Desalinated versus recycled water: public perceptions and profiles of the accepters

Many countries' water resources are limited in both quantity and quality. While engineering solutions can now safely produce recycled and desalinated water from non-potable sources at a relatively low cost, the general public is sceptical about adopting these alternative water sources. Social scientists, policy makers and technical experts need to better understand what is causing this lack of acceptance by the general population and how acceptance levels for recycled and desalinated water can be increased. This study is the first to conduct a comparative analysis of knowledge, perceptions, and acceptability, and determine segments of residents who are more open-minded than the general population toward the use of recycled and desalinated water. The Australian population once perceived desalinated water as environmentally unfriendly, and recycled water as a public health hazard. The general level of knowledge about these two concepts as potential water sources has historically been low. After nearly five years of serious drought, accompanied by severe water restrictions across most of the country, and subsequent media attention on solutions to water scarcity, Australians now show more acceptance of desalinated water for close-to-body uses, and less resistance to recycled water for garden watering and cleaning uses. The types of people likely to be strong accepters of the two alternative water sources are distinctly different groups, and can be reached through different media mixes. This finding has significant implications for policy makers and water practitioners.     

How knowledge is used in collaborative environmental governance: water classification in New Brunswick,Canada

Collaboration is an increasingly important approach to dealing with complex environmental challenges. Participation of diverse actors in collaborative processes necessitates attention to the use of different forms of knowledge. We use a multi-case study of governance for water in New Brunswick, Canada, to explore knowledge-related concerns that are prominent in collaborative processes. As is common in other contexts, local or lay (experiential) forms of knowledge appeared to play complementary but ultimately subordinate roles to expert technical and scientific knowledge in the cases. Importantly, we found that the distinction between ‘expert’ and ‘local’ knowledge was not at all clear for the many participants. This study reinforces the importance of designing reflexive and flexible processes for encouraging the active engagement and use of knowledge in collaboration.     

Strategic environmental assessment in China: motivations, politics, and effectiveness

This paper examines how strategic environmental assessment has been practiced at the national level in China through 2005 and why it has been practiced in the manner observed. Based on literature reviews and interviews carried out in 2005 and 2006, we find that bureaucratic politics between environmental and nonenvironmental ministries has limited the legislation and implementation of strategic environmental assessment to environmental assessment (EA) for a set of government plans defined in the 2003 Environmental Impact Assessment Law. Interviewees from environmental and nonenvironmental ministries and key research institutes have reported that few planning EAs have been performed at the sectoral level. Nonenvironmental ministries have either evaded the 2003 Environmental Impact Assessment Law and have not undertaken required planning EA or have organized planning EA on their own without participation by the State Environmental Protection Administration. The rising tension between the environmental and nonenvironmental ministries has limited the role of planning EA as a participatory decision-making tool. In addition to bureaucratic politics, we find that weak public participation and underemphasis on social analysis in planning EA may have further compromised the utility of planning EA.     

The role of agency goals and local context in Great Lakes water resources public involvement programs

As complex social phenomena, public involvement processes are influenced by contextual factors. This study examined agency goals for public involvement and assessed the importance of local context in remedial action planning, a community-based water resources program aimed at the cleanup of the 42 most polluted locations in the Great Lakes Basin. Agency goals for public involvement in remedial action plans (RAPs) were agency-oriented and focused on public acceptance of the plan, support for implementation, and positive agency-public relations. Corresponding to these goals, citizen advisory committees were created in 75% of the RAP sites as a primary means for public input into the planning process. Factors that influenced the implementation of public involvement programs in remedial action planning included public orientation toward the remediation issue, local economic conditions, the interaction of diverse interests in the process, agency and process credibility, experience of local leadership, and jurisdictional complexity. A formative assessment of “community readiness” appeared critical to appropriate public involvement program design. Careful program design may also include citizen education and training components, thoughtful management of ongoing agency-public relations and conflict among disparate interests in the process, overcoming logistical difficulties that threaten program continuity, using local expertise and communication channels, and circumventing interjurisdictional complexities.     

Rural industries and water pollution in China

Water pollution from small rural industries is a serious problem throughout China. Over half of all river sections monitored for water quality are rated as being unsafe for human contact, and this pollution is estimated to cost several per cent of GDP. While China has some of the toughest environmental protection laws in the world, the implementation of these laws in rural areas is not effective. This paper explains the reasons for this implementation gap. It argues that the factors that have underpinned the economic success of rural industry are precisely the same factors that cause water pollution from rural industry to remain such a serious problem in China. This means that the control of rural water pollution is not simply a technical problem of designing a more appropriate governance system, or finding better policy instruments or more funding. Instead, solutions lie in changes in the model that underpins rural development in China.     

Re-politicising water governance: exploring water re-allocations in terms of justice

Contemporary socio-economic transformations in South Asia are creating increasingly serious water problems (scarcity, flooding, pollution) and conflicts. Conflicts over water distribution, water-derived benefits, and risks often play out along axes of social differentiation like caste, wealth, and gender. Those with least power, rights, and voice suffer lack of access, exclusion, dispossession, and further marginalisation, resulting in livelihood insecurity or increased vulnerability to risks. In this paper we propose analysing these problems as problems of justice – problems of distribution, recognition, and political participation. Drawing on wider environmental justice approaches, a specific water justice focus needs to include both the specific characteristics of water as a resource and the access, rights, and equity dimensions of its control. We argue that recognising water problems as problems of justice requires a re-politicisation of water, as mainstream approaches to water resources, water governance, and legislation tend to normalise or naturalise their – basically political – distributional assumptions and implications. An interdisciplinary approach that sees water as simultaneously natural (material) and social is important here. We illustrate these conceptual and theoretical suggestions with evidence from India.     

Factors influencing private and public environmental protection behaviors: results from a survey of residents in Shaanxi, China

Currently one of the largest and most rapidly developing countries, China also has some of the world's most severe environmental problems. China will most likely need to use all of the potential major strategies currently available to solve the country's huge environmental challenges, including promoting individual conservation behavior through educational campaigns and encouraging public environmental advocacy. This paper summarized the findings of a survey of 347 residents of Shaanxi province on environmental attitudes and behaviors. The survey found generally high levels of environmental knowledge and high recognition of the seriousness of environmental issues, moderate levels of individual actions supporting environmental resource conservation and low levels of public environmental behaviors, particularly for organized public advocacy. Further analysis indicated that the perceived importance of environmental protection is the most important factor influencing individual environmental resource conservation, but not public advocacy behaviors. Implications for environmental campaigns are discussed.     

当前中国环境保护公众参与存在问题与对策研究

环境问题是个全球性问题,当前我国环境污染形势十分严峻,环境污染关系到每位公众的健康,解决环境污染离不开公众参与。通过对我国当前环境保护公众参与发展情况进行分析,既看到我国环境保护公众参与进步的一面,也看到由于我国特殊的国情,公众参与存在的不足一面,从中找出影响我国公众参与发展的主要因素,提出了解决我国环境保护公众参与滞后的措施,为我国环境保护公众参与的纵深发展提供参考。     

A system dynamics model to facilitate public understanding of water management options in Las Vegas,Nevada

Water managers increasingly are faced with the challenge of building public or stakeholder support for resource management strategies. Building support requires raising stakeholder awareness of resource problems and understanding about the consequences of different policy options. One approach that can help managers communicate with stakeholders is system dynamics modeling. Used interactively in a public forum, a system dynamics model can be used to explain the resource system and illustrate the effects of strategies proposed by managers or suggested by forum participants. This article illustrates the process of building a strategic-level system dynamics model using the case of water management in Las Vegas, Nevada. The purpose of the model was to increase public understanding of the value of water conservation in Las Vegas. The effects of policies on water supply and demand in the system are not straightforward because of the structure of the system. Multiple feedback relationships lead to the somewhat counterintuitive result that reducing residential outdoor water use has a much greater effect on water demand than reducing indoor water use by the same amount. The model output shows this effect clearly. This paper describes the use of the model in research workshops and discusses the potential of this kind of interactive model to stimulate stakeholder interest in the structure of the system, engage participant interest more deeply, and build stakeholder understanding of the basis for management decisions.     

Design of an institutional decision-making process: the case of urban water management

Urban water infrastructure expenditures cause a major financial burden to municipalities. In the opinion of many policy-makers, public funds may alleviate this burden and facilitate environmental policies. However, practice has shown that despite ambitious policies, funding often follows traditional cost-dominated thinking. In Austria, national policy-makers were interested in new guidelines for funding that increase the transparency of the planning, ensure the adequate treatment of ecological problems, and foster stakeholder involvement, but keep the process as simple as possible, and require minimal changes of the current guidelines. An interdisciplinary project team conducted such a study. Its outcome was tested in two pilot projects. Based on these experiences, policy-makers finally implemented the recommended guidelines for the funding of communal urban water infrastructure projects. A general observation about the policy-making process was a conservative attitude of policy-makers. They prefer simple constraints (precautionary principle) and flexible negotiations (delegation) to complex assessment and decision-aid methodologies.