Water Resources, Rights and Management + Food

Question 1

water is valued as a resource and mechanism to export goods

Answer 1

COP27 -> strategies to ensure water security it met for agricultural development and irrigation

Question 2

Water and Rights

Answer 2

River Whanganui -> been given personhood (O’Donell ..)

Question 3

Water Governance

Answer 3

the mechanisms and actors involved in managing and regulating water (Grecksch, 2014)

Question 4

water governance tends to be top-down as the state controls taxes

Answer 4

and provides them the means to implement governance -> though nonstate actors can contribute

Question 5

implementing sustainable water governance is in crisis Gupta and Pahl-Wostl, 2013)

Answer 5

only 3% of terrestrial water sources are drinkable of it only 7% is locked in ice or groundwater stores -> identified through the GRACE satellite mission (Rodell et al., 2018)

Question 6

governance can be split into normative governance = theory of governments and policy

Answer 6

and analytical governance = the way this theory can be effectively implemented

Question 7

C.C. threats to water governance

Answer 7

flooding, storms, precipitation patterns, pressures from pop growth, urbanisation, land-use change

Question 8

water governance and scale

Answer 8

issues often transboundary = crosses political units (Gupa et al., 2013)

Question 9

addressing water governance and scale

Answer 9

River Boundary Organisations (RBOs) to better manage rivers acting as regional and global sources of water governance (Gupta et al., 2013)

Question 10

Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) -> way in which water is managed as are land and other resources but in a sustainable way which also considers the societal and economic needs of a region (Gupta et al., 2013)

Answer 10

criticisms that they are not effective -> need more horizontal and vertical water governance -> improve implementation of water governance e.g. South African Water Act (1998) -> in practice has been widely credited for its developments -> difficult to implement in practice (Pahl-Wostl et al., 2020)

Question 11

improvements to IWRM via the STEER approach

Answer 11

multi-tier framework with different part -> planning, implementation, and ecosystem service interactions = processes and performance = outcomes and impacts with targets and aims expertly devised (Pahl-Wostl et al., 2020)

Question 12

equity and water

Answer 12

water scarce regions expected to produce high-water-demand crops = exported elsewhere -> results in socio-political impacts across regions (Gupta et al., 2013)

Question 13

droughts in the uk

Answer 13

2010-2012, 2004-2006, 2003 (Grecksch and Landström, 2021)
2022 - hosepipe ban
no. of droughts is increasing = resovoirs lower through the summer = more serious droughts

Question 14

Water Governance UK -> privatisation

Answer 14

Environment Agency = UK regulator of environmental quality -> role is to ensure private companies are meeting standards. DEFREA -> government body -> role is to ensure private companies are meeting standards. Drinking Water Inspectorate -> role is to ensure tap water is clean. Ofwat -> economic regular -> ensure consumers are not overcharged and tell companies when to invest in new infrastructure (Grecksch and Landström, 2021)

Question 15

UK Water Governance criticisms (1)

Answer 15

25% of London water = lost, sewage in rivers, during droughts water companies do not want to restrict people’s water

Question 16

UK Water Governance criticisms (2)

Answer 16

No desire to improve drought management -> likely become a bigger issue due to climate change putting more pressure on water governance.
MaRIUS -> interdisciplinary initiative to analyse the way in which the UK addresses drought and water scarcity issues -> when a drought occurs, they limit water usage -> but fail to implement measures prior to the drought which would likely reduce the severity of the situation -> means less stakeholders are involved as they focus on dealing with post-drought events -> more stakeholders would likely improve the process (Grecksch and Landström, 2021).

Question 17

Environmental Competency Groups -> put pressure on these companies in the UK to change drought management through a variety of ways

Answer 17

increased drought governance space and include more local stakeholders through formalized means, implement regional action plans e.g. summer 2018 drought = hosepipe ban only a threat across the northwest of England -> later called off before implementation = scared?, incorporate more local knowledge into drought management plans, and communicate drought occurrence and aims in bans more effectively – hosepipe bans are not effective (Grecksch and Landström, 2021).

Question 18

economics costs of water

Answer 18

often unseen e.g. water bottle -> marketing, commodification, labelling, water quality…

Question 19

Water and the Anthropocene

Answer 19

lacking a global water governance structure -> normative water governance to be devised and implemented -> attempted with UN Water but ineffective (Gupta et al., 2013)

Question 20

Water consumption -> 92% is from agricultural industry a) agriculture b) meat and c) milk -> China, India and then the USA are the biggest contributors = population-driven (Hoekstra and Mekonnen, 2012)

Answer 20

North America and Middle East = lower water availability rely more heavily on exports -> 1996-2005 – 1/5 of products using water were exported (Hoekstra and Mekonnen, 2012)

Question 21

water conflicts

Answer 21

Iran and Syria -> unsustainable freshwater, groundwater sources are being used as Turkey put dams up along the Tigris and Euphrates River -> limiting their access (Rodell, 2018)

Question 22

Agribusiness models

Answer 22

food systems produce and export food across the globe to ensure global food security -> no single nation is self-sufficient (Gregory et al., 2005) -> facilitated a race to the bottom exacerbated by TNCs (Lawrence, 2017).

Question 23

stress in food systems -> environmental change = impacts food security

Answer 23

Food security -> ability to have access to safe nutritious food, meeting daily requirements (UN FAO, 2006) -> 2 million currently food insecure and the number is rising

Question 24

emergence of neoliberal diets in the 1940s -> facilitated by globalisation (Lawrence, 2017)

Answer 24

Traditional food system -> modernising food system -> industrialised food system (Lawrence, 2017)

Question 25

impacts of overexploitation

Answer 25

salinisation and depletion of aquifers -> decreases soil quality permanently (McCarthy et al., 2018) -> led to the water table across the Punjab region decreasing significantly (Gregory et al., 2005) -> Saudi Arabia had an intensive crop production programme drawing on unsustainable water resources -> had to shut it down (Rodell, 2018)
ecological impacts -> 10-20k freshwater species gone extinct (Vörösmarty et al., 2010)

Question 26

climate change and food security -> will increase food demands by 50% in 2030 (Wheeler and Von Vraun, 2013)

Answer 26

2/7million already food insecure

Question 27

crop yields and C.C.

Answer 27

high latitude – increase in crop yields e.g. Canada, N. Europe and Russia -> tropical regions – negative crop yield -> changing patterns of precipitation + temperatures (Wheeler and Braun, 2013)
Pathogen expansion -> temperatures increase -> impact crop production (Schmidhuber and Tubiello, 2007)
CO2 fertilisation -> at concentrations of 550oom = 10-20% crop increase in wheat, rice and soybean and 10% increase in maize and sorghum (Schmidhuber and Tubiello, 2007)

Question 28

Food System Shock

Answer 28

Insurance Companies -> produced a report: ENSO events triggering global environmental changes -> drop in production yields and pathogens like ASR and rust spores move more readily -> drop-in production rates (Lloyd, 2015)

Question 29

problems with global frameworks

Answer 29

GN only take action when impacts are felt e.g. Antarctic Ozone hole impacting them -> only then was the response productive.

Question 30

Global Governance -> needs to ensure that the earth remains within the 9 planetary boundaries -> already exceeded some e.g. biodiversity (Rockström et al., 2009)

Answer 30

e.g. 2009 World Food Security Summit Rome -> targets for food production e.g. 2x increase in yields by 2050 (Maye and Kirwan, 2013)

Question 31

strategies to deal with C.C and food production

Answer 31

consumer driven changes e.g. no eggs, meat and dairy, calorie consumption need to decrease, drop in food waste by at least 50% and more efficient means of conducting crop production (Clark et al., 2020)
Indigenous ontologies -> methods of food production (Grayson et al., 2005)
More resilient seed types + neoliberal intensification techniques (McCarthy et al., 2018; Hompa and Woods, 2014)

Question 32

landsharing vs landsparing (Phalan et al., 2011)

Answer 32

applied the methods in crop yields and bird/tree species across southwest Ghana and N. Indian = neither strategy would be effective enough to increase biodiversity and meet food production targets but that land sparing was the most effective out of the two