Integration of gender considerations into Tanzania's climate and water policies

Integrating gender considerations into national policies such as climate and water policies is a critical step toward achieving gender equality, resilient systems, sustainable water access and management of climate change. In Tanzania, just like in many developing countries, women play a vital role in water management and could be more vulnerable to climate change impacts than their male counterparts. While there are few attempts in existing literature toward examining the integration of gender considerations into water and climate policies, analyzing policies' formulation process has not been given attention. Thus, this study analyzed the extent and effectiveness of gender integration in climate change and water sector policies in Tanzania. The study shows that there is a substantial acknowledgment of gender issues in the reviewed policy documents but there exist considerable gaps in terms of integrating gender issues in the documents and during formulation processes.

277 Swine Producer Identities: Understanding Perceptions of a Good Producer

Studies on the social-psychological framework known as farmer identity have been conducted in the US, EU, and Australia. The focus of these studies is on understanding how farmer beliefs (i.e. Identities) translate into on-farm practices. For example, in 2015, Iowa farmers were surveyed and four identities emerged when asked which items were important to being a “Good Farmer.” Those identities were used to predict the support of soil and/or water policies in the state. Here, for the first time, we explore the identities of livestock producers. Specifically, Pennsylvania swine producer identities. Data were collected as part of a state-wide biosecurity survey. Eighty-four respondents answered some part of the survey, while 50 respondents completed all 31 items of the “Good Producer” question. Principal components analysis (PCA) was used to explore producer perception of a good producer (i.e. producer identities). Using the Kaiser-Meyer-Okin Measure (KMO=0.532) and Barrtlett’s Test of Sphericity (sig. = 0.000) we determined PCA results to be acceptable for exploratory purposes. Five producer identities (friendly conservationist, civically-savvy, willing naturalist, productivist, and appearance-minded) were identified, explaining 58.15% of the variance in these data. Reliability analysis confirmed the strength of items defining each component (i.e. identity). These identities are being used in discussion with PA swine producers to understand how producers self-identify. These identities will be used to predict whether a producer has a formal biosecurity plan written.

Sustainable Groundwater Management in A Two-Cell Aquifer Model

The design of optimal water policies between farmers, municipalities and groundwaterdependent ecosystem is analysed in a hydro-economic model with physical interactions between a confined aquifer and a shallow aquifer having a natural drainage. Based on the Pecos Basin case study, we analyse the optimal trajectories of the water tables and the water allocation between users and environment flows for the ecosystems. We also explore the consequences for the water manager to use a one-cell model instead of the two-cell model. Our results show the importance to consider hydraulic conductivities for the preservation of groundwater-dependent ecosystems.

How Hercules cleans up the Augean stables: differentiated implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive

Realising the goals of the European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive is difficult. The differentiation of water policies according to local conditions enjoys increasing attention and may be necessary to achieve good ecological status in all European waters. This paper seeks to explore to what extent and how local water quality determines the degree of coercion, i.e. the extent to which differentiated policies are voluntary or rather imposed upon policy addressees, of spatially differentiated water policies. It does so on the basis of seven cases in five EU Member States. For highly polluted waters, spatially differentiated policies tend either to make the use of authoritative policy instruments, i.e. coercion by way of formal regulation, or to rely on the threat to introduce such regulation. For preventing the deterioration of relatively ‘clean’ waters, voluntary instruments based on information and persuasion dominate, often supported by subsidies and/or the direct input of public resources. In relation to the spatial differentiation of water policies, issues of data demand, equality and legitimacy have to be taken into account.