Coevolution and Prediction of Coupled Human-Water Systems: A Synthesis of Change in Hydrology and Society 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fuqiang Tian ◽  
Jing Wei ◽  
Murugesu Sivapalan ◽  
Guenter Bloeschl
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Water Systems ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Water Crisis ◽  
Cultural Perspectives ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Work Done ◽  
Theoretical Foundations ◽  
Global Water

<p>There has been increasing recognition that the global water crisis is due to lack of understanding of wider economic and socio-cultural perspectives, resulted from the intended and/or unintended consequences of co-evolution of coupled human-water systems. In light of such recognition, Panta Rhei Initiative (2013-2022) was proposed to focus on changes in both hydrology and society. Approaching end of this decade, it is time to synthesize the knowledge gained in our understanding of coevolution and prediction of coupled human-water systems. The synthesis will produce a book which includes five parts: (I) Motivation and Overview, (II) Theoretical Foundations and Methodological Approaches, (III) Synthesis of Work Done and Understanding Gained in Specific Application Areas, (IV) Panta Rhei Case Studies, (V) Grand Synthesis and Recommendations. This abstract will present a brief introduction of current progress of Panta Rhei Book.</p>

How sociohydrology can help address the global water crisis and meet the sustainable development goals

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuliano Di Baldassarre ◽  
Murugesu Sivapalan ◽  
Maria Rusca ◽  
Elena Mondino ◽  
Megan Konar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Groundwater Depletion ◽  
Water Crisis ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Global Water

<p>Millions of people around the world are affected by water crises manifesting at different scales, such as increasing drought severity and flood risk, groundwater depletion, ecological degradation, poor sanitation, water pollution and its impact on human health. This global water crisis is increasingly interconnected and growing in complexity. Negative effects often result from a lack of understanding of wider economic and socio-cultural perspectives. More specifically, water crises can be deemed the intended or unintended consequences of long-term changes of social norms and values (or, more broadly, culture), ideology or political systems, which are not typically anticipated or accounted for in coping with water-related issues. Sociohydrology engages with these principles by examining the outcomes of water management and governance processes –successes and failures as well as the distribution of costs and benefits across social groups— themselves as subjects of scientific study. In this presentation, we show how feedback mechanisms between human and water systems can generate a wide range of phenomena (including crises) in different places around the world. Moreover, we argue that a generalized understanding of sociohydrological phenomena has an important role to play in informing policy processes while assisting communities, governments, civil society organizations and private actors to address the global water crisis and meet the Sustainable Development Goals, the societal grand challenge of our time.</p>

scholarly journals The Water Safety Plan Approach: Application to Small Drinking-Water Systems—Case Studies in Salento (South Italy)

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 4360
Author(s):  
Francesca Serio ◽  
Lucia Martella ◽  
Giovanni Imbriani ◽  
Adele Idolo ◽  
Francesco Bagordo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Distribution Systems ◽  
Water Systems ◽  
Water Safety ◽  
Quality Of Water ◽  
Safety Plan ◽  
Water Safety Plan ◽  
Drinking Water Systems

Background: The quality of water for human consumption is an objective of fundamental importance for the defense of public health. Since the management of networks involves many problems of control and efficiency of distribution, the Water Safety Plan (WSP) was introduced to address these growing problems. Methods: WSP was applied to three companies in which the water resource assumes central importance: five water kiosks, a third-range vegetable processing company, and a residence and care institution. In drafting the plan, the terms and procedures designed and tested for the management of urban distribution systems were applied to safeguard the resource over time. Results: The case studies demonstrated the reliability of the application of the model even to small drinking-water systems, even though it involved a greater effort in analyzing the incoming water, the local intended use, and the possibilities for managing the containment of the dangers to which it is exposed. This approach demonstrates concrete effectiveness in identifying and mitigating the dangers of altering the quality of water. Conclusions: Thanks to the WSP applied to small drinking-water systems, we can move from management that is focused mainly on verifying the conformity of the finished product to the creation of a global risk assessment and management system that covers the entire water supply chain.

Audience Costs and the Credibility of Commitments

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Statistical Tests ◽  
The Political ◽  
Audience Costs ◽  
Qualitative Case Studies ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
Large N ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Methodological Approaches

Threats and promises are prevalent in international relations (IR). However, deception is also a possibility in diplomacy. Why should one state believe that another state is not merely bluffing? How can a state credibly communicate its threats and promises to others? The IR scholarship suggests that one way by which a state may make its commitments credible is by generating audience costs—the political costs a leader suffers from publicly issuing a threat or promise and then failing to follow through. There is a broad and methodologically diverse literature on the existence, mechanisms, and effectiveness of audience costs. The concept of audience costs has also been applied to explain many phenomena in IR. This article examines the IR scholarship on audience costs across different methodological approaches, including qualitative case studies, large-N statistical tests, and survey experiments.

Environments of Empire

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Invasive Plants ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Ecological Change ◽  
The World

The age of European high imperialism was characterized by the movement of plants and animals on a historically unprecedented scale. The human migrants who colonized territories around the world brought a variety of other species with them, from the crops and livestock they hoped to propagate, to the parasites, invasive plants, and pests they carried unawares, producing a host of unintended consequences that reshaped landscapes around the world. While the majority of histories about the dynamics of these transfers have concentrated on the British Empire, these nine case studies--focused on the Ottoman, French, Dutch, German, and British empires--seek to advance a historical analysis that is comparative, transnational, and interdisciplinary to understand the causes, consequences, and networks of biological exchange and ecological change resulting from imperialism.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Diane Miller Sommerville
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Gender Bias ◽  
American South ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Cultural Discourse ◽  
Record Keeping ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
The American South ◽  
And Gender

Lays out blueprint for the book by outlining methodological approaches, evidence base, and historiographical interventions (including ‘dark turn’ in Civil War scholarship) of a study on suicide and suffering during and after the Civil War in the American South. Identifies evidentiary challenges including poor record keeping, attempts to hide suicides, elusiveness of cause or motivation, and gender bias in lethal suicides. Case studies emphasize experiences of individuals, transcending well-trodden theological and cultural discourse about suicide. Examines impact of war traumas like PTSD on soldiers and veterans, and on their wives and families. Racialized ideas about suicide and depression shaped southerners’ understanding of suffering, held by whites to be a marker of civilized peoples.

Conceptual and Theoretical Foundations of Social Capital

2009 ◽  
pp. 18-42
Author(s):  
Ben Kei Daniel
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Capital ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Legitimacy ◽  
Basic Understanding ◽  
Work Done ◽  
Conceptual Foundations ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

Social capital is a complex multifaceted and litigious theory, discussed in the Social Sciences and the Humanities. It is a theory increasingly researchers questioned its scientific legitimacy and yet paradoxically many other researchers continuously use it as a conceptual and theoretical framework to explain the structural and functional operations of communities. This Chapter discusses work done on the theory. It covers some of the theoretical controversy with a goal of aligning its conceptualization and distinguishing it from other types of capitals. The Chapter is organized first the basic theoretical and conceptual foundations of social capital are described. The aim is to present the reader with a basic understanding of what constitutes social capital, by opening discussion about various forms of capital(s)—as discussed in the disciplines of Economics and Sociology. Second, the Chapter discusses the origin of the theory as well as the work of key scholars who have contributed to the development of the theory. Furthermore, in order to identify the strengths and the weaknesses of the theory, the Chapter provides the reader with analysis of benefits and shortcomings of social capital both as a theoretical and analytical tool for studying communities.

The Curse of Realism

2019 ◽  
pp. 8-24
Author(s):  
Karin Kukkonen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Model Based ◽  
Counter Model ◽  
Cognitive Approaches To Literature ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

This chapter challenges the assumption that throughout history the novel gets progressively better at realism and at matching its language in cognitive processes. It characterises this assumption as “the curse of realism,” which retroactively imposes standards from the nineteenth-century novel onto texts from earlier periods and evaluates them as lacking stylistic and narrative achievements that they never aimed for. A counter-model, based on embodied cognition and predictive, probabilistic cognition, is proposed. This allows cognitive approaches to literature to move away from a teleological perspective (where the novel improves its match with cognition) and towards a dialectic perspective (where literary texts can relate to cognition in ways that are not inherently more accurate than others). This chapter lays the overall theoretical foundations for the case studies in the following chapters.

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