Catchment water deficits in the 21st century

Water Policy ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Merrett
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
General Theory ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Water Resource ◽  
21St Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Testable Hypothesis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Water Surplus

The objective of this paper is to provide a general theory of the manner in which the water resources of a catchment shift from surplus to deficit and the means by which water resource institutions can manage or reverse this shift. The approach combines the languages of hydrology and the social sciences. After defining the concepts of catchment water surplus and deficit, an account is given of how a river basin may shift from one to the other as its output per head and population expand. Twelve possible options to confront such a shift are reviewed. The paper discusses the global significance of these issues and ends with a general testable hypothesis as a basis for fieldwork.

scholarly journals Value Stream Analysis and Emergy Evaluation of the Water Resource Eco-Economic System in the Yellow River Basin

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 710 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danyang Di ◽  
Zening Wu ◽  
Xi Guo ◽  
Cuimei Lv ◽  
Huiliang Wang
Keyword(s):  
Water Resources ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Water Resource ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
Yellow River Basin ◽  
Social Value ◽  
The Yellow River ◽  
The Social ◽  
Value Of Water ◽  
The Yellow River Basin

Value accounting of water in the Yellow River Basin is a key issue in managing local water resources in an efficient, equitable, and sustainable way. In view of the dubious current theories of water resource value, the value transfer of water resources, based on energy flow, is discussed from the perspective of eco-economics. An emergy analysis method is introduced to quantify both the sediment transportation value and social value, and a quantitative system of eco-economic value indicators is constructed. The water resource values of 66 cities in the Basin were calculated, and the GIS atlas was used to describe their spatial distribution. Eight typical cities were selected for the key analysis. The results show that: (1) Among the sub-items, the social value of water per unit is the largest, reaching 30.67 Chinese Yuan/m³, and the difference between the maximum and minimum is only 0.04%, which reflects the social equity of water resources. (2) The eco-environmental value inside the river is generally higher than that of industry, and it is verified that industrial water should not intrude the eco-environmental water in the river. (3) The unit agricultural value of water is the lowest among the sub-items, and the construction of water-saving agriculture should be carried out.

Benson and Miller in Perspective

1979 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 242-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Kuklick
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Applied Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Stock Of Knowledge

Despite differences in coloration Miller and Benson are birds of a feather. Although he is no Pollyanna, Miller believes that there has been a modest and decent series of advances in the social sciences and that the most conscientious, diligent, and intelligent researchers will continue to add to this stock of knowledge. Benson is much more pessimistic about the achievements of yesterday and today but, in turn, offers us the hope of a far brighter tomorrow. Miller explains Benson’s hyperbolic views about the past and future by distinguishing between pure and applied science and by pointing out Benson’s naivete about politics: the itch to understand the world is different from the one to make it better; and, Miller says, because Benson sees that we have not made things better, he should not assume we do not know more about them; Benson ought to realize, Miller adds, that the way politicians translate basic social knowledge into social policy need not bring about rational or desirable results. On the other side, Benson sees more clearly than Miller that the development of science has always been intimately intertwined with the control of the environment and the amelioration of the human estate.

scholarly journals Study on the spatial distribution of water resource value in the agricultural system of the Yellow River Basin

Water Policy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huiliang Wang ◽  
Shuoqiao Huang ◽  
Danyang Di ◽  
Yu Wang ◽  
Fengyi Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Water Resource ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
Yellow River Basin ◽  
The Yellow River ◽  
Agricultural System ◽  
Resource Value ◽  
The Yellow River Basin

Abstract To analyze the spatial distribution characteristics of water resource value in the agricultural system of the Yellow River Basin, this paper takes the Yellow River Basin as its research object and studies the spatial distribution characteristics and influencing factors of water resource value in the agricultural system using the emergy theory and method, the spatial autocorrelation analysis method, and the spatial regression model. The results show that (1) the value of water resources in the agricultural system ranges from 0.64 to 0.98$/m3, and the value in the middle and lower reaches of the basin is relatively high; (2) the Moran index of the water resource value in the agricultural system is 0.2772, showing a positive spatial autocorrelation feature. Here, ‘high-high (high value city gathering)’ is the main aggregation mode, which is mainly concentrated in the middle and lower reaches of the basin. (3) The spatial error model, moreover, has the best simulation effect. The cultivated land area, total agricultural output value, agricultural labor force, and total mechanical power have a significant positive impact on the agricultural production value of water resources in the Yellow River Basin; the altitude, annual average temperature, and agricultural water consumption have a negative impact. Overall, this study shows that guiding the distribution of water resources according to their value and increasing agricultural water use in the middle and lower reaches of the basin will help improve the overall agricultural production efficiency of water resources in the basin.

scholarly journals Pragmatisme og "practice turn"

2018 ◽  
pp. 43-61
Author(s):  
Antje Gimmler
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
John Dewey ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
The Other ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
Practice Turn ◽  
Understanding Of Science ◽  
The One ◽  
Philosophical Pragmatism

Practices are of central relevance both to philosophical pragmatism and to the recent ‘Practice Turn’ in social sciences and philosophy. However, what counts as practices and how practices and knowledge are combined or intertwine varies in the different approaches of pragmatism and those theories that are covered by the umbrella term ‘Practice Turn’. The paper tries to show that the pragmatism of John Dewey is able to offer both a more precise and a more radical understanding of practices than the recent ‘Practice Turn’ allows for. The paper on the one hand highlights what pragmatism has to offer to the practice turn in order to clarify the notion of practice. On the other hand the paper claims that a pragmatism inspired by Dewey actually interprets ‘practices’ more radically than most of the other approaches and furthermore promotes an understanding of science that combines nonrepresentationalism and anti-foundationalism with an involvement of the philosopher or the social scientist in the production of knowledge, things and technologies.

scholarly journals ‘What is infrastructure? What does it do?’: Anthropological perspectives on the workings of infrastructure(s)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lav Kanoi ◽  
Vanessa Koh ◽  
Al Lim ◽  
Shoko Yamada ◽  
Michael R. Dove
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Growing Body

Abstract Infrastructure is often thought of in big material terms: dams, buildings, roads, and so on. This study, instead, draws on literatures in anthropology and the social sciences to analyse infrastructures in relation to society and environment, and so cast current conceptions of infrastructure in a new light. Situating the analysis in context of President Biden’s recent infrastructure bill, the paper expands what is meant by and included in discussions of infrastructure. The study examines what it means for different kinds of material infrastructures to function (and for whom) or not, and also consider how the immaterial infrastructure of human relations are manifested in, for example, labour, as well as how infrastructures may create intended or unintended consequences in enabling or disabling social processes. Further, in this study, we examine concepts embedded in thinking about infrastructure such as often presumed distinctions between the technical and the social, nature and culture, the human and the non-human, and the urban and the rural, and how all of these are actually implicated in thinking about infrastructure. Our analysis, thus, draws from a growing body of work on infrastructure in anthropology and the social sciences, enriches it with ethnographic insights from our own field research, and so extends what it means to study ‘infrastructures’ in the 21st century.

Queer as Materialism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Noyé ◽  
Gianfranco Rebucini
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Family Resemblance ◽  
Marxist Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Feminist Thought ◽  
The Social

Since the 2000s, forms of articulation between materialist and Marxist theory and queer theory have been emerging and have thus created a “queer materialism.” After a predominance of poststructuralist analyses in the social sciences in the1980s and 1990s, since the late 1990s, and even more so after the economic crisis of 2008, a materialist shift seems to be taking place. These recompositions of the Marxist, queer, and feminist, which took place in activist and academic arenas, are decisive in understanding how the new approaches are developing in their own fields. The growing legitimacy of feminist and queer perspectives within the Marxist left is part of an evolution of Marxism on these issues. On the other side, queer activists and academics have highlighted the economic and social inequalities that the policies of austerity and capitalism in general induce among LGBTQI people and have turned to more materialist references, especially Marxist ones, to deploy an anticapitalist and antiracist argument. Even if nowadays one cannot speak of a “queer materialist” current as such, because the approaches grouped under this term are very different, it seems appropriate to look for a “family resemblance” and to group them together. Two specific kinds of “queer materialisms” can thus be identified. The first, queer Marxism, seeks to theorize together Marxist and queer theories, particularly in normalization and capitalist accumulation regimes. The second, materialist queer feminism, confronts materialist/Marxist feminist thought with queer approaches and thus works in particular on the question of heteropatriarchy based on this double tradition.

scholarly journals Impacts of Climate and Land-Use Change on Blue and Green Water: A Case Study of the Upper Ganjiang River Basin, China

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 2661
Author(s):  
Yongfen Zhang ◽  
Chongjun Tang ◽  
Aizhong Ye ◽  
Taihui Zheng ◽  
Xiaofei Nie ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Resource Management ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Water Resource ◽  
Water Resource Management ◽  
Green Water ◽  
Precipitation Changes ◽  
Ganjiang River Basin

Quantitatively figuring out the effects of climate and land-use change on water resources and their components is essential for water resource management. This study investigates the effects of climate and land-use change on blue and green water and their components in the upper Ganjiang River basin from the 1980s to the 2010s by comparing the simulated changes in blue and green water resources by using a Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model forced by five climate and land-use scenarios. The results suggest that the blue water flow (BWF) decreased by 86.03 mm year−1, while green water flow (GWF) and green water storage (GWS) increased by 8.61 mm year−1 and 12.51 mm year−1, respectively. The spatial distribution of blue and green water was impacted by climate, wind direction, topography, and elevation. Climate change was the main factor affecting blue and green water resources in the basin; land-use change had strong effects only locally. Precipitation changes significantly amplified the BWF changes. The proportion of surface runoff in BWF was positively correlated with precipitation changes; lateral flow showed the opposite tendency. Higher temperatures resulted in increased GWF and decreased BWF, both of which were most sensitive to temperature increases up to 1 °C. All agricultural land and forestland conversion scenarios resulted in decreased BWF and increased GWF in the watershed. GWS was less affected by climate and land-use change than GWF and BWF, and the trends in GWS were not significant. The study provides a reference for blue and green water resource management in humid areas.

scholarly journals ’n Verkennende studie met die oog op die identifisering en kategorisering van leerteorieë met verwysing na die prediking

1994 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
C. M. Van den Berg ◽  
T. F.J. Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Other ◽  
Creative Problem Solving ◽  
The Social ◽  
Creative Problem ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Church

An introductory study to identify and classify theories of learning with regard to the task of preaching Learning is a lifelong process in which man must be what he can be, namely a being interacting with his world in a creative problem-solving manner for the well-being of himself and others. In a similar sense the church has always seen her task in preaching, supported by all the other domains of churchlife, as that of teaching people to come to terms with the gospel of Jesus Christ in their daily existence. This article proposes to identify, categorize and integrate the acknowledged theories underlying the learning process, as they exist in the social sciences, into an allencompassing model for learning; a model from which conclusions are drawn in the hope that further studies can spell out the implications of these conclusions as they are applicable to the task of preaching within the church.

A Theme for Social Sciences?

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 82-90
Author(s):  
Michael Drake
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Higher Education ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
Proper Form ◽  
The Social

In recent years the quest for the proper form and content of social science studies has been a major preoccupation of academics. The reasons for this are numerous: the very rapid expansion of higher education generally and the particularly marked demand for the social sciences has led to a proliferation of new departments; brash young men have been promoted early (too early, many would say) to positions of power within the universities; the increasingly vocal criticism by the consumers of education – the students themselves – and, perhaps most important of all, a growing desire to re-aggregate human knowledge to counter the trend towards ever narrower degrees of specialism. All these factors have contributed to a mounting dissatisfaction with the traditional ways of studying the social sciences – that is, in almost hermetically sealed departments of economics, of politics, of sociology, and so on. Instead attempts have been made to draw the various social sciences together in studies of particular areas (Britain, Latin America, the underdeveloped world, the ‘new nations’); or of particular processes such as industrialisation, or urbanisation; or of particular problems as associated with, for instance, poverty or race. Each of these represents, of course, a multi- or inter-disciplinary approach to the study of the social sciences. Over the past four years I have been associated with two attempts to produce an integrated, inter-disciplinary course in social sciences. One was a failure; the other, my current preoccupation, is, I think, promising. What I have to say tonight is concerned with an analysis of these two intellectual experiments.

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