University-Based Researchers as Knowledge Brokers for Climate Policies and Action.

Responding effectively to climate crisis requires strong science-policy links to be put in place. Past research on the research-policy interface indicates longstanding challenges that have become more acute in the case of climate science, since this requires multi-disciplinary approaches and faces distinctive political challenges in linking knowledge with policy. What can be learned from the experiences of university-based researchers seeking to influence policy as they try to operate in the brokering space? With this in mind, an empirical study was designed to capture the detailed views and experiences of forty researchers in four universities across four countries-Bangladesh, Germany, Uganda and UK. It found a wide range of different researcher attitudes to policy engagement, diverse methods of engaging, a preference for working with government and civil society over private sector policy actors, and a perceived need for more university support. The findings suggest a need to rethink conditions for engagement to create spaces for knowledge exchange and cooperation that can contribute to policies for societal transformation. More attention also needs to be paid to interdisciplinary research approaches, improving research connections with private sector actors, and strengthening university research links with local communities. Finally, the position of university based researchers in the Global South will require strengthening to improve North-South knowledge exchange, capacity development, and incentives for policy engagement.

Afin de répondre efficacement à la crise climatique, il est nécessaire de mettre en place des liens solides entre la science et la politique. Les recherches antérieures sur l'interface recherche-politique indiquent des défis de longue date qui sont devenus plus aigus en ce qui concerne la science du climat, car cela nécessite d'adopter des approches pluridisciplinaires et de faire face à des défis politiques bien distincts pour faire le lien entre les connaissances et les politiques. Que peut-on apprendre des expériences des chercheurs et chercheuses universitaires qui cherchent à influencer les politiques tout en essayant d'entrer en négociation ? Dans cette optique, une étude empirique a été conçue pour recueillir les points de vue et les expériences détaillés de quarante chercheur·euse·s de quatre universités réparties dans quatre pays - le Bangladesh, l'Allemagne, l'Ouganda et le Royaume-Uni. L'étude a détecté un large éventail d'attitudes différentes des chercheur·euse·s à l'égard de l'engagement politique, diverses méthodes d'engagement, une préférence pour le travail avec le gouvernement et la société civile par rapport aux acteurs politiques du secteur privé, et un besoin perçu de plus de soutien universitaire. Les résultats suggèrent la nécessité de repenser les conditions d'engagement afin de créer des espaces d'échange de connaissances et de coopération qui peuvent contribuer aux politiques de transformation sociétale. Il faut également accorder une plus grande attention aux approches de recherche interdisciplinaires, à l'amélioration des liens entre la recherche et les acteurs du secteur privé et au renforcement des liens entre la recherche universitaire et les communautés locales. Enfin, la position des chercheur·euse·s universitaires dans les pays du Sud devra être renforcée pour améliorer l'échange de connaissances Nord-Sud, le développement des capacités et la motivation à l'engagement politique.

Towards Good Water Governance: An Analysis of Jordan's National Water Strategy.

Jordan is considered one of the most water-scarce countries in the world. As a result, Jordan took several steps toward good water governance by setting goals, policies, strategies, and plans. However, several research studies show that it should be strengthened and improved. Research has shown that good water governance is necessary to achieve water security, and several frameworks have been developed to research these challenges (e.g., Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) framework). This study aims to evaluate water security governance in Jordan and identify gaps and challenges for good water governance. To achieve the research objective, various qualitative methods and analytical frameworks were used. A two-level framework was followed by combing the OECD Principles on Water Governance (2015) and the OECD Water Governance Indicator Framework (2018) to analyze Jordan's National Water Strategy 2016-2025 (NWS) through direct content analysis. The study findings showed that Jordan's NWS managed to capture to some extent, good water governance principles for Policy Framework, but failed to provide Governance Mechanisms for implementation. Furthermore, the study showed that the water governance Institutional Setup is relatively well established. Regarding the implementation and functionality of the principles analyzed, the performance of each of the principles tended to vary. The study revealed that Jordan should take serious steps toward a water governance reform that puts good water governance principles and practices in the center, to achieve water security.

Evaluating tropical drought risk by combining open access gridded vulnerability and hazard data products.

Droughts are causing severe damages to tropical countries worldwide. Although water abundant, their resilience to water shortages during dry periods is often low. As there is little knowledge about tropical drought characteristics, reliable methodologies to evaluate drought risk in data scarce tropical regions are needed. We combined drought hazard and vulnerability related data to assess drought risk in four rural tropical study regions, the Muriaé basin, Southeast Brazil, the Tempisque-Bebedero basin in Costa Rica, the upper part of the Magdalena basin, Colombia and the Srepok, shared by Cambodia and Vietnam. Drought hazard was analyzed using the variables daily river discharge, precipitation and vegetation condition. Drought vulnerability was assessed based on regionally available socioeconomic data. Besides illustrating the relative severity of each indicator value, we developed drought risk maps combining hazard and vulnerability for each grid-cell. While for the Muriaé, our results identified the downstream area as being exposed to severe drought risk, the Tempisque showed highest risk along the major streams and related irrigation systems. Risk hotspots in the Upper Magdalena were found in the central valley and the dryer Southeast and in the Srepok in the agricultural areas of Vietnam and downstream Cambodia. Local scientists and stakeholders have validated our results and we believe that our drought risk assessment methodology for data scarce and rural tropical regions offers a holistic, science based and innovative framework to generate relevant drought related information. Being applied to other tropical catchments, the approaches described in this article will enable the selection of data sets, indices and their classification - depending on basin size, spatial resolution and seasonality. At its current stage, the outcomes of this study provide relevant information for regional planners and water managers dealing with the control of future drought disasters in tropical regions.

Assessing the interaction of land cover/land use dynamics, climate extremes and food systems in Uganda.

Rainfed agriculture is Uganda's mainstay across the different regions of its territory. Farmland area has been reported to increase despite agriculture's vulnerability to climate variations. This great interplay among land-use dynamics, climate extremes, and food systems is, however, understudied. The current research, therefore, explores this interaction at both national and regional scales for the period between 2001 and 2017. Following an approach that employs remote sensing datasets on Net Primary Productivity (NPP), land cover types, drought indices, and climate variables, i.e. precipitation, temperature, and evapotranspiration, impacts of climate extremes and land cover changes on food production have been analysed. Similarly, the performance of ten major crops in Uganda over the last 6 decades has been detected using the Regime Shift technique. Key findings, thereof, indicate that NPP in farmlands is sensitive to climate variability, and this sensitivity varies spatially among the regions. Forests and permanent wetlands have been massively changed into farmlands, hence, moving a step forward into offsetting food insecurity but a step backward in preserving ecosystem services, espcially mitigating climate change. Furthermore, the noticeable increase in the total production of the major crops in Uganda seems to be derived mainly by the increase in area harvested affirming the step towards food security. However, the influences, thereof, may aggravate climate change impacts especially through reversing carbon sinks into carbon sources. This reversal could impact the crop yields further. Contrastingly, results from some crops illustrate the potential to increase crop production without necessarily expanding the cropland area. Therefore, Uganda may, instead, consider exploiting the maximum yield potential of crops through, for instance, augmenting rainfed agriculture with irrigation and enforcing effective policies rather than expanding farmland area. These findings collectively contribute further to our understanding of the importance of policies that ensure food security but at the same time preserve a healthy environment.

Socioeconomic, agricultural, and individual factors influencing farmers' perceptions and willingness of compost production and use: an evidence from Wadi al-Far'a Watershed-Palestine.

In Palestine, open dumping and/or burning the waste, including agricultural waste, are prevalent practices resulting in emitting leachate and acidifying greenhouse gases. Composting the agricultural waste can reduce emissions and provide 'compost' as an organic fertilizer and soil amendment; yet, it has not been implemented at the national level. To develop a local marketing strategy for compost, this study views a need to identify farmers' perceptions and willingness of compost production and use in agriculture and examine various socioeconomic, agricultural, and individual factors shaping them. The case of Wadi al-Far'a watershed (WFW) is investigated, where farmers practice inappropriate waste disposal and overuse of agrochemicals. A semi-structured questionnaire is administered to 409 farmers through face-to-face interviews. Descriptive statistics, bivariate analyses, Chi-square test, and binary logistic regression are used for data analysis. High acceptance level (84%) is disclosed among farmers in WFW for the hypothetical idea of producing and using compost. Farmers also have high, yet lower, willingness level (63.6%) of the more salient option of producing compost themselves and using it in agriculture. Tenure systems, large cultivated areas, rainfed irrigation, and lack of access to training sessions inhibit farmers' acceptance of the idea of compost production (overall p value = 0.000). Large cultivated areas and rainfed irrigation is also associated with farmers' unwillingness to produce compost, besides high household monthly income, animal or mixed animal-plant farming, experience in compost production, and use of pesticides (overall p value = 0.000).

Interactions between freshwater ecosystem services and land cover changes in southern Bangladesh: A perspective from short-term (seasonal) and long-term (1973-2014) scale.

We aimed to assess the long-term (1973-2014) and short-term (pre- and post-monsoon) quantities, values and changes of freshwater ecosystem services (FES) in the wetland areas of Southern Bangladesh using land cover change as a proxy indicator. Bangladesh is a sub-tropical country that receives >80% of its annual rainfall during the monsoon and post-monsoon periods, between the months of June and November. Therefore, it could be hypothesized that the monsoon and post-monsoon rainfalls significantly contribute to altering the local land cover, and consequently change the FES. Our multi-stage methodology, among others, included; (i) participatory FES identification (ii) long-term and seasonal land cover analysis using Remote Sensing and GIS, and (iii) assessing FES quantities and values using an expert-developed FES Matrix. The results identified 14 major FES; seven provisioning, six regulating and one cultural service. The results showed that over the last 40 years, significant land cover transformations occurred in the study area e.g. increase of agricultural land, rural vegetation with settlement (RVS) in exchange of wetlands, along with significant seasonal variations include increase of wetland in the post-monsoon seasons and agricultural land in the pre-monsoon seasons. Such changes contributed to the decrease of total long-term FES quantities and economic values including a significant reduction of regulating and provisioning services. Post-monsoon seasons experienced increased quantities of regulating services (e.g. soil fertility, water purification and biodiversity), mainly as a result of additional rainfall, although its overall quantities considerably decreased over the long-term. The results of the study highlighted the importance of prudent land management policies at rural scales for better ecosystem services and conservation.

Catchment response to climate and land use changes in the Upper Blue Nile sub-basins, Ethiopia.

The impacts of climate and land development on streamflow and water balance components were analyzed in the Tana and Beles watersheds by using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). Streamflow response to simultaneous future land-use and land-cover (fLULC) and climate change (fCC) scenarios on the seasonal scale varied among the key water abstraction locations. The General Circulation Models (GCMs) average simulation of short-term climate indicated wetter and warmer climatic condition compared to that in the baseline period (1971/1980-2013). The near-future climate scenario would intensify extreme flow by increasing rainy season flow and reducing dry period flow. However, conversion of cultivation land on steep slope into forest might mitigate these extreme flows. At the outlet of Tana watershed, streamflow response would be amplified under concurrent scenarios of fLULC and fCC; but the streamflow would have an augmenting response at the outlet of the Beles watershed. Compared to response due to fCC alone, the streamflow and surface runoff components under combined fLULC and fCC scenarios would be alleviated in sub-catchments subject to conversion of cultivation in steep slope into forest land. The present results have significances for water resource management and land use planning in the Tana and Beles watersheds, and for other regions encountering identical pressures from climate change and LULC dynamics. In view of ongoing land use and climate dynamics, environmental policies must be carried out to cope with the potential changes of hydrologic regime. Moreover, catchment management should be adapted to changing hydrological regimes at different water abstraction points.

Quantifying and evaluating the impacts of cooperation in transboundary river basins on the Water-Energy-Food nexus: The Blue Nile Basin.

Efficient utilization of the limited Water, Energy, and Food (WEF) resources in stressed transboundary river basins requires understanding their interlinkages in different transboundary cooperation conditions. The Blue Nile Basin, a transboundary river basin between Ethiopia and Sudan, is used to illustrate the impacts of cooperation between riparian countries on the Water-Energy-Food nexus (WEF nexus). These impacts are quantified and evaluated using a daily model that simulates hydrological processes, irrigation water requirements, and water allocation to hydro-energy generation and irrigation water supply. Satellite-based rainfall data are evaluated and applied as a boundary condition to model the hydrological processes. The model is used to determine changes in the long-term economic gain (i.e. after infrastructure development plans are implemented and in steady operation) for each of Sudan and Ethiopia independently, and for the Blue Nile Basin from WEF in 120 scenarios. Those scenarios result from combinations of three cooperation states: unilateral action, coordination, and collaboration; and infrastructure development settings including the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and planned irrigation schemes in Sudan. The results show that the economic gain of the Blue Nile Basin from WEF increases with raising the cooperation level between Ethiopia and Sudan to collaboration. However, the economic gain of each riparian country does not necessarily follow the same pattern as the economic gain of the basin.

Spatio-temporal variations in climate, primary productivity and efficiency of water and carbon use of the land cover types in Sudan and Ethiopia.

The impact of climate variability on the Net Primary Productivity (NPP) of different land cover types and the reaction of NPP to drought conditions are still unclear, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. This research utilizes public-domain data for the period 2000 through 2013 to analyze these aspects for several land cover types in Sudan and Ethiopia, as examples of data-scarce countries. Spatio-temporal variation in NPP, water use efficiency (WUE) and carbon use efficiency (CUE) for several land covers were correlated with variations in precipitation, temperature and drought at different time scales, i.e. 1, 3, 6 and 12months using Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) datasets. WUE and CUE were estimated as the ratios of NPP to actual evapotranspiration and NPP to Gross Primary Productivity (GPP), respectively. Results of this study revealed that NPP, WUE and CUE of the different land cover types in Ethiopia have higher magnitudes than their counterparts in Sudan. Moreover, they exhibit higher sensitivity to drought and variation in precipitation. Whereas savannah represents the most sensitive land cover to drought, croplands and permanent wetlands are the least sensitive ones. The inter-annual variation in NPP, WUE and CUE in Ethiopia is likely to be driven by a drought of time scale of three months. No statistically significant correlation was found for Sudan between the inter-annual variations in these indicators with drought at any of the time scales considered in the study. Our findings are useful from the view point of both food security for a growing population and mitigation to climate change as discussed in the present study.

Hydrological responses to land use/cover changes in the source region of the Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia.

Understanding how changes in distinctive land use/land cover (LULC) types influence the basin hydrology would greatly improve the predictability of the hydrological consequences of LULC dynamics for sustainable water resource management. As the main flow contributor to the River Nile, quantifying the effect of LULC change on water resources in the source regions is very important for the assessment of water resources availability and management downstream in the riparian states in general and the study watersheds in particular. In this study, an integrated approach comprising hydrological modeling and partial least squares regression (PLSR) was used to quantify the contributions of changes in individual LULC classes to changes in hydrological components. Two watersheds, namely Lake Tana and Beles in the Upper Blue Nile Basin in Ethiopia, were considered for the conduction of hydrological modeling using LULC maps and the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). In the Tana sub-basin, it is found that expansion of cultivation land and decline in woody shrub are the major contributors to the rise in surface run-off and to the decline in the groundwater component. Similarly, decline of woodland and expansion of cultivation land are the major contributors to the increase in surface run-off and water yield in the Beles sub-basin. Increased run-off and reduced baseflow and actual evapotranspiration would have negative impacts on water resources, especially in relation to erosion and sedimentation in the upper Blue Nile River Basin. As a result, expansion of cultivation land and decline in woody shrub/woodland appear to be major environmental stressors affecting local water resources. The wider implications of the hydrological changes on the Easter Nile water resources are briefly discussed. The approach to assessing changes in basin hydrology could generally be applied to a variety of other watersheds for which temporal digital LULC maps are available.

Transdisciplinary research in support of land and water management in China and Southeast Asia: evaluation of four research projects.

Transdisciplinary research (TDR) aims at identifying implementable solutions to difficult sustainability problems and at fostering social learning. It requires a well-managed collaboration among multidisciplinary scientists and multisectoral stakeholders. Performing TDR is challenging, particularly for foreign researchers working in countries with different institutional and socio-cultural conditions. There is a need to synthesize and share experience among researchers as well as practitioners regarding how TDR can be conducted under specific contexts. In this paper, we aim to evaluate and synthesize our unique experience in conducting TDR projects in Asia. We applied guiding principles of TDR to conduct a formative evaluation of four consortium projects on sustainable land and water management in China, the Philippines, and Vietnam. In all projects, local political conditions restricted the set of stakeholders that could be involved in the research processes. The set of involved stakeholders was also affected by the fact that stakeholders in most cases only participate if they belong to the personal network of the project leaders. Language barriers hampered effective communication between foreign researchers and stakeholders in all projects and thus knowledge integration. The TDR approach and its specific methods were adapted to respond to the specific cultural, social, and political conditions in the research areas, also with the aim to promote trust and interest of the stakeholders throughout the project. Additionally, various measures were implemented to promote collaboration among disciplinary scientists. Based on lessons learned, we provide specific recommendations for the design and implementation of TDR projects in particular in Asia.

Mobile devices for community-based REDD+ monitoring: a case study for Central Vietnam.

Monitoring tropical deforestation and forest degradation is one of the central elements for the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in developing countries (REDD+) scheme. Current arrangements for monitoring are based on remote sensing and field measurements. Since monitoring is the periodic process of assessing forest stands properties with respect to reference data, adopting the current REDD+ requirements for implementing monitoring at national levels is a challenging task. Recently, the advancement in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and mobile devices has enabled local communities to monitor their forest in a basic resource setting such as no or slow internet connection link, limited power supply, etc. Despite the potential, the use of mobile device system for community based monitoring (CBM) is still exceptional and faces implementation challenges. This paper presents an integrated data collection system based on mobile devices that streamlines the community-based forest monitoring data collection, transmission and visualization process. This paper also assesses the accuracy and reliability of CBM data and proposes a way to fit them into national REDD+ Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) scheme. The system performance is evaluated at Tra Bui commune, Quang Nam province, Central Vietnam, where forest carbon and change activities were tracked. The results show that the local community is able to provide data with accuracy comparable to expert measurements (index of agreement greater than 0.88), but against lower costs. Furthermore, the results confirm that communities are more effective to monitor small scale forest degradation due to subsistence fuel wood collection and selective logging, than high resolution remote sensing SPOT imagery.