Water Resources, Rights and Management + Food Flashcards
EG
water is valued as a resource and mechanism to export goods
COP27 -> strategies to ensure water security it met for agricultural development and irrigation
Water and Rights
River Whanganui -> been given personhood (O’Donell ..)
Water Governance
the mechanisms and actors involved in managing and regulating water (Grecksch, 2014)
water governance tends to be top-down as the state controls taxes
and provides them the means to implement governance -> though nonstate actors can contribute
implementing sustainable water governance is in crisis Gupta and Pahl-Wostl, 2013)
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)
governance can be split into normative governance = theory of governments and policy
and analytical governance = the way this theory can be effectively implemented
C.C. threats to water governance
flooding, storms, precipitation patterns, pressures from pop growth, urbanisation, land-use change
water governance and scale
issues often transboundary = crosses political units (Gupa et al., 2013)
addressing water governance and scale
River Boundary Organisations (RBOs) to better manage rivers acting as regional and global sources of water governance (Gupta et al., 2013)
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)
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)
improvements to IWRM via the STEER approach
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)
equity and water
water scarce regions expected to produce high-water-demand crops = exported elsewhere -> results in socio-political impacts across regions (Gupta et al., 2013)
droughts in the uk
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
Water Governance UK -> privatisation
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)
UK Water Governance criticisms (1)
25% of London water = lost, sewage in rivers, during droughts water companies do not want to restrict people’s water
UK Water Governance criticisms (2)
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).
Environmental Competency Groups -> put pressure on these companies in the UK to change drought management through a variety of ways
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).
economics costs of water
often unseen e.g. water bottle -> marketing, commodification, labelling, water quality…
Water and the Anthropocene
lacking a global water governance structure -> normative water governance to be devised and implemented -> attempted with UN Water but ineffective (Gupta et al., 2013)
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)
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)
water conflicts
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)
Agribusiness models
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).
stress in food systems -> environmental change = impacts food security
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
emergence of neoliberal diets in the 1940s -> facilitated by globalisation (Lawrence, 2017)
Traditional food system -> modernising food system -> industrialised food system (Lawrence, 2017)
impacts of overexploitation
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)
climate change and food security -> will increase food demands by 50% in 2030 (Wheeler and Von Vraun, 2013)
2/7million already food insecure
crop yields and C.C.
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)
Food System Shock
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)
problems with global frameworks
GN only take action when impacts are felt e.g. Antarctic Ozone hole impacting them -> only then was the response productive.
Global Governance -> needs to ensure that the earth remains within the 9 planetary boundaries -> already exceeded some e.g. biodiversity (Rockström et al., 2009)
e.g. 2009 World Food Security Summit Rome -> targets for food production e.g. 2x increase in yields by 2050 (Maye and Kirwan, 2013)
strategies to deal with C.C and food production
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)
landsharing vs landsparing (Phalan et al., 2011)
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
