The effect of vulnerability on climate change mitigation policies

Climate change is likely to adversely affect many countries throughout the world, but the responses of different countries to this threat vary widely. Attempts to explain the differences in countries’ mitigative policies have been largely deficient. This study seeks to assess the degree to which vulnerability may improve the level of explanation of adopted mitigation policies, studying over 90 countries between 1990 and 2011. Vulnerability is defined to be comprised of two basic factors: impacts (expected damages due to climate change) and adaptive capacity (the ability to adjust to these damages). As there may be a gap between declared and implemented policies, these components of mitigation policy are examined separately. In addition, other variables which mediate between these ‘extreme ends’ of mitigation policies are tested.The effect of vulnerability on climate change mitigation policies is examined by multiple regressions, incorporating a wide range of control variables. The results indicate that climate impacts do not affect mitigation policies. Adaptive capacity has a positive effect on the level of declared policy, but this effect becomes insignificant once implemented policy is examined. However, other tests suggest a possible transition from declarations to actions by high adaptive capacity countries. This finding suggests that high adaptive capacity countries do not view mitigation and adaptation as substitutes. Further analyses indicate that the insignificancy of impacts is caused by the uncertainty in their assessment.     

Morphometry and distribution of isolated caves as a guide for phreatic and confined paleohydrological conditions

Isolated caves are a special cave type common in most karst terrains, formed by prolonged slow water flow where aggressivity is locally boosted. The morphometry and distribution of isolated caves are used here to reconstruct the paleohydrology of a karstic mountain range. Within a homogenous karstic rock sequence, two main types of isolated caves are distinguished, and each is associated with a special hydrogeologic setting: maze caves form by rising water in the confined zone of the aquifer, under the Mt. Scopus Group (Israel) confinement, while chamber caves are formed in phreatic conditions, apparently by lateral flow mixing with a vadose input from above.     

Slip Sequences in Laboratory Experiments Resulting from Inhomogeneous Shear as Analogs of Earthquakes Associated with a Fault Edge

Faults are intrinsically heterogeneous with common occurrences of jogs, edges and steps. We therefore explore experimentally and theoretically how fault edges may affect earthquake and slip dynamics. In the presented experiments and accompanying theoretical model, shear loads are applied to the edge of one of two flat blocks in frictional contact that form a fault analog. We show that slip occurs via a sequence of rapid rupture events that initiate from the loading edge and are arrested after propagating a finite distance. Each successive event extends the slip size, transfers the applied shear across the block, and causes progressively larger changes of the contact area along the contact surface. Resulting from this sequence of events, a hard asperity is dynamically formed near the loaded edge. The contact area beyond this asperity is largely reduced. These sequences of rapid events culminate in slow slip events that precede a major, unarrested slip event along the entire contact surface. We suggest that the 1998 M5.0 Sendai and 1995 off-Etorofu earthquake sequences may correspond to this scenario. Our work demonstrates, qualitatively, how the simplest deviation from uniform shear loading may significantly affect both earthquake nucleation processes and how fault complexity develops.     

Institutional conditions for IWRM: the Israeli case

Many places in the world are experiencing a water crisis. This water crisis is attributed to a governance crisis, whereas often fragmented institutional and physical water structures are used to explain a policy of overexploitation. The Israeli water system, which adopted integrated water resource management (IWRM), is often cited as a model for other countries struggling with fragmented water systems. Yet, despite the exceptional degree of integration, Israel in the past two decades has adopted an unsustainable water policy. The aim of this study is to understand this failure and thereby to postulate on the institutional conditions required for successful implementation of IWRM. The study focuses on the politics of water allocation during the drought of 1999 to 2002. It was found that the failure originates in setting administrative divisions in the decision-making process and in differential checks, with no balances implicitly instituted within the integrated water system. These two factors have resulted in a water system that is physically integrated but is not coupled by a balanced institutional structure. This case study teaches us that when reforming the water sector along IWRM lines, measures must be taken to ensure that the physical integration coincides with a balanced institutional integration-otherwise the results may be worse than if there were no integration at all.     

Kinetics of gypsum crystal growth from high ionic strength solutions: A case study of Dead Sea - seawater mixtures

Gypsum precipitation kinetics were examined from a wide range of chemical compositions , ionic strengths (4.75-10 m) and saturation state with respect to gypsum (1.16-1.74) in seeded batch experiments of mixtures of Ca²⁺-rich Dead Sea brine and -rich seawater. Despite the variability in the experimental solutions, a single general rate law was formulated to describe the heterogeneous precipitation rate of gypsum from these mixtures:

     

Identifying synergies and trade-offs in the sustainability–security nexus: the case of the Israeli–Palestinian wastewater treatment regime

ABSTRACT

The literature on environmental security often stresses the complementarity between sustainability and broader security goals. Less emphasis has been placed on possible trade-offs between security objectives and aspects of sustainability. This study examines the conditions under which these synergies and trade-offs are likely to occur, and how the trade-offs can be reconciled, especially during times of peacebuilding. As a case study, we analyse the effect of Israeli security concerns on environmental infrastructure designed to treat wastewater in the West Bank. This study identifies several sustainability–security trade-offs: (1) economic—in which security concerns raise costs of wastewater infrastructure, thereby crowding-out other potentially productive investments; (2) equity—in which security concerns result in disproportionate exposure of populations to environmental hazards; and (3) environmental—in which security concerns increase ecological footprints. Yet, our case study also indicates that both sides used a variety of creative measures to reconcile these trade-offs.

EDITOR D. Koutsoyiannis GUEST EDITOR K. Aggestam     

The role of uncertainties in the design of international water treaties: an historical perspective

Water is one natural resource whose management is especially susceptible to uncertainties, many of which are being exasperated by climate change. Some of these uncertainties originate from knowledge deficits in physical conditions while others relate to behavioral and social variability related to water supply and use. However, to our knowledge no quantitative analysis of how uncertainties have been translated into transboundary water treaty structures exists. The present paper partially fills this gap through an examination of how uncertainty has been reflected in basin specific transboundary treaties and how that reflection has changed over the last century. While we could identify only minor trends in the frequency with which uncertainties are mentioned in treaties, we did find two clear patterns in the strategies adopted to deal with them. First, treaties seem to adopt a portfolio approach that spreads the dangers of uncertainty by concurrently including several management strategies simultaneously. Second, there is a trend towards more open-ended strategies in recent decades, rather than hard codification of rules as had earlier been more common.     

Kinetics of gypsum nucleation and crystal growth from Dead Sea brine

The Dead Sea brine is supersaturated with respect to gypsum (Ω = 1.42). Laboratory experiments and evaluation of historical data show that gypsum nucleation and crystal growth kinetics from Dead Sea brine are both slower in comparison with solutions at a similar degree of supersaturation. The slow kinetics of gypsum precipitation in the Dead Sea brine is mainly attributed to the low solubility of gypsum which is due to the high Ca²⁺/SO₄²⁻ molar ratio (115), high salinity (∼280 g/kg) and to Na⁺ inhibition.Experiments with various clay minerals (montmorillonite, kaolinite) indicate that these minerals do not serve as crystallization seeds. In contrast, calcite and aragonite which contain traces of gypsum impurities do prompt precipitation of gypsum but at a considerable slower rate than with pure gypsum. This implies that transportation inflow of clay minerals, calcite and local crystallization of minerals in the Dead Sea does not prompt significant heterogeneous precipitation of gypsum. Based on historical analyses of the Dead Sea, it is shown that over the last decades, as inflows to the lake decreased and its salinity increased, gypsum continuously precipitated from the brine. The increasing salinity and Ca²⁺/SO₄²⁻ ratio, which results from the precipitation of gypsum, lead to even slower kinetics of nucleation and crystal growth, which resulted in an increasing degree of supersaturation with respect to gypsum. Therefore, we predict that as the salinity of the Dead Sea brine continues to increase (accompanied by Dead Sea water level decline), although gypsum will continuously precipitate, the degree of supersaturation will increase furthermore due to progressively slower kinetics.     

Negotiating conflict resolution mechanisms for transboundary water treaties: A transaction cost approach

Conflict resolution mechanisms are recognised as indispensable constituting elements of transboundary water agreements. Earlier studies confirm, however, that such mechanisms are either incomplete, unsophisticated or absent from treaties. We argue that transaction costs, which occur during treaty negotiation, may constitute a barrier to the adoption of conflict resolution mechanisms in water treaties. Transaction costs are never equal and depend largely on the context in which negotiations take place. A content analysis of the treaties in the Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database demonstrates that the adoption of conflict resolution mechanisms to transboundary water treaties is not random, but may be affected by external factors that influence the transaction cost of negotiating such mechanisms. Water scarcity and a history of cooperative hydro-relations are factors that coincide with the presence of conflict resolution mechanisms in treaties and are therefore considered to lower transaction costs. External resource dependency is believed to stir transaction costs to such an extent that it prevents the adoption of mature mechanisms. The same goes for political freedom, political heterogeneity and the presence of colonial signatories as these factors correlate with mechanism absence and the adoption of a low number of conflict resolution mechanisms per treaty. The effect of hydrological variability resulted insignificant, indicating that variability remains largely ignored by negotiators of transboundary water treaties. Our research further shows that if a mechanism for conflict resolution contains one element of maturity (e.g. institutionalisation or an activation procedure based on a unilateral rule) other elements of maturity are also likely to be present, providing negotiators with an incentive to negotiate conflict resolution mechanisms with at least one mature characteristic. Finally, the adoption of a high number of mechanisms coincides with the presence of institutionalised forms for conflict resolution, supporting the incentive of negotiating more than two mechanisms per treaty.     

The formation and viability of a non-basin water management: The US–Canada case

Despite the much-vaunted advantages of basin-wide management many transboundary water regimes do not conform in practice to the basin-wide scale. This study examines whether a spatial alternative that includes only parts of the basin is indeed viable. To this end the US–Canada case is examined. Two questions are asked: why has a non-basin scale been adopted? And whether this option is indeed viable. The review of the negotiations leading up to the US–Canada 1909 Boundary Treaty, and to the establishment of the International Joint Commission (IJC) to control the boundary water (i.e., only the water that crosses the boundary at the point of crossing), shows that the choice of this scale was an outcome of a deadlock in negotiations at the basin scale. The boundary scale was chosen as it reduced the number of players involved in the decision-making process and, consequently, the political costs of a basin-wide agreement. Inevitably, in the subsequent decades the regime faced challenges due to the discrepancy between its jurisdiction and basins. Perhaps the most severe challenge was posed by the Chicago Diversion that was excluded from the regime jurisdiction. Therefore, the paper focuses on how the boundary scale addressed the Chicago diversion externalities. The discussion of this case suggests that the combination of the flexibility of the regime and its interpretations, the nature of the resource (inter-connected lakes) and the two-way upstream–downstream relations along the borders allowed this challenge to be contained. It seems, thus, that a regime can indeed be set at a different scale than the basin-wide one and still be viable.