Conceptualizing socio-hydrological drought processes: The case of the Maya collapse.

With population growth, increasing water demands and climate change the need to understand the current and future pathways to water security is becoming more pressing. To contribute to addressing this challenge, we examine the link between water stress and society through socio-hydrological modeling. We conceptualize the interactions between an agricultural society with its environment in a stylized way. We apply the model to the case of the ancient Maya, a population that experienced a peak during the Classic Period (AD 600-830) and then declined during the ninth century. The hypothesis that modest drought periods played a major role in the society's collapse is explored. Simulating plausible feedbacks between water and society we show that a modest reduction in rainfall may lead to an 80% population collapse. Population density and crop sensitivity to droughts, however, may play an equally important role. The simulations indicate that construction of reservoirs results in less frequent drought impacts, but if the reservoirs run dry, drought impact may be more severe and the population drop may be larger.

A transdisciplinary account of water research.

Water research is introduced from the combined perspectives of natural and social science and cases of citizen and stakeholder coproduction of knowledge. Using the overarching notion of transdisciplinarity, we examine how interdisciplinary and participatory water research has taken place and could be developed further. It becomes apparent that water knowledge is produced widely within society, across certified disciplinary experts and noncertified expert stakeholders and citizens. However, understanding and management interventions may remain partial, or even conflicting, as much research across and between traditional disciplines has failed to integrate disciplinary paradigms due to philosophical, methodological, and communication barriers. We argue for more agonistic relationships that challenge both certified and noncertified knowledge productively. These should include examination of how water research itself embeds and is embedded in social context and performs political work. While case studies of the cultural and political economy of water knowledge exist, we need more empirical evidence on how exactly culture, politics, and economics have shaped this knowledge and how and at what junctures this could have turned out differently. We may thus channel the coproductionist critique productively to bring perspectives, alternative knowledges, and implications into water politics where they were not previously considered; in an attempt to counter potential lock-in to particular water policies and technologies that may be inequitable, unsustainable, or unacceptable. While engaging explicitly with politics, transdisciplinary water research should remain attentive to closing down moments in the research process, such as framings, path-dependencies, vested interests, researchers' positionalities, power, and scale. WIREs Water 2016, 3:369-389. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1132 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

Stakeholder and public participation in river basin management-an introduction.

Participation of the public and stakeholders in river basin management is increasingly promoted because it is expected to improve resource management and enable participants to engage freely and equally in management (support democratic processes). Three overlapping and interacting mechanisms by which participation is expected to enhance river basin management are outlined: (1) providing space for deliberation and consensus building for better quality decisions, (2) mobilizing and developing human and social capital for better quality decisions and their implementation, and (3) raising the legitimacy of decisions to facilitate their implementation. There are several complexities associated with each of the mechanisms that add challenges to realizing the expectations of participation. They include the need to carefully manage consensus building and conflict to maximize the quality of the decision without jeopardizing the potential for implementation; being aware of and implementing strategies to manage asymmetrical power relationships between participants; ensuring that participants perceive benefits from participation that exceed costs; and defining criteria for a legitimate process, and a legitimate decision, that satisfy all participants. Strategies identified to address these challenges focus on managing the characteristics of the participation process. Ongoing evaluation during a participation program or project is essential to reflect and refine how participation is being done, to address the challenges and endeavor to achieve high-quality decisions that can be implemented efficiently. WIREs Water 2015, 2:393-405. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1086 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

Wastewater irrigation and environmental health: implications for water governance and public policy.

Climate change is a large-scale and emerging environmental risk. It challenges environmental health and the sustainability of global development. Wastewater irrigation can make a sterling contribution to reducing water demand, recycling nutrients, improving soil health and cutting the amount of pollutants discharged into the waterways. However, the resource must be carefully managed to protect the environment and public health. Actions promoting wastewater reuse are every where, yet the frameworks for the protection of human health and the environment are lacking in most developing countries. Global change drivers including climate change, population growth, urbanization, income growth, improvements in living standard, industrialization, and energy intensive lifestyle will all heighten water management challenges. Slowing productivity growth, falling investment in irrigation, loss of biodiversity, risks to public health, environmental health issues such as soil salinity, land degradation, land cover change and water quality issues add an additional layer of complexity. Against this backdrop, the potential for wastewater irrigation and its benefits and risks are examined. These include crop productivity, aquaculture, soil health, groundwater quality, environmental health, public health, infrastructure constraints, social concerns and risks, property values, social equity, and poverty reduction. It is argued that, wastewater reuse and nutrient capture can contribute towards climate change adaptation and mitigation. Benefits such as avoided freshwater pumping and energy savings, fertilizer savings, phosphorous capture and prevention of mineral fertilizer extraction from mines can reduce carbon footprint and earn carbon credits. Wastewater reuse in agriculture reduces the water footprint of food production on the environment; it also entails activities such as higher crop yields and changes in cropping patterns, which also reduce carbon footprint. However, there is a need to better integrate water reuse into core water governance frameworks in order to effectively address the challenges and harness the potential of this vital resource for environmental health protection. The paper also presents a blueprint for future water governance and public policies for the protection of environmental health.