Rachael McDonnell

North Africa (NA) is supposed to lower emissions in its agriculture to honor climate action commitments and to impulse sustainable development across Africa. Agriculture in North Africa has many assets and challenges that make it fit to use the tools of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) for mitigation purposes. This study represents a first attempt to understand if CSA practices are sufficiently established in NA to contribute to reducing agriculture emissions. A PRISMA-inspired systematic review was carried out on an initial 147 studies retrieved from Scopus, Google Scholar, and the Web of Science databases, as well as from gray literature. 11 studies were included in the final analysis since they report the mitigation and co-benefits of CSA-based practices within NA. A bias risk was identified around the optimal inclusion of studies produced in French, and a specific plan was set for its minimization. Synthesis results revealed that most studies focused either on improving soil qual...

mon sedimentological language for definitions and descriptions of lacustrine sediments. Their scheme would be extremely useful if adhered to by all participating researchers, as it would facilitate interand intrabasin comparisons. The definition and calibration of palaeoclimatic parameters, and correlation of the lake basin data with marine deposits for periods older than the Quaternary cannot however, be achieved until further, more detailed information is acquired from representative lake basins these issues are thus not explored in this volume.

Trademarks Throughout this book irademarked names are used. Rather than put a trademark symbol in every occurrence of a irademarked name, we state that we are using the names only in editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner with no intention of ...

The once deeply engrained idea that water management should be considered as a technical endeavour that is appropriately confined to hydrological science and hydraulic engineering has now largely ceded to the recognition that water issues also comprise important social and political dimensions that call for the involvement of social science and multiple stakeholders. As such, in recent years, increased attention has been paid to the nature and effects of water policies, the roles of different water users in decision-making , and the emergence of conflicts and cooperation around water at various scales. These social and political dimensions of water have been subject to significant theoretical advances, drawing especially on insights from the broadly-defined political ecology tradition (including elements of science studies and anthropology), that seek to transcend Cartesian dualisms between humans and the environment in favour of the co-constitution between society and nature. Unlike conventional studies that focus on the relationship between humans and water conceived of as two distinct categories that interact with one another, considering water as socioecological makes it impossible to abstract water from the social context that gives it meaning and from the socio-political processes that shape its material flows and its discursive representations. In line with this perspective, the notion of a hydrosocial, as opposed to a hydrological, cycle has gained traction as a means of both capturing and integrating the socio-political and biophysical processes that constitute water, as well as highlighting the limitations of traditional science and practice. The hydrosocial cycle is purposefully contrasted with the hydrological cycle, which is a dominant and enduring concept for portraying the physical states and flows of water, yet arguably regards water and water processes as asocial and apolitical. However, as the use of the term (alongside and beyond other uses of the term 'hydro-social' or 'hydrosocial') has proliferated, different meanings and usages have become apparent that suggest the need for further scrutiny. The concept of the hydrosocial cycle has hitherto been deployed to capture the deepening entanglement of water flows and power relations, and to shed light on the politicised nature of water management, with a view to reinterpreting the social and ecological implications that emerge as effects of power relations rather than of policy styles (Bakker, 2003a, 2003b; Swyngedouw, 2006, 2009). To date, the flows of water and social power embedded within the hydroso-cial cycle have been examined in a range of contexts and from different perspectives, including through the capitalist production of urban environments (Kaika, 2005; Swyngedouw, 2004), the historical construction and mobilisation of the concept of the hydrological cycle (Linton, 2008, 2010), and the production of hydrological assessments that reinforce unequal access to water (Budds, 2008, 2009) (see Linton and Budds, 2014, for a comprehensive review of previous scholarship employing the term 'hydrosocial cycle'). This special issue on the hydrosocial cycle responds to the need to more precisely define and theorise the concept as a means to interrogate and elucidate hydrosocial relations and change, as well as to explore and articulate its analytical and political purchase for critical water research and action. The endeavour commenced through a shared interest among the organisers in the politics of hydrology, and an aspiration to integrate this aspect more fully into the growing and vibrant body of work around political ecolo-gies of water, little of which had hitherto paid much attention to the construction and implementation of hydrological concepts, methods and data. We pursued this interest through a series of panel and paper sessions at the Association of American Geographers annual meetings in 2008 (Water, Science, Humans: Adventures of the Hydrosocial Cycle), 2009 (Water, Science, Humans: Advancing the Hydrosocial Cycle) and 2010 (The Hydrosocial Cycle: Between Hydrology and Critical Social Science), which attracted wide interest and participation from human geographers and cognate scholars. Through our engagement in these sessions, our initial aim to reflect on the nature and place of hydrology in political ecologies of water developed into a much broader endeavour to further understandings of the relationships between water, people and science, with a view to refine the nature of the concept of the hydrosocial cycle and contemplate the ways in which it might support and advance critical political ecologies of water within academic scholarship, that may in turn inform water policy and practice, as well as feed new perspectives into interdisciplin-ary water education. The primary aim of the collection of papers assembled in this special issue is thus to further consolidate the concept as a framework that focuses attention on the…

<p>The GGIAR is a global research for development partnership for a food secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources including water. It comprises 13 Centers with a total of more than 10,000 staff members mainly working in the Global South. It developed the new CGIAR 2030 Research and Innovation strategy that redefined its mission and targets a systems transformation approach for food, land, and water systems. It is a major realignment of food system research that contributes to transformations to end hunger and malnutrition but also supports climate solutions, gender equality, job creation, prosperous livelihoods, opportunities for the youth, environmental health and biodiversity, and aims to develop effective solutions to achieve the SDGs.</p><p>Water will play a central role in this new strategy. This presentation will summarize key new research initiatives and their links to hydrological and water system sciences. It will discuss relevant research questions and outline possible solutions to achieve progress with the SDGs. Furthermore, ways to include the hydrological sciences community better in CGIAR research and to strengthen the links to intergovernmental programs will be suggested.</p>

... Research Article. Research advances in geocomputation for hydrological and geomorphological modelling towards the twenty-first century. SM Brooks,; RA McDonnell. ... Issue. Hydrological Processes. Special Issue: Geocomputation in Hydrology and Geomorphology. ...

This paper presents the Composite Drought Indicator (CDI) that Jordanian, Lebanese, Moroccan, and Tunisian governments now produce monthly, and it describes their iterative co-development processes. The CDI is primarily intended to monitor agricultural and ecological drought on a seasonal time scale. It uses remote sensing and modelled data inputs, and it reflects anomalies in precipitation, vegetation, soil moisture, and evapotranspiration. We made changes to CDI input data, modelling procedures, and integration following quantitative and qualitative validation assessments, as well as consideration of policymakers’ needs and agencies’ technical and institutional capabilities and constraints. We summarize validation results and show CDI outputs, and we describe the monthly CDI production and information dissemination process. Finally, we synthesize procedural and technical aspects of CDI development that reflect trade-offs made to optimize the CDI for operational monitoring that sup...

Trademarks Throughout this book irademarked names are used. Rather than put a trademark symbol in every occurrence of a irademarked name, we state that we are using the names only in editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner with no intention of ...

Developments in geographical information systems (GIS) technology have coincided with moves within hydrology to a more explicit accounting of space through distributed rather than lumped or topological representations. GIS support these spatial data models and provide integrating, measuring and analytical capabilities which have been used in many hydrological applications ranging from inventory and assessment studies through to process modelling. The many examples in the article illustrate how the technology has supported moves away from averaged value representations for catchments towards a greater inclusion of spatial variations in hydrological studies. While the potential of these systems is gradually being realized, there are still various issues, both technical and methodological, which at present limit their use. As new data sources become available, GIS data structures become more flexible and open, and, as the understanding of scale variations in processes improves, the pos...

The importance of developing sustainable groundwater management strategies was once again emphasized at the Johannesburg Earth Summit, so the publication of this edited volume is most timely. The book embraces not only the ideas of protecting both the quality and quantity of ...

According to the publisher's blurb, the target audience for this book consists of advanced undergraduates taking courses in earth sciences. The editor's aims are to illustrate the wide variety of geoscience mapping that is undertaken throughout the world, including volcanic hazards, landslides, ...

The modelling of water management scenarios and their impacts on the environment has to date been undertaken using separate models and often by different organizations. The building and operation of a dam induces a chain of interlinked responses in the environment and to capture this in an impact assessment a more integrated approach to modelling is needed. The mixed spatial and temporal characteristics of the different variables mean that using a single model development environment is difficult. This paper shows how an integrated, hierarchically structured set of model components may be developed using an object-oriented modelling language linked with a geographical information system (GIS). This supports the representation of the process dynamics and the spatial complexity of the riverine environment. The method was applied to the Roadford Dam project on the River Wolf in south-west England. Water resource and water quality model components were developed in the object-oriented language and simulations were run for release regimes during the filling and operation of the dam for the years 1976, 1978, 1986 and 1989, which represent respectively drought, normal, wet and dry conditions. The results, when compared with base-case conditions, showed the changes to the discharge, temperature, and chloride and nitrate-N ion values. The resulting flow values were an input to the third model component, that of the biotic system. These data were combined in a GIS with information on channel form and substrate, and known spawning and breeding sites of the Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Overlay analysis was used to determine the suitability of the new conditions for the species.

... Research Article. Research advances in geocomputation for hydrological and geomorphological modelling towards the twenty-first century. SM Brooks,; RA McDonnell. ... Issue. Hydrological Processes. Special Issue: Geocomputation in Hydrology and Geomorphology. ...

Successful environmental management is partly contingent on the effective recognition and communication of environmental health risks to the public. Yet risk perceptions are known to differ between experts and laypeople; laypeople often exhibit higher perceptions of risk in comparison to experts, particularly when these risks are associated with radiation, nuclear power, or nuclear waste. This paper consequently explores stakeholder risk perceptions associated with a mercury-contaminated chloralkali production facility in Kazakhstan. Using field observations and in-depth interviews conducted in the vicinity of the Pavlodar Chemical Plant, this work assesses the relevance of the substantial on-site mercury contamination to the health and livelihoods of the local population with the goal of informing remediation activity through a combination of quantitative and qualitative risk assessments. The findings of this research study cannot be broadly generalized to all the primary stakehold...

ABSTRACT Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates is a rapidly developing state reliant on modern water production and distribution systems to support its economic growth and urban development. Whilst often conceptualized as a rentier state, its urban water sector has undergone major economic restructuring over the last decade, resulting in an increasingly important role for the private sector in developing new supplies. These supplies primarily comprise desalination and recycled wastewater, which require substantial capital investment, complex technology and energy supplies. This paper examines the production of water in Abu Dhabi, showing how the transformation and circulation of water have created new landscapes that bear little resemblance to the arid physical environment of the Arabian peninsula, and new patterns of water consumption that are increasingly divergent from traditional careful management. It demonstrates the central role of the energy sector in driving the production and circulation of water – for instance, by powering desalination plants, providing the investment capital for these complex facilities, subsidizing operations and consumer tariffs, and by negotiating access with neighbouring states. The paper argues that Abu Dhabi’s hydrosocial cycle cannot be understood in isolation of a consideration of energy, and, consequently, that the infeasibility of isolating water from wider physical, economic and social influences in complex contexts challenges previous approaches to the relationship between water and state power.

ABSTRACT Currently there is a misalignment between the European Union Water Framework Directive (EU WFD) and the United Kingdom Climate Change Act (UK CCA). This paper explores the tensions and complexities experienced by water companies in England and Wales as they attempt to meet the contradictory legislative requirements. A simple model is used to explore the effect of increasing effluent quality on power consumption and hence carbon emissions. Further data are collected through interviews and textual analysis to dissect opinions and views on the dilemma facing the water industry. In addition to complexities within the EU WFD and UK CCA, water companies are restricted by the regulatory framework of the UK water industry and additional policies and directives. Through this research, numerous suggestions offered by key stakeholders in the industry are explored. Among the proposed solutions is process optimisation of aeration, during activated sludge treatment. This does not require additional changes to legislation and may form one of the principle solutions because it is able to reduce emissions immediately. However, recent research has shown that aeration optimisation may cause increased emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. This must be taken into account when finding the optimal solution.

This book presents 24 articles describing the techniques used in the modelling of environmental systems. The approaches, achievements and limitations of environmental modelling are outlined and new techniques and areas of priority research are identified. Generic models are ...

... for Geographic Information Systems 490 Keith Clarke 40 Visualisation of Multivariate Geographic Data for Exploration 504 Aileen Buckley 41 Metaphors ... Preface Massimo Craglia and Harlan Onsrud This volume is the outcome of the Second International Summer Institute in ...

The interaction between natural resources development and the deployment of social resources is vital to understand when designing management institutions. As we look to the future management and development of the Nile River Basin Water Resources through the Nile Basin ...

Palearctic Pirin National Park, Bulgaria This World Heritage Site was previously taken off the threatened list after strict controls were placed on the expansion of new ski facilities. Now a new threat in the form of diversion of water from the Mesta River has emerged. Various dams ...

<p>The GGIAR is a global research for development partnership for a food secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources including water. It comprises 13 Centers with a total of more than 10,000 staff members mainly working in the Global South. It developed the new CGIAR 2030 Research and Innovation strategy that redefined its mission and targets a systems transformation approach for food, land, and water systems. It is a major realignment of food system research that contributes to transformations to end hunger and malnutrition but also supports climate solutions, gender equality, job creation, prosperous livelihoods, opportunities for the youth, environmental health and biodiversity, and aims to develop effective solutions to achieve the SDGs.</p><p>Water will play a central role in this new strategy. This presentation will summarize key new research initiatives and their links to hydrological and water system sciences. It will discuss relevant research questions and outline possible solutions to achieve progress with the SDGs. Furthermore, ways to include the hydrological sciences community better in CGIAR research and to strengthen the links to intergovernmental programs will be suggested.</p>