With climate change and urbanization, city planners and developers have increasing interest and practice in constructing, restoring, or incorporating wetlands as forms of green infrastructure to maintain water-related ecosystem services (WES). We reviewed studies that valued in functional or monetary units the water regulation and purification services of urban wetlands around the globe. We used the adaptive management cycle (AMC) as a heuristic to determine the step that a study would represent in the AMC, the connections between the cycle steps that were used or considered, and the stakeholders involved. Additionally, we identified the social, ecological, and/or technological dimension(s) of the environmental stressors and management strategies described by study authors. While use-inspired research on WES occurs throughout the globe, most studies serve to singularly assess problems or monitor urban wetlands, consider or use no connectors between steps, and involve no stakeholder groups. Both stressors and strategies were overwhelmingly multidimensional, with the social dimension represented in the majority of both. We highlight studies that successfully interfaced with cities across multiple steps, connectors, engaged stakeholder groups, and disseminated findings and skills to stakeholder groups. True use-inspired research should explicitly involve management systems that are used by city stakeholders and propose multidimensional solutions.
North Gujarat in India currently extracts three billion cubic meters of groundwater per year, which is up to 95% of the groundwater resources available in the region. This unsustainable abstraction has led to changes in groundwater levels and created water scarcity in many parts of the region. To address these issues, integrated groundwater resource management is required, which should be driven by good quality and quantity of groundwater data. However, current groundwater data are scarce; thus, new, affordable monitoring approaches are necessary. Participatory and community-based monitoring involving citizen scientists provides an approach to complement existing government-run monitoring. This study demonstrates the feasibility of developing a large-scale groundwater level monitoring wells network by directly involving farmers in two agriculturally-dominated blocks in North Gujarat, India. First, long-term groundwater level data for government-monitored wells were analyzed, and the regions lacking monitoring were identified. Then a network of 43 farmers was established through the field survey, who were trained to provide groundwater level observations for their wells every month. The data collected through the field survey were then integrated with the data from the existing government monitoring programs to understand the groundwater dynamics in the region. Results for the post-monsoon season 2022 show that the groundwater levels in Unjha block (Mehsana district) have declined to more than 100 meters below ground level due to unsustainable pumping for irrigation. The evaluation of the participatory approach showed that concern for existing groundwater challenges, social inclusion and contribution to scientific knowledge were the top three reasons that motivated farmers to participate in this research. Of the total volunteering farmers, 71% have shown interest in providing long-term observations for up to 3 years, and 57% agreed to provide observations weekly. Additionally, 70% of the farmers agreed to engage fellow farmers in groundwater monitoring, and 50% agreed to train new farmers. Thus, this study shows that farmers can play an important role in improving the existing challenges of groundwater monitoring through participatory training, and the integration of primary and secondary data can lead to better decision-making regarding need for well construction, crop selection, recharge methods and pathways for sustainable groundwater management.
]]>In late 2000, the European Union adopted the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and funded a series of research and innovation projects to support its implementation. One of these was the MULINO project (MULti-sectoral, INtegrated and Operational Decision Support System for Sustainable Use of Water Resources at the Catchment Scale). Its main product was a decision support system (mDSS) tool designed to help water managers make choices related to WFD implementation in a participatory manner. After the end of MULINO, a long sequence of research projects allowed for the maintenance and continuous development of its tool, which has been applied for more than 20 years in various contexts related to environmental and integrated management. This experience and an analysis of the literature allow us to draw some general conclusions regarding DSS tools for water management and their role in our societies. Lessons learned are proposed, from the need to frame tools within sound methodological frameworks for the management of decision processes, supporting instead of substituting decision-makers in their roles, to the trade-offs that appear between ease of use and specificity on one side and flexibility and reusability on the other. The specific strengths attributed to mDSS include the provision of an interface based on a simplified and understandable conceptual framework that facilitates communication with interested parties, the flexibility and ability to approach a wide variety of decisional issues, the relatively simple and understandable decision rules provided by the tool, and the simplified connections with other software environments. This paper presents the current version of the software and reports on the experience of its development and use over more than two decades; it also identifies the way forward.
Indigenous communities in Canada are disproportionately affected by issues related to water security, especially access to clean water to meet human needs. The issues these communities face are diverse and widespread across Canada, with many causes and consequences. This review summarizes the types and magnitudes of risks associated with the water security of these communities, the consequences considering health and social perspectives, and the means of responding to these issues. Risks are broadly divided into quantitative risks (e.g., water quality and availability) and qualitative risks (e.g., lack of funding and jurisdictional conflicts). These risks lead to unique consequences, resulting in challenges in developing generalized risk response frameworks. Management of these risks includes a mix of techniques relying on legislative and technical approaches. Nevertheless, the affected communities should be included in the decision-making process that should be holistic, incorporating indigenous knowledge. Good governance, cooperation between communities, policy improvement and the development of an institutional mechanism for clean water supply will provide a pathway and guidelines to address the water security challenges among indigenous communities.
]]>Strategies are proposed to cope with uncertainties in a way that all possible kinds of uncertainty are named, recognized, statistically quantified as far as possible and utilized in efficient decision-making in flood risk management (FRM). We elaborated on the metaphor of uncertainty as a monster. We recommend two strategies to cope with the uncertainty monster to support efficient decision-making in FRM: monster adaptation and monster assimilation. We present three cases to illustrate these strategies. We argue that these strategies benefit from improving the structure and reducing the complexity of decision problems. We discuss ways to involve decision-makers in FRM, and how communication strategies can be responsive to their informational needs.
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