Advancing adaptive governance of social-ecological systems through theoretical multiplicity

In recent years there has been rising scientific and policy interest in the adaptive governance of social-ecological systems. A systematic literature review of adaptive governance research during the period 2005–2014, demonstrates a vibrant debate taking place that spans a variety of empirical and theoretical approaches. The particular strength of adaptive governance is that it provides a theoretical lens for research that combines the analyses of novel governance capacities such as adaptive capacity, collaboration, scaling, knowledge and learning. As a way to give greater depth and analytical rigour to future studies over the next decade and beyond, we highlight the added value of theoretical multiplicity (i.e., focusing on the combination of theories to address complex problems). We argue that theoretical multiplicity can encourage stronger synergies between adaptive governance and other theoretical approaches and can help address epistemologically grey areas in adaptive governance scholarship, such as power and politics, inclusion and equity, short term and long term change, the relationship between public policy and adaptive governance.     

Drinking water quality governance: A comparative case study of Brazil,Ecuador, and Malawi

Human health is greatly affected by inadequate access to sufficient and safe drinking water, especially in low and middle-income countries. Drinking water governance improvements may be one way to better drinking water quality. Over the past decade, many projects and international organizations have been dedicated to water governance; however, water governance in the drinking water sector is understudied and how to improve water governance remains unclear. We analyze drinking water governance challenges in three countries – Brazil, Ecuador, and Malawi – as perceived by government, service providers, and civil society organizations. A mixed methods approach was used: a clustering model was used for country selection and qualitative semi-structured interviews were used with direct observation in data collection. The clustering model integrated political, economic, social and environmental variables that impact water sector performance, to group countries. Brazil, Ecuador and Malawi were selected with the model so as to represent the diversity of the clusters. This comparative case study is important because similar challenges are identified in the drinking water sectors of each country; while, the countries represent diverse socio-economic and political contexts, and the case selection process provides generalizability to our results. We find that access to safe water could be improved if certain water governance challenges were addressed: coordination and data sharing between ministries that deal with drinking water services; monitoring and enforcement of water quality laws; and sufficient technical capacity to improve administrative and technical management of water services at the local level. From an analysis of our field research, we also developed a conceptual framework that identifies policy levers that could be used to influence governance of drinking water quality on national and sub-national levels, and the relationships between these levers.     

Regional governance and hazard information: the role of co-ordinated risk assessment and regional spatial accounting in wildfire hazard mitigation

With the threat of wildfire hanging over many communities in the Western and Southern United States, wildfire mitigation is evolving into a significant public responsibility for rural and urban edge county governments. Regional governance is an important piece of the effort to reduce wildfire risks although still weakly developed as a policy arena. This project explores two dimensions in which planning support systems can support regional governance: assessing patterns of wildfire risk accumulation; and, evaluating land use planning alternatives and their effects on cumulative risk levels. These tools are examined for regional governance using a prototype planning information system, the Alternative Growth Futures (AGF) tool, a scenario-building approach developed at the University of Colorado Denver. The project develops a hybrid urban growth model that integrates logistic regression techniques and methods for simulation of growth alternatives. This model is used to evaluate the attractiveness of undeveloped building sites with respect to natural amenities, distance to primary urban services and site characteristics such as slope. The model and scenario-testing framework are reasonably robust and suggest that regional spatial accounting methods have potential as a framework for inter-governmental and public discussion around wildfire planning.     

Meta-analysis of human connection to nature and proenvironmental behavior

Understanding what drives environmentally protective or destructive behavior is important to the design and implementation of effective public policies to encourage people's engagement in proenvironmental behavior (PEB). Research shows that a connection to nature is associated with greater engagement in PEB. However, the variety of instruments and methods used in these studies poses a major barrier to integrating research findings. We conducted a meta-analysis of the relationship between connection to nature and PEB. We identified studies through a systematic review of the literature and used Comprehensive Meta-Analysis software to analyze the results from 37 samples (n = 13,237) and to test for moderators. A random-effects model demonstrated a positive and significant association between connection to nature and PEB (r = 0.42, 95% CI 0.36, 0.47, p < 0.001). People who are more connected to nature reported greater engagement in PEB. Standard tests indicated little effect of publication bias in the sample. There was significant heterogeneity among the samples. Univariate categorical analyses showed that the scales used to measure connection to nature and PEB were significant moderators and explained the majority of the between-study variance. The geographic location of a study, age of participants, and the percentage of females in a study were not significant moderators. We found that a deeper connection to nature may partially explain why some people behave more proenvironmentally than others and that the relationship is ubiquitous. Facilitating a stronger connection to nature may result in greater engagement in PEB and conservation, although more longitudinal studies with randomized experiments are required to demonstrate causation.     

Post-frontier governance up in smoke? Free-for-all frontier imaginations encourage illegal deforestation and appropriation of public lands in the Brazilian Amazon

ABSTRACT

Post-frontier governance in the Brazilian Amazon highlights the interaction of regulatory technologies, institutions and practices to combat illegal deforestation and appropriation of public lands. While the Amazon fires received tremendous media coverage in 2019, the dismantlement of environmental laws and regulatory agencies has supported the rise in deforestation as early as 2012. We discuss the impact of post-frontier governance in Southwest-Pará by analyzing the spatial distribution of deforestation, territorial management, law enforcement, and environmental regularization from 2000 to 2018. The integration of spatial analysis with qualitative field surveys in the blacklisted municipality Novo Progresso shows that deforestation control largely fails, specifically in undesignated public lands. While land tenure security remains the biggest challenge in the region, the persistent imagination of free-for-all frontier spaces encourages the uncontrolled appropriation of and speculation with public lands. Here, the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) has been identified as a key instrument to secure land claims.     

A violent,episodic vapour cloud explosion assessment: Deflagration-to-detonation transition

A large vapour cloud explosion (VCE) followed by a fire is one of the most dangerous and high consequence events that can occur in petrochemical facilities. The current process of safety practice in the industry in VCE assessment is to assume that all VCEs are deflagration. This assumption has been considered for nearly three decades. In recent years, major fire and VCE incidents in fuel storage depots gained considerable attention in extreme high explosion overpressure due to the transition from Deflagration to Detonation (DDT). Though the possibility of DDTs is lower than deflagrations, they have been identified in some of the most recent large-scale VCE incidents, including Buncefield (UK), 2005, San Juan explosion (US), 2009, and IOCL Jaipur (India), 2009 event. Such an incident established the need to understand not only VCE but also the importance of avoiding the escalation of minor incidents into much more devastating consequences.Despite decades of research, understanding of the fundamental physical mechanisms and governing factors of deflagration-to detonation transition (DDT) transition remains mostly elusive. An extreme multi-scale, multi-physics nature of this process uncertainly makes DDT one of the “Grand Challenge” problems of typical physics, and any significant developments toward its assured insistence would require revolutionary step forward in experiments, theory, and numerical modelling. Under certain circumstances, nevertheless, it is possible for DDT to occur, and this can be followed by a propagating detonation that quickly consumes the remaining detonable cloud. In a detonable cloud, a detonation creates the worst accident that can happen. Because detonation overpressures are much higher than those in a deflagration and continue through the entire detonable cloud, the damage from a DDT event is more severe. The consideration of detonation in hazard and risk assessment would identify new escalation potentials and recognize critical buildings impacted. This knowledge will allow more effective management of this hazard.The main conclusion from this paper is that detonations did occur in Jaipur accident at least part of the VCE accidents. The vapour cloud explosion could not have been caused by a deflagration alone, given the widespread occurrence of high overpressures and directional indicators in open uncongested areas containing the cloud. Additionally, the major incident has left many safety issues behind, which must be repeatedly addressed. It reveals that adequate safety measures were either underestimated or not accounted for seriously. This article highlights the aftermath of the IOCL Jaipur incident and addresses challenges put forward by it.     

Impact of medical fitness to drive policies in preventing property damage,injury, and death from motor vehicle collisions in Ontario,Canada

Introduction: Drivers with medical conditions and functional impairments are at increased collision risk. A challenge lies in identifying the point at which such risk becomes unacceptable to society and requires mitigating measures. This study models the road safety impact of medical fitness-to-drive policy in Ontario. Method: Using data from 2005 to 2014, we estimated the losses to road safety incurred during the time medically-at-risk drivers were under review, as well as the savings to road safety accrued as a result of licensing decisions made after the review process. Results: While under review, drivers with medical conditions had an age- and sex-standardized collision rate no different from the general driver population, suggesting no road safety losses occurred (RR = 1.02; 95% CI: 0.93–1.12). Licensing decisions were estimated to have subsequently prevented 1,211 (95% CI: 780–1,730) collisions, indicating net road safety savings resulting from medical fitness to drive policies. However, more collisions occurred than were prevented for drivers with musculoskeletal disorders, sleep apnea, and diabetes. We theorize on these findings and discuss its multiple implications. Conclusions: Minimizing the impact of medical conditions on collision occurrence requires robust policies that balance fairness and safety. It is dependent on efforts by academic researchers (who study fitness to drive); policymakers (who set driver medical standards); licensing authorities (who make licensing decisions under such standards); and clinicians (who counsel patients on their driving risk and liaise with licensing authorities). Practical Applications: Further efforts are needed to improve understanding of the effects of medical conditions on collision risk, especially for the identified conditions and combinations of conditions. Results reinforce the value of optimizing the processes by which information is solicited from physicians in order to better assess the functional impact of drivers’ medical conditions on driving and to take suitable licensing action.     

“If I know when you will arrive,I will let you walk to school:” The role of information technology

Introduction: Providing a sense of supervision for parents may facilitate their children’s involvement in physical outdoor activities, such as walking to school. Information technology (IT) solutions could bring more parental supervision, which in turn has the potential to enhance the proportion of walking trips to school. This study aimed to examine the role of a proposed hypothetical IT solution that gives parents real-time information about children’s entrance to and exit from the school, for the intention of parents letting their children walk to school. Method: A total of 820 questionnaires were distributed among pupils aged 7–9-years across 28 elementary schools to be completed by their parents (82% return rate). Results: Compared to the group of walking pupils, increased parental intention to let their children walk to school under the proposed solution could be explained by considerably more variables in the group of pupils who did not walk to school. The findings revealed that increased parental intention was higher among the walking pupils compared to the non-walking pupils. For the non-walking pupils, enhancement of walking facilities across the school area could potentiate the use of the proposed solution by the parents, which in turn may increase the proportion of walking on school trips. In addition, boy pupils, the pupils whose parents evaluated walking more favorable, those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and those living in close proximity to the school could more likely benefit by shifting from non-walking to walking modes of travel, after implementation of the solution.     

低压电器高原环境适应性技术研发平台建设研究

介绍了低压电器高原环境适应性技术研发平台建设的主要内容及关键技术，平台的成功建设填补了我国大容量低压电器高原环境模拟试验能力的空白，为高原型低压电器及成套设备的研发提供有效手段。