<p>Currently, there is a great rampage among conservationists looking for useful approaches that can be used to bring efficiency towards conservation of global natural ecosystems. But which approach can be really effective to halt destruction of a particular natural ecosystem where the local people depend on the same ecosystem resources for their livelihoods? Do the local communities accept to refrain themselves from using natural ecosystem resources (loss of free access), which they believe is under their local territory since they are born, without having alternatives that will replace and improve economic gain of their livelihoods? Are the consumers who benefited from the ecosystem services always willing to compensate local communities around natural ecosystem as a means of replacing what they lose?</p><p>This study looks at the reliability of Payment for Water Environmental Services (PWES) approach at Kiwengwa-Pongwe Forest Reserve (KPFR) as a device aimed at promoting the sustainable management of KPFR watershed resources without undermining livelihoods of the Kiwengwa-Pongwe local communities. Hoteliers along the Kiwengwa-Pongwe Tourist Area (KPTA) are the potential customers benefiting from water resources found in the KPFR, which is claimed to be deteriorated by the intensity of the livelihood activities of Kiwengwa-Pongwe (KP) local communities. Based on Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), KPTA hoteliers were asked about the amount they would be willing to pay as maximum (WTP) for improvement of water services through sustainable management of watershed areas in KPFR. On the other hand, KP communities were asked what level of compensation they would be willing to accept as minimum amount (WTA) for a loss of free access to KPFR.</p><p>Both hoteliers (75 %) and KP communities (91 %) agreed on the establishment of the PWES system. However, there were differences between amount accepted by KP communities (10 US$ per 200 litres) and the amount claimed to be paid by hoteliers (1US$ per 200 litres), thus giving a gap of 9US$. Based on the overall study findings and experiences from other parts of the world where similar systems have been implemented, this issue is negotiable. It is upon existing KPFR management team and proposed board from Zanzibar water authority to launch a constructive dialogue between stakeholders to reach the amount that can be used as compensation causing no harm to both parts and without compromising the sustainable management of KPFR.</p>

<p>Zambia is a highly urbanized country with 60% of its urban population residing in low cost areas also called peri-urban, slum or informal settlements. The increase in urban population attributed to rapid migration and urbanization due to political and economic changes has taken a toll on service provision as the infrastructure development and service provision has failed to meet the demand. For the 33 peri-urban areas in Lusaka, the water supply and sanitation has been poor, inadequate and unreliable with the coverage being slightly above 50% for water while 90% of the urban population does not have access to the much needed sanitation. The low coverage is a result of lack the financial capacity on the part of the service providers to extend services to un served areas.</p><p>This research focuses on the strategies to provide sustainable water and sanitation services to peri-urban areas to ensure improved accessibility through the expansion of infrastructure and attainment of full cost recovery. In this era of increasing migration to unplanned settlements where the services are inadequate, alternatives to public provision of water and sanitation services need to be put in place. One of the alternatives is the public-private partnership which encompasses the society, private and the civil society. As has been found in the study the best alternative should not only be completely bottom up but should also be more demand driven and be able to provide for reater contributions from the affected communities.</p><p>The hypothesis of the study is to ascertain if provision of water supply to the Peri-Urban Areas (PUAs) can be achieved through the partnership between the water utility and the small scale water providers. Therefore, the objectives of the research are to: evaluate and compare the current service provision to the peri-urban areas by the utility and small scale providers in terms of technical, social and institutional arrangements and determine the best way of ensuring sustained service provision to peri urban areas and show how partnership can be the best solution to improving service delivery to these areas.</p><p>Service provision in PUAs can not be achieved without the involvement of all the stakeholders especially the community who are also the users and whose major role is paying for the service to enhance sustainability. In this study the Small Scale Water Providers (SSWP) users were found to be satisfied with the service provided than the utility users who felt that more needed to be done. The two providers are found to have different strengths which when combined would enhance service provision. The collaboration between utility with its competence in water supply, technical installations, water quality testing and SSWP with theirs in community involvement, cost recovery, effective operation and maintenance and demand driven water schemes have to be merged to achieve the intended goal and it is also an indication that the two can complement each other. Utility should therefore consider opening investment accounts for all the areas so as to detach PUAs needs from the general plan and eventually budget as they would be self sustaining and enhance  illingness to pay for the users. The SSWP should therefore be viewed as partners by all and licensing should be considered by the government for the benefit of the urban poor.</p>

<p>Zambia is a highly urbanized country with 60% of its urban population residing in low cost areas also called peri-urban, slum or informal settlements. The increase in urban population attributed to rapid migration and urbanization due to political and economic changes has taken a toll on service provision as the infrastructure development and service provision has failed to meet the demand. For the 33 peri-urban areas in Lusaka, the water supply and sanitation has been poor, inadequate and unreliable with the coverage being slightly above 50% for water while 90% of the urban population does not have access to the much needed sanitation. The low coverage is a result of lack the financial capacity on the part of the service providers to extend services to un served areas.</p><p>This research focuses on the strategies to provide sustainable water and sanitation services to peri-urban areas to ensure improved accessibility through the expansion of infrastructure and attainment of full cost recovery. In this era of increasing migration to unplanned settlements where the services are inadequate, alternatives to public provision of water and sanitation services need to be put in place. One of the alternatives is the public-private partnership which encompasses the society, private and the civil society. As has been found in the study the best alternative should not only be completely bottom up but should also be more demand driven and be able to provide for greater contributions from the affected communities.</p><p>The hypothesis of the study is to ascertain if provision of water supply to the Peri-Urban Areas (PUAs) can be achieved through the partnership between the water utility and the small scale water providers. Therefore, the objectives of the research are to: evaluate and compare the current service provision to the peri-urban areas by the utility and small scale providers in terms of technical, social and institutional arrangements and determine the best way of ensuring sustained service provision to peri urban areas and show how partnership can be the best solution to improving service delivery to these areas.</p><p>Service provision in PUAs can not be achieved without the involvement of all the stakeholders especially the community who are also the users and whose major role is paying for the service to enhance sustainability. In this study the Small Scale Water Providers (SSWP) users were found to be satisfied with the service provided than the utility users who felt that more needed to be done. The two providers are found to have different strengths which when combined would enhance service provision. The collaboration between utility with its competence in water supply, technical installations, water quality testing and SSWP with theirs in community involvement, cost recovery, effective operation and maintenance and demand driven water schemes have to be merged to achieve the intended goal and it is also an indication that the two can complement each other. Utility should therefore consider opening investment accounts for all the areas so as to detach PUAs needs from the general plan and eventually budget as they would be self sustaining and enhance willingness to pay for the users. The SSWP should therefore be viewed as partners by all and licensing should be considered by the government for the benefit of the urban poor.</p>

The focus of this thesis is on foreign-policy decision-making in circumstances of water scarcity. In particular the study focuses on how the issue of water has been treated in the interstate negotiations within the Peace Process between Israel and the Palestinians and Israel and Jordan. It also analyses the implementation phase. The aim of this study is to analyse why and under what conditions co-operation has taken place and how it has functioned in the water sector. As such the study moves beyond the vast quantitative material which states that transboundary water co-operation does occur by exploring why co-operation has occurred in the Jordan River Basin. Based on an overall actor-structure framework the factors deemed to be important in affecting the process and outcome are identified. The development of a shared system of norms, rules and procedures for how to manage the water resource are seen as a vital explanatory variable for the water co-operation in the Jordan River Basin. It is concluded that the water negotiations, both between Israel and the Palestinians and between Israel and Jordan have been intimately linked to the other issues on the negotiation table. Further-more, it is concluded that water has been sub-ordinate to other politically more salient questions in the negotiations. The thesis contributes to the body of research on water in the Jordan River Basin in three ways. First, it provides and empirical overview of the implementation process of the water elements of the Peace Treaty between Israel and Jordan and of article 40 (which deals with water) of the Interim Agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Second, the thesis has analysed the role that scientific experts play in the water negotiations. Expert advice has been used in the negotiations and can be said to be important in that it reduces uncertainty for decision-makers as well as provide tools with which to legitimise political decisions. Third, the thesis contributes to the understanding of why the parties in the Jordan River Basin have chosen co-operative strategies rather than resorting to conflictual behaviour to handle their shared waters. Of key importance in this respect is that shared water is an interdependent resource. Thus mutual dependence on a shared resource stimulates and reinforces the need for cooperation.

This study deals with the Kinh (or Viet) majority people who have migrated from the lowland Red River Delta to the mountainous areas of northern Viet Nam, and their adjustment to a new social and physical environment. Its aim is to analyse the social and cultural consequences for these migrants when settling in communities populated with people who belong to the national ethnic minorities (the Tày, the Giay and the Ngan peoples). Focus is on impacts in new interactive situations. The case is a special one in that it focuses on majority people's adaptation to minorities, and to a lesser extent vice versa. The Kinhs' view of how a "civilised" landscape ought to look like and how to utilise the natural resources therein demonstrated to be a central theme when discussing restructuring of the migrants' livelihood. This fact indicates the cultural dimension in the exploitation of the natural landscape and the reconstruction of the subsistence system. In the process of adaptation to a new social environment (as well as to a new physical one), social interactions between the Kinh and the ethnic minorities have proven to be important steps towards integration. One factor that turned out to be decisive in the integration process is the harmonising of life cycle ceremonies (especially weddings and funerals) between the Kinh and the minorities. New knowledge is accumulated locally, based on pooled experience. The study concerns how new knowledge on natural resources management is formed through a mixture of the migrants' knowledge from the Red River Delta and the minorities' knowledge of the local area. With a background in the delta area the Kinh brought the old knowledge of advanced wet rice production with them when migrating to the highlands. The facts show that the influence on the subsistence system has not been a one-way flow. That is, not only has the Kinh changed the minorities' agriculture system, but also the minorities' systems have had an impact on the Kinhs' system so that it now is more adapted to the conditions in the highlands.

Our society changed, but the urban water and sanitation system of today is roughly the same as it was 100 years ago. The system is designed for, developed from and sustained by human activities, and has since its introduction affected household patterns of routine activities. The urban water and sanitation system is now being criticised for not being sustainable due to excessive material, energy and chemical use, and failure to recycle and reuse resources. Altering household practices is perceived as one important step towards improved sustainability. In this study, two changes in water and sanitation arrangements at the household level are analysed: individual meters for volumetric billing of hot and cold water, and dry toilets with separate collection of urine and faeces. These arrangements increase system transparency, and their proponents believe that the arrangements enhance resource recycling and/or rsource savings. However, success in this regard can only be achieved if accompanied by appropriate household routines. The extent to which such appropriate routines come about and why (not) is the focus of attention in this study; the aim is to describe and analyse the interaction between householder routines and changes in water and sanitation arrangements. This study takes as its starting point household everyday life. A methodological combination of time-diaries, interviews, physical measurements and simple observations is developed and implemented in two cases; the housing area Ringdansen with flats (volumetric billing) and the collective Gebers based on an ecological way of life (dry toilets). The theoretical approach is developed from time-geography and culture analysis. The methodological and theoretical approaches have proven useful and can be developed further. Household responded differently to the volumetric billing in Ringdansen, but in general, no sweeping routine changes took place in the households. A comparison of average total water usage per household (at an aggregated level) between the two cases, showed no significant difference. Water-use routines are also similar in the two areas, even though variations appear between households. There seems to be a socio-culturally defined lower limit for water use, regarded as necessary for maintaining sufficient standards of cleanliness and comfort, irrespective of the influence of ecological or economic incentives. Differences in household composition, built-in technical arrangements and existence of a garden (Gebers) explain the differences in hot and cold water usage between the two areas. The dry toilet was shown to have a decisive impact on toilet disposal routines; only biodegradable waste products are thrown into it and the cleaning agents are environmentally friendly toilet disposal routines that reach beyond the 'good' routines evolving from environmental concern. The relationship between changes in water and sanitation arrangements and householder routines may be expressed as follows: an extensive change in arrangements, either technical/physical, organisational and/or economical, results in more radical routine changes, and more so if combined. However, the improvement as regard ecological sustainability is conditional on what is socio-culturally accepted - social sustainability.

The story of phosphorus began with the search for the philosopher’s stone, and centuries later the critical role of phosphorus in soil fertility and crop growth was highlighted. Eventually, phosphorus was implicated in the global environmental challenge of eutrophication. Now, we are on the brink of yet another emerging chapter in the story: global phosphorus scarcity linked to food security. Through a transdisciplinary and systemic inquiry, this thesis has analyzed, reconceptualized and synthesized the physical and institutional dimensions of global phosphorus scarcity in the context of food security, leading to a new framing, ‘phosphorus security’ to guide future work towards a more sustainable and food secure pathway. In a world which will be home to nine billion people by the middle of this century, producing enough food and other vital resources is likely to be a substantial challenge for humanity. Phosphorus, together with nitrogen and potassium, is an essential plant nutrient. It is applied to agricultural soils in fertilizers to maintain high crop yields. Phosphorus has no substitute in food production. Therefore, securing the long-term availability and accessibility of phosphorus is crucial to global food security. However the major source of phosphorus today, phosphate rock, is a non-renewable resource and high quality reserves are becoming increasingly scarce. This thesis estimates peak phosphorus to occur before 2035, after which demand will exceed supply. Phosphorus scarcity is defined by more than just physical scarcity of phosphate rock and this thesis develops five important dimensions. For example, there is a scarcity of management of phosphorus throughout the entire food production and consumption system: the global phosphorus flows analysis found that only 20% of phosphorus in phosphate rock mined for food production actually reaches the food consumed by the global population due to substantial inefficiencies and losses from mine to field to fork. There is also an economic scarcity, where for example, while all the world’s farmers need access to sufficient fertilizers, only those with sufficient purchasing power can access fertilizer markets. Institutional scarcity, such as the lack of governance structures at the international level that explicitly aim to ensure long-term availability of and access to global phosphorus resources for food production that has led to ineffective and fragmented governance of phosphorus, including a lack of: overall coordination, monitoring and feedback, clear roles and responsibilities, long-term planning and equitable distribution. Finally, geopolitical scarcity arising from 90% of the world’s remaining high-grade phosphate rock reserves being controlled by just five countries (a majority of which are subject to geopolitical tensions) can limit the availability of phosphorus on the market and raises serious ethical questions. The long-term future scenarios presented in this thesis indicate that meeting future global food demand will likely require a substantial reduction in the global demand for phosphorus through not only improved efficient use of phosphorus in agriculture, but also through changing diets and increasing efficiency in the food chain. The unavoidable demand for phosphorus could then be met through a high recovery and reuse rate of all sources of phosphorus (crop residues, food waste, manure, excreta) and other sources including some phosphate rock. A ‘hard-landing’ situation could involve further fertilizer price spikes, increased waste and pollution (including eutrophication), increased energy consumption associated with the production and trade of phosphorus fertilizers, reduced farmer access to phosphorus, reduced global crop yields and increased food insecurity. A preferred ‘soft landing’ situation will however require substantial changes to physical and institutional infrastructure, including improved governance structures at the global, national and other levels, such as new policies, partnerships and roles to bring together the food, fertilizer, agriculture, sanitation and waste sectors for a coordinated response. Finally, this thesis proposes a new global goal – phosphorus security – to be integrated in the dominant research discourses and policy debates on global food security and global environmental change. Among other criteria, phosphorus security requires that phosphorus use is decoupled from environmental degradation and that farmers’ access to phosphorus is secured.

Water constraints for humans and nature are gaining more and more public attention as a critical environmental dilemma that needs to be addressed. When aquifers and rivers are running dry, the debate refers to an ongoing “world water crisis”. This thesis focuses on the water and agricultural production complexity in a global, regional and local perspective during different phases of development. It addresses the river basin closing process in light of consumptive water use changes, land use alterations, past and future food production in waterscarce developing countries in general, and a south Indian case study basin in particular, the Bhavani basin in Tamil Nadu. The study focuses on early phases of global agricultural development and addresses consumptive use and river depletion in response to land use change and irrigation expansion. It shows that focus must be shifted from a water use to a consumptive water use notion that considers both green and blue water resources. The Bhavani basin development trajectory reveals a dynamic interplay between land and water resources and different socio-political groups during the “green revolution” period. The present system has emerged as a step-by-step adaptation in response to hydro-climatic variability, human demands and infrastructure constraints. The study reveals three kinds of basin closure: allocation closure; hydrological closure; and perception wise closure. Many concerted actions on multiple scales have contributed to an increasing water use complexity even after closure. The study shows the extent to which natural variability hides creeping changes, and that the “average year” is a deceptive basis for water allocation planning. Future consumptive water requirements to feed growing populations in the developing world is analysed with a back-casting country-based approach. The study shows a doubling of water requirements by 2050 and how the challenge can be halved by increased water productivity. Since blue water accessibility for irrigation clearly will be insufficient, additional green water has to be acquired by horizontal agricultural expansion into other terrestrial ecosystems. The task will be substantial and increase the importance of global food trade. / Vattenbrist för människor och ekosystem är en mer och mer uppmärksammad miljöfråga. Sjunkande grundvattennivåer och uttorkade floder gör att många talar om en ”global vattenkris”. Denna avhandling fokuserar på de komplexa sambanden mellan vatten och jordbruksproduktion utifrån ett globalt, regionalt och lokalt perspektiv under olika utvecklingsfaser under fyra sekler. Den redogör för hur avrinningsområden överintecknas och slutligen ”stängs” för ytterligare vattenutvinning. Effekterna av ökad vattenutvinning i relation till historisk och framtida matproduktion analyseras generellt i utvecklingsländer med vattenbrist, och i detalj i en fallstudie i Bhavani avrinningsområde i Tamil Nadu i södra Indien. Studien visar för den tidiga jordbruksutvecklingen på global nivå hur förändrad markanvändning och bevattningsexpansion leder till förändrad balans mellan evapotranspiration och avrinning, med uttorkning av vattendrag som följd. Den visar vidare vikten av ett paradigmskifte där fokus flyttas från vattenanvändning till ”konsumerande” vattenanvändning, och som inkluderar både grönvatten- och blåvattenresurser. Analysen av Bhavaniområdets utvecklingskurva under det senaste seklets jordbruksutveckling visar på ett dynamiskt växelspel mellan land- och vattenresurser och mellan olika samhällsgrupper. Den nuvarande vattenanvändningssituationen har stegvis växt fram som en respons på hydroklimatisk variabilitet, människors behov och infrastrukturbegränsningar. Studien påvisar att ett avrinningsområde kan ses som ”stängt” på tre skilda sätt: när flödet är överintecknat, när utflödet sinar, och när vattenanvändare upplever att behoven överstiger tillgången. Även efter ”stängning” har etablering och intensifiering av vattenutvinning fortsatt och resulterat i ett alltmer komplext och sammanflätat vattenanvändningsmönster. Studien visar vidare hur hög hydroklimatisk variabilitet, dels gör att ”genomsnittlig vattentillgång” är förledande vid planering av vattenfördelning i ett avrinningsområde, och dels döljer smygande kumulativa effekter av ökad vattenutvinning. Slutligen anlyseras ländervis framtida vattenbehov för att möta matbehovet i världens utvecklingsländer, vilket visar på en fördubbling fram till 2050. Tack vare ökad vattenproduktivitet kan behovet emellertid halveras. Endast en bråkdel av det resterande behovet kan mötas genom ökad bevattning, dvs. med mera blåvatten. En stor del av vattenbehovet måste istället täckas med mera grönvatten via uppodling av andra terrestra ekosystem. Uppgiften innebär en betydande utmaning och global handel med jordbruksprodukter kommer att öka avsevärt i betydelse.