Restoration versus transformative adaptation of community drinking water systems after Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico.

Hurricane Irma then Maria hit Puerto Rico in September 2017, exposing the heightened vulnerability of the island's Critical Infrastructure Systems and Processes (CRISPs) and putting the resilience of some of the most impoverished communities to the test. Being one of these CRISPs, the island's centralized drinking water system operated by the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority suffered heavy damage leaving over 200,000 people off-grid for months. Decentralized community aqueducts were also affected. However, most were able to sustain operations, with only 15 percent incapacitated during the first few weeks after Maria. Of the 205 community aqueducts serving low-income communities in the island's central mountainous areas, only 35 failed. This article explores how and why these systems failed and what actions the communities should take to recover in a relatively short time in comparison to the centralized system. It defines the factors that account for the differences, the systems' capacity to meet water quality requirements, and potentially transformative adaptations generated to face future disturbances. We were interested in understanding (a) how system capacity was affected by the restoration process, (b) if adaptation resulted in significant operational changes, and (c) community member engagement. Finally, we explored governance transformations that increased stakeholder's participation, including community aqueducts representatives in decision-making and policy-making. Data collection included interviews with water system managers, government, and nongovernmental organization (NGO) representatives who regulate these systems or assisted communities in recovering their systems. We also surveyed water systems that had operational problems within the first 3 weeks. The data revealed a diversity of actions along the disaster cycle through which communities prepared for, restored, recovered, and cocreated transformative adaptations to their systems. Findings reflect that despite economic deficiencies and lack of emergency plans, many communities were able to improvise and restore their water systems soon after the disaster. As part of their postdisaster organization, communities increased their collaborative networks with governmental and NGOs to cocreate improvement projects to enhance resiliency. Adaptations included (1) increased community autonomy, (2) system redundancy, and (3) improved capacity to participate in government discussion forums related to their systems.

Sense of Agency, Affectivity and Social-Ecological Degradation: An Enactive and Phenomenological Approach.

In the last few years, there has been an interest in understanding the impact of environmental change and degradation on people's affective life. This issue has become particularly pressing for populations whose form of life is heavily dependent on ecosystem services and functions and whose opportunities for adaptation are limited. Based on our work with farmers from the Xochimilco urban wetland in the southwest of Mexico City, we begin to draw a theoretical approach to address and explain how environmental degradation impacts people's affective life and sense of agency. Farmers who were part of our project referred to a sense of despair and helplessness toward the loss of the ecosystem and their traditional farming-based form of life. From the perspective of phenomenology, enactivism and ecological psychology, we argue that the loss of this form of life in the area is related to the degradation of socio-ecological systems, limiting the opportunities for people to relate meaningfully to others and the environment. We posit that losing meaningful interaction with the environment generates a feeling of loss of control while leading farmers to feel frustrated, anxious and stressed. Such affective conditions have a direct impact on their sense of agency. In terms of adaptation, the negative interaction between degradation, affective states and a diminished sense of agency can create a downward spiral of vulnerability, including political vulnerability.

Knowledge and innovation relationships in the shrimp industry in Thailand and Mexico.

Experts, government officials, and industry leaders concerned about the sustainability of shrimp aquaculture believe they know what farmers need to know and should be doing. They have framed sustainability as a technical problem that, at the farm level, is to be solved by better shrimp and management of ponds and businesses. Codes of conduct, standards, and regulations are expected to bring deviant practices into line. Shrimp farmers are often cornered in a challenging game of knowledge in which their livelihoods are at stake. In the commodity chain there are multiple relations with both suppliers and buyers, not all of which are trustworthy. The social networks shrimp farmers belong to are crucial for sifting out misinformation and multiplying insights from personal experience in learning by doing. Successful farmers become part of a learning culture through seminars, workshops, and clubs in which knowledge and practices are continually re-evaluated. The combination of vertical and horizontal relationships creates a set of alternative arenas that together are critical to bridging knowledge and action gaps for shrimp farmers. Government and industry initiatives for improving links between knowledge and practice for sustainability have largely succeeded when incentives are aligned: shrimp grow better in healthy environments, and using fewer resources means higher profits.