Historical and Present Day Management of the River Rhine

1991 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 111-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. H. Broseliske ◽  
J. de Jong ◽  
H. Smit

The river Rhine has undergone changes in morphology, chemistry, and ecology. They represent the results of historical management of the river. An overview of the river management from 1815 on is given together with an analysis of the present situation and the changes necessary to meet the final objectives of the Rhine and North Sea Action Programmes. The complexity and level of the present problems make it necessary that an integrated problem approach and a multinational decision making is used for an adequate future management of the river basin.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurits Ertsen

<p>Over the past 20 years, river water quality in Indonesia has deteriorated enormously. Water quality deterioration continues to increase socio-economic inequality, as it are the most poor communities who live on and along the river. Women are comparatively highly impacted by failing water resources management, but their involvement in decision making processes is limited. As such, the uneven water quality related disease burden in Brantas River Basin widens the socio-economic gap between societal groups. In the Brantas region, cooperation and intention between stakeholders to tackle these issues is growing, but is fragile as well due to overlapping institutional mandates, poor status of water quality monitoring networks, and limited commitment of industries to treat their waste water streams. Currently, an Indonesian-Dutch consortium develops a project which is built on the premise that water problems of our world do not necessarily have to be only a cause of tension, but can also be a catalyst for cooperation. Cooperation is a process that needs active input from all concerned. As such, this project seeks to support a twinned learning process in which science is used to build a trusted information system for policy and decision making in Brantas river basin management. The project focuses on the close links between research processes of data gathering and monitoring and its relevance for societal and institutional actors within river basin management organizations. This twinning between policies and science aims to facilitate learning processes of basin authorities, societal stakeholders, companies and knowledge institutions, as they can profit from each other’s achievements, knowledge and experiences. One of the important issues for this new cooperative partnership is how to develop procedures and routines to monitor water quality in the Brantas river. Participatory data monitoring is among the prime requirements for sustainable river management. An additional dimension of the already challenging issue of data gathering in river management is how to deal with transdisciplinary issues in monitoring, measurements and measures, including research procedures and institutional setup.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nomthandazo Ntlama

ABSTRACT The article examines the implications of the judgment of the Constitutional Court in Helen Suzman Foundation v Judicial Service Commission 2018 (7) BCLR 763 (CC) 8 on the functioning of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC). The judgment has brought to the fore a new lease of life relating to the JSC's post-interview deliberations as a disclosable record in terms of Rule 53(1)(b) of the Uniform Rules of Court. The disclosure seeks to provide an insight into the decision-making process of the JSC in the appointment of judicial officers in South Africa. It is argued that the judgment is two-pronged: first, the disclosure of the post-interview record enhances the culture of justification for decisions taken, which advances the foundational values of the new democratic dispensation; secondly, it creates uncertainty about the future management and protection of the JSC processes in the undertaking of robust debates on the post-interview deliberations. It then questions whether the JSC members will be privileged in their engagement with the suitability of the candidates to be recommended for appointment by the President. The question is raised against the uncertainty about which decision of the JSC will be challenged that will need the disclosure of the record because the judgment does not entail the national disclosure of the record in respect of each candidate but applies only when there is an application for review of the JSC decision. Key words: Judicial Service Commission, appointments, discretion, judiciary, independence, rule of law, discretion, accountability, transparency, human rights.


2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 381-401
Author(s):  
Weiwei Wang ◽  
Haiwei Zhou ◽  
Lidan Guo

The emergency supply of transboundary water resources is a prominent problem affecting the social and economic development of basin countries. However, current water supply decisions on transboundary water resources may ignore the psychological perception of multi-stakeholders, and the evolution of emergencies increases the uncertainty of decision making. Both factors would lead to the low acceptance of water-related decisions. Utility satisfaction, perceived losses, and quantity satisfaction were selected in this paper to identify the perceived satisfaction of upstream governments, downstream governments, and the public, respectively, over multiple decision-making stages. A modeling framework combining prospect theory and the multi-stage multi-objective programming methodology was then developed to measure the perceived satisfaction of different stakeholders in a watershed under emergency. A two-stage NSGA-II and TOPSIS based approach was adopted to find the optimal compromise solution to solve the model. The framework was applied in the Lancang–Mekong River basin to provide suggestions to decision makers. Upstream decision makers must choose a moderate proportional fairness degree when making emergency decisions to maximize the perceived satisfaction of all stakeholders. Meanwhile, the perceived loss of downstream countries with low water demand should be considered first in the formulation of emergency water supply plans. Furthermore, although water supply from upstream countries can improve perceived water quantity satisfaction of downstream publics, additional actions must still be taken to change the traditional concepts of the public.


1939 ◽  
Vol 8 (23) ◽  
pp. 65-73
Author(s):  
J. A. G. Van Der Veer

Among the episodes from Caesar's De Bello Gallico that strike a Dutchman most (and this will equally apply to the English, I suppose) are those that treat of the sea. When we read how at the landing in Britain the Roman ships are too large to reach the coast, and how the soldiers leap from the vessels and wade fighting through the water, we can vividly imagine such a scene. Not that we see troops land every day, all Dutchmen are acquainted with the North Sea and its flat beach, so that a perusal of this passage evokes familiar ideas. Personally I find the episode of Caesar's campaign against the maritime States in Brittany very interesting. Now we discover a very similar situation in our own regions, then again we come across differences. Driven by a desire for personal observation we set out to this part of France during the summer holidays to see if Caesar's description agrees with the present situation, and how far the aspect of modern Brittany elucidates the passage in Caesar. And this has in no small measure proved to be the case.


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