positive impact. The most valuable contribution has been filling the gap of lack of implementation by governments. The forest governance system can become more effective if metagovernance is strengthened.     

Rethinking barriers to adaptation: Mechanism-based explanation of impasses in the governance of an innovative adaptation measure

Many of the possible barriers in the governance of climate change adaptation have already been identified and catalogued in the academic literature. Thus far it has proven to be difficult to provide meaningful recommendations on how to deal with these barriers. In this paper we propose a different perspective, with different epistemological assumptions about cause and effect than most existing barrier studies, to analyze why adaptation is often challenging. Using the mechanismic framework, we study how the idea for an innovative “Water Plaza” was realized in the city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Mechanisms are understood as patterns of interaction between actors that bring about change in the governance process that lead to policy impasses. Our analysis reveals three mechanisms that explain the impasses in the first Water Plaza pilot project: the risk-innovation mechanism, the frame polarization mechanism, and the conflict infection mechanism. Only after several substantive changes in the project design, location choice, and process architecture was the project of Water Plaza's revitalized. We discuss how the short-sighted ideas about cause–effect relationships, reflected in the superficial identification of barriers, may prove to be counterproductive; if there is high uncertainty about the risks of an innovation, the solution of offering more certainty is not very helpful and could, as it happened in the case study, trigger other mechanisms, creating an even tighter deadlock. Our study also suggests that when adaptation is considered as something innovative, the chances will increase that the risk-innovation mechanism will occur. We conclude that unearthing mechanisms offers new opportunities and different types of strategic interventions in practice than most existing studies have offered.     

Addressing knowledge gaps for transboundary environmental governance

Knowledge is widely considered a key ingredient for the effective and sustainable governance of the environment. In transboundary settings – i.e., where political boundaries cross natural resource system boundaries – there are considerable barriers to knowledge production and use. Resulting knowledge gaps can be barriers to governance. This research examines three case studies in which international river basin organizations, tasked with facilitating cooperation in transboundary river basins, recognized and addressed knowledge gaps to support governance of shared waters. We synthesize across the three case studies to develop a typology of knowledge gaps and the strategies used to address those gaps. In identifying common types of knowledge gaps and the on-the-ground strategies used to fill them, this research provides an important framework for assessing and theorizing knowledge at the transboundary scale, as well as useful recommendations and examples for practitioners seeking to develop that knowledge.     

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.     

Institutional analysis of actors involved in the governance of innovative contracts for agri-environmental and climate schemes

In this study, we used institutional analysis to investigate the design of innovative contracts for agri-environmental and climate schemes. The aim of such contracts is to better incentivize farmers for the provision of environmental public goods in comparison to current ‘mainstream’ contracts. For the analysis, we differentiated four contract types: result-based, collective, land tenure, and value chain contracts. To represent each type in the analysis, we selected 19 case examples from six European countries. Cases were identified through a mix of methods, combining literature review, web search, and expert consultation. After a structured data collection based on Ostrom’s institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework, we focused our analysis on the involved actors and their roles in contract governance. Our results highlight the great diversity of public, private, and civil actors involved from the local, regional, national or international governance level, each performing one or several critical roles in contract governance. We found that it is highly context-dependent which actors assume certain roles. We also discuss how provision of environmental public goods through the contracts might potentially be impacted by certain roles and their assignment to specific actors.     

北京一次大暴雨的水汽收支和微物理过程数值分析

利用NCEP1°×1°再分析资料和常规气象观测资料,使用WRF模式对2012年7月21日发生在北京地区的一次特大暴雨天气过程进行数值模拟。在模拟结果的基础上,分析了此次暴雨过程的形势演变和水汽条件,并分别计算了暴雨发生过程中北京全市范围内的水汽输送、水汽收支、大气可降水量和空中各相态水物质的量值大小、空间分布情况及其相互转化关系。结果发现:这次降水主要受高空槽、低涡和地面切变线的影响。有东南、西南两条水汽输送通道,计算区域上空水汽收支变化与地面雨强的演变对应很好。中低层持续而强烈的水汽净输入,为暴雨的发生发展提供了很好的水汽条件。北京各站点大气可降水量普遍超过历史极值,反映了降水的极端性。降水发展不同阶段,云内微物理过程存在差异,降水量初期以暖雨为主,降雨量不大,之后冷雨过程增强,降水量迅速增大。     

2008年“凤凰”台风暴雨的水汽和螺旋度分析

本文利用NCEP/NCAR1°×1°再分析格点资料和降水实况数据,对"0808"号台风"凤凰"在登陆福建前后引发浙闽沿海地区的暴雨过程进行水汽和螺旋度分析。结果表明:东海和南海是此次强降水的主要水汽供应源。水汽输送辐合主要出现在低层,950 hPa水汽通量散度幅合场对强降水落区有较好的指示作用。台风登陆福建之前,东边界的水汽输入起主导作用;登陆福建后,南边界的水汽输入逐渐起主导作用。800 hPa螺旋度正值区对未来6 h强降水落区有很好的指示意义。同时,螺旋度强度演变对未来6 h的降水强度有较好的正相关关系。水汽收支演变表明净水汽输入量对于降水强度演变的指示效果不及螺旋度,但是整层净水汽输入明显减小时,可预见其后降水强度减小。     

Elite capture risk and mitigation in decentralized forest governance regimes

Recent scholarship focuses on elite capture as a driver of social inequality and a source of policy failure across a wide range of governance initiatives. In the context of environmental governance, concerns center on perceived links between elite capture and decentralization, particularly in developing countries where decentralized natural resource governance has been widely implemented. But, there is limited empirical knowledge regarding if, and the conditions under which, decentralization might promote elite capture, or whether institutional design factors can militate against it. We examine how local institutional arrangements under forest sector decentralization affect the risk of elite capture of forest benefits, as well as the potential for a key institutional design factor (linkages to external organizations as an accountability-building mechanism) to mitigate this risk. We analyze forest product harvesting data as well as social, ecological, and institutional data from pre- and post-decentralization across 56 forests and 174 community groups in four countries. We employ hierarchical linear modeling to test the extent to which decentralization is associated with inequities in the distribution of forest harvest benefits within communities, and to characterize the institutional arrangements that affect elite capture outcomes. We find not only strong evidence for increased local rule-making under decentralization, but also significantly higher risk of elite capture of forest harvest benefits. This risk increases with increasing time since decentralization, but it is also substantially moderated in cases where an external organization was involved in organizing the local forest institution. Our findings highlight ways in which decentralization reforms are filtered by institutional arrangements to produce different outcomes, and generate new knowledge on micro-institutional factors that can reduce the risk of elite capture in decentralized environmental governance regimes.     

冷锋雨带中湿物理过程与非绝热锋生的相互作用

利用包含冰相微物理过程参数化方案的三维非静力中尺度／云模式（ARPS）模拟了与冷锋有关的冷锋雨带（NCFR）结构，着重分析了锋面云系发展演变的主要特征。模拟结果表明，锋面云系是由位于锋面前沿处的锋面次级环流的上升运动激发的；锋面强度与冷锋云（雨）带中的潜热释放之间的正反馈引起的持续非绝热锋生是锋面以及冷锋雨带得以长时间维持的主要物理机制。进一步分析表明，锋区两侧位温梯度的增加是与沿着冷锋表面的倾斜上升运动引起的云水及水汽的再分布密切相关的，即在冷气团中由云水蒸发发冷却形成冷池，而在暖气团中由水汽凝结以及雨滴冻结等形成暖池，这种冷／暖池在冷／暖气团上的叠加是引起非绝热锋生的关键。     

Vertically integrated moisture flux convergence as a predictor of thunderstorms

Vertically Integrated Moisture Flux Convergence (VIMFC) alone and in combination with the lifted stability index of the most unstable layer (SMUL) is evaluated as a thunderstorm predictor. By using six-hourly standard pressure weather analysis data from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) during 30 days in the summers of 1992 and 1994 containing several severe weather events along with quiescent events in northwestern Europe 17,206 events are obtained. The location and time of a lightning discharge are obtained from the Arrival Time Difference (ATD) sferics lightning location system from the UK Meteorological Office. Using the Heidke Skill Score (HEIDKE) to determine the best threshold we conclude that VIMFC alone, does not perform well as a dichotomous thunderstorm predictor compared to the stability index. However, the Thundery Case Probability (TCP) tested as function of VIMFC results in a high correlation with thunderstorms. By combining SMUL and VIMFC the surplus value as a thunderstorm predictor of VIMFC was established. TCP percentages up to 95% were found in an unstable environment with high positive values of VIMFC. In a marginally unstable environment with a high positive VIMFC the thunderstorm probability is higher than in a very unstable environment with no or negative VIMFC. These results are illustrated with a study of the case of the disastrous flash flood at Vaison-La-Romaine (southeastern France) on September 22, 1992. Although latent instability was present in a large area surrounding Vaison-La-Romaine, nearly all and especially the most severe thunderstorm activity occurred within the smaller area with positive VIMFC and latent instability.     

Evaluating sustainability transitions pathways: Bridging analytical approaches to address governance challenges

The paper sets out a proposal for bridging and linking three approaches to the analysis of transitions to sustainable and low-carbon societies: quantitative systems modelling; socio-technical transition analysis; and initiative-based learning. We argue that each of these approaches presents a partial and incomplete picture, which has implications for the quality and usefulness of the insights they can deliver for policy and practice. A framework for bridging these different approaches promises to enrich each of the approaches, while providing the basis for a more robust and complete analysis of sustainable transitions pathways that serves better to address questions and dilemmas faced by decision-makers and practitioners. We elaborate five key challenges for the analysis and governance of transitions pathways, and compare the three approaches in relation to each of these. We suggest an integration strategy based on alignment, bridging, and iteration, arguing that a structured dialogue between practitioners of different approaches is needed. In practical terms, such a dialogue would be organised around three areas of joint knowledge production: defining common analytical or governance problems to be tackled through integration; establishing shared concepts (boundary objects); and establishing operational bridging devices (data and metrics, pathways evaluation and their delivery). Such processes could include experts and societal partners. We draw conclusions about future research perspectives and the role of analysis in transitions governance.     

Tracking the Moisture Sources of an Extreme Precipitation Event in Shandong, China in July 2007：A Computational Analysis

This paper utilizes a modified Water Accounting Model （WAM） to track the moisture sources of an extreme precipitation event in Shandong during 18-20 July 2007. It is found that different methods in dealing with the residual of the water budget always produce different results in moisture recycling calculations. In addition, results from the backward tracking without the residual are in complete agreement with those from the forward tracking with the residual, and vice versa, implying a mathematical consistency. We thus analyze and derive the conditions under which the two tracking approaches equate with each other. We applied the backward tracking to the Shandong extreme rainfall case and obtained quantitative estimates of moisture contributions of three selected regions away from the rainfall area. The results indicate that the spatial pattern rather than numerical value of the recycling moisture is more reliable in tracking the moisture sources. The moisture of this Shandong rainfall event comes mostly from the nearby upwind area in Southwest China, which is of the terrestrial origin; while the moisture originating from the neighboring West Pacific contributes little to this event.     

Public perceptions of geoengineering research governance: An experimental deliberative approach

Recent attempts to conduct experiments in climate ‘geoengineering’ have demonstrated the deeply controversial nature of this field of scientific research. Social scientists have begun to explore public perceptions of geoengineering, and have documented a significant degree of concern over the effective governance of research and experimentation in this area. Yet, public perception on what constitutes a legitimate geoengineering experiment and how it should be governed remains under-researched. In this article we report on a series of experimental deliberative workshops with members of the public designed to elicit and explicate diverse understandings of geoengineering experiments and their governance. In contrast to previous methods of invited public deliberation, which privilege egalitarian-consensual models of discourse and decision-making, we test a novel approach that places majoritarian, individualistic, and consensual forms of public deliberation on an equal footing. Our study suggests that the perceived controllability of experimental interventions is central to public views on their acceptability, but that controllability is itself a complex, multifaceted quality, drawing together a set of heterogeneous concerns about the purpose and repercussions of scientific work. The citizens who participated in our workshops employed four criteria to adjudicate the acceptability of geoengineering experiments: (1) the degree of containment; (2) the uncertainty surrounding experimental outcomes; (3) the reversibility of impacts; and (4) the scientific purity of the enterprise. We theorize that the public legitimacy of geoengineering experiments depends on variable, context-specific combinations of these criteria, and that technical determinations of the proper ‘scale’ or ‘location’ for geoengineering research will be poor predictors of the sorts of public concerns that will be triggered by further experimentation in this area.     

西南地区东部夏季旱涝的水汽输送特征

利用1959-2006年两南地区东部20个测站逐日降水量资料和NCEP/NCAR再分析月平均资料,分析了西南地区东部夏季旱涝年的水汽输送特征.结果表明,西南地区东部水汽来源主要有两个:第1条主要来自青藏高原转向孟加拉湾经缅甸和云南进入西南地区东部,第2条水汽经由孟加拉湾南部,强大的水汽输送带继续向东输送至中南半岛及南海,与南海越赤道气流所携带的水汽汇合后转向至西南地区东部,而由四太平洋副热带高压西侧转向的偏南水汽对向西南地区东部水汽输送也有影响.与西南地区东部夏季降水相联系的水汽通道中,印度洋水汽通道强度最强,太平洋水汽通道强度最弱.在印度季风区,偏北的高原南侧水汽通道(经向)强度远小于偏南的印度洋水汽通道.东亚季风区夏季水汽输送经向输送大于纬向输送,而印度季风区夏季水汽输送则是纬向输送大于经向输送.西南地区东部夏季降水与纬向通道的强度变化关系密切,而与经向通道的水汽输送强度变化关系不明显.当印度季风区南支水汽输送偏弱时,印度季风区北支(高原南侧)和东亚季风区向西的水汽输送偏强,使得以纬向输送为主的印度季风区经向水汽输送加大,而以经向输送为主的东亚季风区纬向水汽输送加大,从而使东亚地区的水汽输送带偏西,西南地区东部夏季降水偏多,可能出现洪涝,反之则可能出现干旱.西南地区东部夏季水汽有弱的净流出,是一个弱的水汽源区,南边界流入水汽量最多,干旱年整个区域水汽流出较常年明显,而洪涝年则有弱的净流入.夏季水汽通道水汽输送强弱变化与同期500 hPa高度场和SST场的分布形势密切相关.     

Mesoscale moisture variability and its impact on energy transfer through the boundary layer

The impact of mesoscale moisture variability on the vertical energy transfer through a pre-frontal boundary layer is studied with NOPEX aircraft data. The moisture variability relates to a cold front that passed the area 2 1/2 hours after the observations. We find a density front ahead of the cold front. The large vertical divergence of the turbulent moisture flux in the surface layer is partly related to this moisture variability. Large scale horizontal advection contributes to the observed vertical turbulent flux divergence. The estimated horizontal mesoscale advection term in the budget of sensible heat and moisture is on average small but locally it can be large. This term acts to re-distribute moisture in the boundary layer and leads to sub-grid variations of relative humidity, which is an important quantity for boundary-layer cloud models. The distinct spatial variations of specific humidity are mainly related to synoptic forcing and not to heterogeneity in the surface energy balance.