Robustness and the Paradox of Bridging Organizations: The Exit Problem in Regional Water Governance Networks in Central America

Bridging organizations facilitate a range of governance processes, including cooperation and social learning, and are theorized to be a key component of robust governance systems. In this article, we use node removal simulations to test structural hypotheses of robustness in a regional water governance network in Central America. We investigate the response of network measures supporting core governance processes to the targeted removal of bridging organizations and other actors, which we compare to random and centrality-based simulations. The results indicate removing bridging organizations has a greater impact on the network than any other type of actor, suggesting bridging organizations are critical to the robustness of the governance system. Furthermore, network structures supporting cooperation may be less robust than structures facilitating social learning. We conclude with policy implications of the research findings as they relate to the exit problem in governance systems with a large presence of international development actors.     

Depiction of Wild Food Foraging Practices in the Media: Impact of the Great Recession

The practice of gathering and harvesting wild foods has seen renewed interest in recent decades. In addition to contributing to food security and food sovereignty, foraging plays a role in promoting socioecological resilience and creating communities of belonging. However, foraging is generally prohibited by regulations governing public lands in the United States and elsewhere. The growth in food forests suggests public policymakers and land managers’ may be interested in reconsidering this broad prohibition of foraging but require an information base to do so. While a body of research on foraging exists, news media coverage of foraging represents an additional, readily available source of input. As a consequence, framings of foraging in media coverage likely influence managers’ deliberations on this practice. The current paper uses automated content analysis to understand how the practice of gathering and consuming wild foods is framed in print and digital news media, and how these depictions have varied in a 15-year period that includes the Great Recession. Our results show that prevalent framings of foraging represent it variously as a self-provisioning practice or a source of luxury commodities and experiences, with economic uncertainty appearing to affect the frequency of each framing by news media sources. Given managers’ ease of access to them, these distinct framings may influence future regulatory landscapes of foraging.     

Principles of adaptive-landscape generation and development of soil protection agricultural systems

An analysis is made of the chief causes for degradation of agricultural lands: exhaustive agricultural land use, poor planning quality of land use management, deforestation, low volumes of forest planting and reforestation, and a high degree of plowing of lands. The principles of adaptive-landscape generation and land use practices are substantiated on the basis of a system approach to the exploitation of the natural-resource potential and a package of anti-degradation measures. The structure flowchart is given for the model of adaptive-landscape generation as developed on the basis of assessing the natural-climatic conditions, land resources, the degree of land degradation, and analyzing the set of indicators and criteria for a classification of landscapes. It is found that the key elements of the adaptive-landscape organization of land use on slopes are a typization of lands, the determination of the land use pattern, and the employment of technologies, methods and measures to ensure a normal functioning of agroecosystems. The following groups of lands are identified: gentle near-watershed slopes with a steepness of up to 2–3°; near-network lands, the lower boundary of which runs along the edge of the hydrographic network, and lands on the hydrographic network. The schematic of the organization of a large balka catchment is provided.     

Stability functions based upon shear functions

The stability functions for momentum and heat under a Richardson number formulation are derived from the nondimensional shear functions under a Monin-Obukhov formulation. The Prandtl number is also derived as a function of the Richardson number. Previously, this has been done only in a limited sense. Because the Richardson number formulation is expressed in closed form, iterative techniques are no longer needed in numerical models that use Monin-Obukhov similarity theory. This time-saving approach is made possible by deriving expressions for the friction velocity and temperature in terms of the Richardson-number-dependent stability functions. In addition, the Richardson number approximation in the lowest layer is made to depend explicitly upon the surface roughness.     

Simulating the 1999 Capbreton canyon turbidity current with a Cellular Automata model

A numerical model has been developed for the simulation of turbidity currents driven by nonuniform, non cohesive sediment and flowing over a complex three dimensional submarine topography. The model is based on an alternative approach known as Cellular Automata paradigm. The model is validated by comparing a simulation with a reported field-scale event. The chosen case is a turbidity current which occurred in Capbreton Canyon and was initiated by a storm in December 1999. Using data from recent oceanographic cruises, the deposit of the event has been precisely described, which constrain values of model parameters. The model simulates the 1999 turbidity current over the actual canyon topography and related turbidite using three different types of particle. The model successfully simulates areas of erosion and deposition in the canyon. It predicts the vertical and longitudinal grain size evolution, and shows that the fining-up sequence can be deposited by several phases of deposition and erosion related to the current energetic variation during its evolution. This result could explain the presence of intrabed contacts or the frequent lack of facies in Bouma sequences.