Nature-Based Solutions for Water Security and the Role of Education for Enhancing the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda

2022 ◽  
pp. 568-587
Author(s):  
Janos Csala ◽  
Jennifer Wanjiku Mwangi

Water security is a central sustainable development challenge. Billions of people lack access to clean and reliable water, while global hydrological changes and increasingly common extreme weather events pose serious risks. However, current issues are mainly driven by unsustainable management and ensuing ecological degradation. Nature-based solutions restore, enhance and safeguard ecosystems that provide water for people and the rest of nature. They also buffer the impacts of natural hazards and provide other critical benefits. Global policy frameworks on sustainable development, disaster prevention, climate change, biodiversity, wetlands and desertification offer holistic objectives toward water security. Education and capacity development is one of their central connective tissues, and as a mean to enhance their implementation. In spite of this, major gaps remain that require novel approaches. This chapter explores these and discusses strategic considerations and innovative approaches that can leverage existing knowledge and foster context specific innovation for transformative solutions.

Author(s):  
Janos Csala ◽  
Jennifer Wanjiku Mwangi

Water security is a central sustainable development challenge. Billions of people lack access to clean and reliable water, while global hydrological changes and increasingly common extreme weather events pose serious risks. However, current issues are mainly driven by unsustainable management and ensuing ecological degradation. Nature-based solutions restore, enhance and safeguard ecosystems that provide water for people and the rest of nature. They also buffer the impacts of natural hazards and provide other critical benefits. Global policy frameworks on sustainable development, disaster prevention, climate change, biodiversity, wetlands and desertification offer holistic objectives toward water security. Education and capacity development is one of their central connective tissues, and as a mean to enhance their implementation. In spite of this, major gaps remain that require novel approaches. This chapter explores these and discusses strategic considerations and innovative approaches that can leverage existing knowledge and foster context specific innovation for transformative solutions.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter C. Balash, PhD ◽  
Kenneth C. Kern ◽  
John Brewer ◽  
Justin Adder ◽  
Christopher Nichols ◽  
...  

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Hall ◽  
Georgina Endfield

Abstract Scholars are increasingly focusing on the cultural dimensions of climate, addressing how individuals construct their understanding of climate through local weather. Research often focuses on the importance of widespread conceptualizations of mundane everyday weather, although attention has also been paid to extreme weather events and their potential effect on popular understandings of local climate. This paper introduces the “Snow Scenes” project, which aimed to engage rural communities in Cumbria, England, with their memories of extreme and severe past winter conditions in the region. Collating memories across a wide demographic, using a variety of methods, individual memories were analyzed alongside meteorological and historical records. By exploring these memories and their associated artifacts, this paper aims to better understand the role of memory and place in commemorating extreme winters. First, it is demonstrated how national narratives of exceptional winters are used by individuals as benchmarks against which to gauge conditions. Second, this paper identifies how specific locations and landmarks help to place memories and are shown to be important anchors for individuals’ understanding of their climate. Third, the paper considers how memories of severe winters are often nostalgic in their outlook, with a strong association between snowy winters, childhood, and childhood places. Fourth, it is illustrated how such events are regularly connected to important personal or familial milestones. Finally, the paper reflects on how these local-level experiences of historical extreme events may be central to the shaping of popular understandings of climate and also, by extension, climate change.


2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (22) ◽  
pp. 8297-8301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerrit Hansen ◽  
Maximilian Auffhammer ◽  
Andrew R. Solow

Abstract There is growing interest in assessing the role of climate change in observed extreme weather events. Recent work in this area has focused on estimating a measure called attributable risk. A statistical formulation of this problem is described and used to construct a confidence interval for attributable risk. The resulting confidence is shown to be surprisingly wide even in the case where the event of interest is unprecedented in the historical record.


Author(s):  
Jago Cooper ◽  
Lindsay Duncan

This chapter considers the role of archaeology in creating solutions for coping with the impacts of global environmental change, illustrated by cases from Latin America. Past examples of the practical application of pre-Columbian innovations and techniques are considered, and the key themes of social practice and community engagement discussed. These principles are then applied to the islands of the Caribbean where archaeology can play an important role in accessing and illuminating pre-Columbian lifeways in the region. The comparative resilience of past and present lifeways to the hazards created by extreme weather events, precipitation variability, and sea level changes are discussed, and the role of archaeology as a means of engaging the public, stimulating discussion, and informing debate is considered.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Sarrouy ◽  
Carla Sarrouy

Climate change is having a growing impact on every human activity, especially on agriculture with altered rainfall patterns and an increased number and intensity of extreme weather events. This article argues that efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change must consider whole food systems – rather than the sole production of food – whilst embracing a conscious gendered approach. Women are the main victims of hunger, but they are also the main actors of global food systems, they greatly contribute to their household’s and community’s wellbeing and detain a rich and often untapped knowledge of food systems. Promoting the role of women in our global food systems enhances the inclusion of criteria mainly valued by women such as resilience, diversity and nutrition, which are paramount for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Photo credit: By OxFam East Africa [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons


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