Stakeholder participation is a foundation of good water governance. Good groundwater governance typically involves the co-production of knowledge about the groundwater system. Models provide a vehicle for producing this knowledge, as well as a boundary object around which scientists and stakeholders can convene the co-production process. Through co-production, stakeholders and scientific experts can engage in exchanges that create system knowledge not otherwise achievable. The process involves one-way transfer of information, active two-way conversations, and integration of multiple kinds of knowledge into shared understanding. In the Upper Santa Cruz River basin in Arizona, USA, the University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) convened a project aimed at providing scientific underpinnings for groundwater planning and management. This project, entitled Groundwater, Climate, and Stakeholder Engagement, serves as a case study employing the first two stages of knowledge co-production using a hydrological model. Through an iterative process that included two-way communication, stakeholders provided critical input to hydrologic modeling analyses. Acting as a bridging organization, the WRRC facilitated a co-production process, involving location-specific and transferability workshops, which resulted in new knowledge and capacity for applying the model to novel problems.

This dissertation explores the relationship between remembrance and citizen humanities. Combining the study of three qualitative empirical sources (an explorative comparison of five citizen humanities projects, an autonetnography conducted in one of the projects and the observation and analysis of the interaction of the online community in said project) the epistemic culture in citizen humanities and how remembrance is enacted in this context are addressed. The findings indicate that the participatory epistemic culture inherent to the citizen humanities allows a limited number of participants to transcend the roles that are assigned as mere data collectors, pursuing their own independent research projects. In this context, remembrance takes place in two levels, first by creating cultural mnemonic manifestations in the form of searchable metadata, transcribed data, digitized objects, images and rerecorded stories and second, by the act of creating knowledge and sharing it with the community. Finally, it is suggested that in the context of the citizen humanities, the traditional dichotomy of history vs. memory is challenged by the figure of the citizen historian, as this subject creates historical knowledge but also enacts mnemonic practices exemplified by the creation of cultural mnemonic manifestations and by recalling, recognizing, and localizing memories, both their own and from others.

Green infrastructure (GI) is increasingly being adopted in urban planning as its multifunctionality presents opportunities to address several environmental issues faced by cities. However, significant barriers remain to the widespread implementation of GI. In the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the dominance of engineering knowledge systems hinders GI from being brought to the forefront of infrastructural planning and decision-making processes. This dominance, and opportunistic implementation, also prevent GI from being equitably distributed across the city; thus, neglecting the needs of local equity-denied groups. To address the inequitable and engineering-dominated planning and decision-making processes around GI, this study aims to determine how GI and social equity can play a larger role in municipal operations. Through a literature review, document analysis, and key informant interviews, the relations between GI and equity are examined, as well as the extent to which the two are prioritized in planning and decision-making processes in the City of Vancouver. The concept of urban resilience is proposed as a way to bridge knowledge gaps, as its ability to act as both a boundary object and bridging concept can help to foster transdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge co- production. The findings highlight the need for practitioners to diversify their knowledge systems in order to successfully increase GI uptake and incorporate equity into practice. To enhance equitable GI practices within the City of Vancouver, staff are recommended to internalize and conceptualize equity in their personal and professional lives before attempting to operationalize it. This paper develops a set of equity criteria, which centre three dimensions of social equity: distributional, recognitional, and procedural equity, to help practitioners operationalize equity in GI project evaluations. A set of variables to aid in the identification of local equity-denied groups is also presented. As municipalities become increasingly aware of the disproportionate impacts felt by equity-denied groups, the hope is that this research will inform more equitable distributions of GI to address their needs.

abstract: Cities are in need of radical knowledge system innovations and designs in the age of the Anthropocene. Cities are complex sites of interactions across social, ecological, and technological dimensions. Cities are also experiencing rapidly changing and intractable environmental conditions. Given uncertain and incomplete knowledge of both future environmental conditions and the outcomes of urban resilience efforts, today’s knowledge systems are unequipped to generate the knowledge and wisdom needed to act. As such, cities must modernize the knowledge infrastructure underpinning today’s complex urban systems. The principal objective of this dissertation is to make the case for, and guide, the vital knowledge system innovations that coastal cities need in order to build more resilient urban futures. Chapter 2 demonstrates the use of knowledge systems analysis as a tool to stress-test and upgrade the Federal Emergency Management Agency flood mapping knowledge system that drives flood resilience planning and decision-making in New York City. In Chapter 3, a conceptual framework is constructed for the design and analysis of knowledge co-production by integrating concepts across the co-production and urban social-ecological-technological systems literatures. In Chapter 4, the conceptual framework is used to analyze two case studies of knowledge co-production in the Miami Metropolitan Area to better inform decisions for how and when to employ co-production as a tool to achieve sustainability and resilience outcomes. In Chapter 5, six propositions are presented – derived from a synthesis of the literature and the three empirical cases – that knowledge professionals can employ to create, facilitate, and scale up knowledge system innovations: flatten knowledge hierarchies; create plural and positive visions of the future; construct knowledge co-production to achieve desired outcomes; acknowledge and anticipate the influence of power and authority; build anticipatory capacities to act under deep uncertainty; and identify and invest in knowledge innovations. While these six propositions apply to the context of coastal cities and flood resilience, most can also be useful to facilitate knowledge innovations to adapt to other complex and intractable environmental problems. Cities must move swiftly to create and catalyze knowledge system innovations given the scale of climate impacts and rapidly changing environmental conditions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Sustainability 2020

ForumCiv is an international development organization working to create a just and sustainable world where all people have the power to effect change. Through this online action research, a novel method to engage with for Environmental Justice (EJ) was introduced to ForumCiv.   A first iteration of the novel online methodology known as the Environmental Rights Toolkit (ERT) was carried out.  As action research, this project is concerned with theory and practice, understanding and change. The aim is to produce knowledge informing ForumCiv how to unpack EJ. The online method embraces a participatory paradigm, which is rights-based and equipped with the content from the three pillars of environmental democracy. Throughout this action research, the connection between key aspects of environmental democracy and environmental justice was outlined.  The results indicate a connection between environmental democracy and environmental justice.  Environmental democracy facilitates EJ in its different forms. EJ can be perceived as distributive environmental justice, procedural environmental justice, and environmental justice as recognition. These different forms are highly interrelated, therefore acting for one supports the realization of the other. Similarly, the decline of one lead to the decline of the others.  Engaging with the access rights can serve to modify power dynamics in certain contexts facilitating the fulfilment of one or more aspects of EJ. The insights from this action research can be seen under two perspectives, theory, and practice. The practice is supported by theory. A novel practice was introduced to ForumCiv and at the same time, this practice comes together with  visions from EJ. To further mainstream EJ in the work of the organization it is necessary that some key areas further integrate the conceptualizations made.