Water policy implementation in the state of São Paulo,Brazil: Key challenges and opportunities

Challenges in implementing water planning and management are common, and the effective implementation of integrated water policies is yet to occur. In Brazil, the state of São Paulo enacted a Water Act in 1991 to ensure water availability for current and future generations based on the principles of decentralization, participation and integration. This research addresses water policy implementation issues by conducting an exploratory case study in the state of São Paulo. Factors affecting the water policy implementation process were analyzed, together with some water resources management practices. The findings indicate four dimensions of key challenges: institutional and governance, political, financial and technical. The stakeholders believe the political and the institutional and governance challenges are more important than the technical and financial ones. Additionally, the results show different levels of involvement in the areas of water policy strategy, the planning and decision-making process, and implementation by the different stakeholders groups. Stakeholders external to the water sector and from local government were considered to be less involved in water-related issues, when compared with stakeholders from the water sector. The study recommends a change in current institutional and governance arrangements in order to influence decisions and investments in different levels and sectors.     

REDD+ policy strategy in Cameroon: Actors,institutions and governance

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) is receiving increasing political and scientific attention as a climate change mitigation approach. The government of Cameroon has expressed an interest in participating in REDD+, and national deliberation on a policy strategy has attracted interest from different actors in the forest sector. This paper analyses the challenges of designing a governance structure for a REDD+ strategy in Cameroon. Theoretically, the paper builds on the literature on governance structures for resource management, focusing analytically on the interactions between actor constellations (state and non-state) and institutions (formal and informal) to produce policy outcomes. The paper draws on documentation of REDD+ policy events, policy texts and 23 in-depth interviews with members from government, civil society, research organizations, development partners and the private sector. It argues that although the actors involved in REDD+ are, to an extent, polarized around different issues and priorities, they are nonetheless increasingly distributing roles and responsibilities among themselves. The institutional arrangements within the policy process include: (1) rule-making systems for engagement; (2) expanding existing coordination mechanisms; (3) national safeguard standards; and (4) building on existing forest governance initiatives. The paper concludes that the multiple benefits promised by REDD+, such as poverty alleviation, biodiversity conservation and economic development, are critical for the legitimacy of the mechanism.     

Institutional networks and adaptive water governance in the Klamath River Basin,USA

Polycentric networks of formal organizations and informal stakeholder groups, as opposed to centralized institutional hierarchies, can be critically important for strengthening the capacity of governance systems to adapt to unexpected social and biophysical change. Adaptive governance is one type of environmental governance characterized by the emergence of networks that stimulate adaptive capacity through increases in social-learning, communication, trust, public participation and adaptive management. However, detecting and analyzing adaptive governance networks remains elusive, especially given contexts of highly contested resource governance such as large-scale negotiations over water use. Research methods such as social network analysis (SNA) are often infeasible as they necessitate collecting in-depth and politically sensitive personal data from a near-complete set of actors or organizations in a network. Here we present a method for resolving this problem by describing the results of an institutional SNA aimed at characterizing the changing governance network in the Klamath River Basin, USA during a period of contested negotiations over water. Through this research, we forward a method of institutional SNA useful when an individual or egocentric approach to SNA is problematic for political, logistical or financial reasons. We focus our analysis on publically available data signaling changes in formal relationships (statutory, regulatory, contractual) between organizations and stakeholder groups. We find that employing this type of SNA is useful for describing potential and actual transitions in governance that yield increases in adaptive capacity to respond to social and biophysical surprises such as increasing water scarcity and changes in water distribution.     

饮用水消毒副产物-卤乙酸的分析检测

卤乙酸是氯化消毒饮用水中一类主要的消毒副产物 ,由于存在的广泛性和潜在的健康危害 ,许多国家和卫生组织相继将其列为饮用水常规监测项目 ,而我国至今还没有相关规定 ;为更好地控制饮用水中卤乙酸的形成 ,世界各国科研人员先后研究和开发出了性能逐趋完善的多种分析检测方法 ;在大量国内外文献调研的基础上 ,对卤乙酸的各种分析检测方法进行系统的介绍 ,并指明今后的发展方向     

Plenty of water,not enough strategy: How inadequate accessibility,poor governance and a volatile government can tip the balance against ensuring water security: The case of Nepal

Water security is arguably the single most important factor regarding the future sustainability of our planet. Without water we have no life, and with depleting freshwater resources conflict can easily ensue. The intersection between hydrology and politics requires a delicate balancing from decision-makers to ensure policy is well-informed and science is well communicated. In this paper, we discuss water issues currently faced by Nepal, a nation where freshwater resources are abundant yet political pressures are threatening future water security. We argue that despite adequate water supplies a nation may still experience severe water insecurity, particularly if effective governance and equitable access are not prioritised. We explore potential policy options necessary to achieve a holistic framework for water resources management, which we suggest, need to consider water resource reliability, accessibility and governance as fundamental pillars for ensuring water security.     

全球饮用水标准中消毒副产物管控指标对比与启示

饮用水水质安全是关乎千家万户的重大民生问题,其中消毒工艺是保障饮用水微生物安全不可或缺的重要措施,然而由消毒剂与前体物反应生成的DBPs（消毒副产物）被发现具有潜在的健康风险,如致癌及引起发育副作用等.随着对饮用水中DBPs的重视程度不断提高,世界上多个国家、地区或组织将DBPs指标纳入标准.为对我国饮用水水质标准中DBPs指标的制定和修订提出可参考的建议,比较了国内外饮用水和再生水饮用回用水质标准中的DBPs指标,包括DBPs种类、对应的浓度限值和监测要求等.结果表明:①我国饮用水水质标准中涵盖的DBPs种类较多,其中地方标准相较于国标而言对DBPs指标的要求更为严格,但较少考虑综合性指标（如总有机卤素）和高毒性含氮DBPs（如卤乙腈）;②国外多部饮用水水质标准或准则中包含一些无浓度限值规定但已知具有较高健康风险的DBPs,此举可指导有关部门进一步开展浓度调研和毒性试验,为未来水质标准的制定提供参考依据.研究显示,我国饮用水标准中DBPs指标需要考虑综合性指标的选取与管控以及高风险指标的甄别和筛查,另外还需因地制宜加强地方性标准的建设工作.      

Policy,legislative and institutional assessments for integrated river basin management in Turkey

The rapidly growing population, increased urbanization, and intensive industrial and agricultural activities cause degradation and pollution of natural resources, soil erosion, and changes in hydrologic regimes in all over the world. To overcome these situations, it is necessary to develop an effective and holistic management methodology, called Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM). It is an internationally accepted administrative tool.IRBM is also one of the implementation requirements of the European Commission Water Framework Directive (WFD, 2000/60/EC) for European Union (EU) member states and candidate countries. Turkey, as an EU candidate country, already has started and continues to work toward adaptation of the WFD. Since the early 2000s, river basin studies have been undertaken to help integrate the WFD into Turkish legislation. Although Turkey has a strong legislative background, there are many challenges in this transition period because of several big river basins, the lack of environmental infrastructure, and the cost of carrying out the WFD.This paper analyses the political, legislative, and institutional advances of the implementation of IRBM in Turkey. Before the assessments of the new Turkish legislation developments and new basin institutions, the general principles of IRBM are explained. Finally, some recommendations for improving the effectiveness of the new basin organizations and water legislation are presented.     

Towards an inter-disciplinary research agenda on climate change, water and security in Southern Europe and neighboring countries

The Mediterranean and neighboring countries are already experiencing a broad range of natural and man-made threats to water security. According to climate projections, the region is at risk due to its pronounced susceptibility to changes in the hydrological budget and extremes. Such changes are expected to have strong impacts on the management of water resources and on key strategic sectors of regional economies. Related developments have an increased capacity to exacerbate tensions, and even intra- and inter-state conflict among social, political, ecological and economic actors. Thus, effective adaptation and prevention policy measures call for multi-disciplinary analysis and action.This review paper presents the current state-of-the-art on research related to climate change impacts upon water resources and security from an ecological, economic and social angle. It provides perspectives for current and upcoming research needs and describes the challenges and potential of integrating and clustering multi-disciplinary research interests in complex and interwoven human-environment systems and its contribution to the upcoming 5th assessment report of the IPCC.     

The potential of water markets to allocate water between industry,agriculture, and public water utilities as an adaptation mechanism to climate change

One of the climate change scenarios that have been developed for the Netherlands predicts hotter and drier summers and a substantial drop in river discharge. This might lead to water scarcity with detrimental economic and environmental effects. Among the possible adaptation responses to climate change-induced water scarcity, the re-allocation of water resources among competing uses should also be considered. In this paper, we extend and apply a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to assess the potential of water markets (water allocation according to its shadow price) to guide the allocation of scarce water across agriculture, manufacturing, and public water supply. We develop four scenarios in which the scope of water markets is increased from industry-specific to economy-wide. The results show that the agricultural sector bears nearly all of the losses from a new water-scarce climate, while the manufacturing sectors are able to mitigate their losses to a large extent by technical measures. Extending the scope of water markets unambiguously increases economic output and results in a re-allocation of water to the manufacturing sector from the agricultural sector and from public water services. If, perhaps for political reasons, public water services are excluded from water trading, water is re-allocated from agriculture to manufacturing. Depending on which sectors are included, the construction of a water market can have negative or positive effects on a sector’s output, and although the implementation of water markets may be positive for overall economic output and can hence assist adaptation, the effect on vulnerable or societally sensitive economic sectors, such as public water, should be taken into account when implementing such a market.     

国内外饮用水余氯限值及监测方法的研究进展

新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情期间大规模使用含氯消毒剂,其残留可能对水环境及人体健康造成影响.我国饮用水水源地质量标准并未设置余氯项目及其浓度限值,且缺乏统一的余氯现场快速分析方法标准.为公共卫生事件发生期间的水质余氯监测与评价提供参考,对国内外饮用水标准余氯限值、实验室标准分析方法、现场快速分析方法等进行汇总分析,结果表明:①不同国家和地区以及WHO（World Health Organization,世界卫生组织）在饮用水标准中分别设置了出厂水中余氯限值（范围为0.1~2.0 mg/L）、管网末梢水中余氯限值（范围为0.1~1.8 mg/L）及饮用水中余氯最大允许浓度（范围为4~5 mg/L）.②比色法、容量法因其具有反应迅速且稳定、准确度及精密度较高等优点而成为国内外实验室主要标准或推荐分析方法,高效液相色谱法检出限最低,灵敏度最高,可用于余氯痕量分析.③余氯现场快速分析方法多以比色法为主,在线监测方法多为电化学方法,但缺乏统一的标准方法.研究显示,国外饮用水标准中余氯最大允许浓度为5 mg/L,WHO推荐高风险环境下的管网末梢余氯浓度最低为0.5 mg/L,建议尽快开展水质余氯现场监测方法标准化研究.      

Collaborative governance and adaptive management: Lessons from California's CALFED Water Program

Both for its technological and institutional innovations and for its history of conflicts, California's water system has been one of the most observed in the world. This article and this Special Issue on the CALFED Bay-Delta Program continue in this tradition. CALFED is likely the most ambitious experiment in collaborative environmental policy and adaptive management the world has seen to date. This Issue moves beyond the celebratory tone of other analyses of collaborative, adaptive management and looks closer into how collaborative networks work to produce innovation, and more importantly to reflect also on their inherent contradictions, limitations and “dark sides”. While collaborative governance enhances mutual understandings and can be a source of innovation, it appears ill-suited to resolve alone the distributive dilemmas at the core of many water – and other environmental – conflicts. A lacuna in existing research concerns the institutional design of effective boundaries and linkages between democratic politics, legitimate authority, and adaptive governance, i.e. the mix of institutions that can provide sufficient responsibility, accountability and democratic legitimacy, without choking off the self-organizing interaction, shared learning, and communication that is at the heart of collaboration. A painful realization in the Delta is that environmental conservation and further growth may be fundamentally at odds; efficient win–win solutions, institutional or technological, seem insufficient to satisfy the competing demands posed upon the system. Radical decisions and changes might be necessary, but they seem unlikely under current institutional arrangements and political conditions.     

Institutional design in transformation: A comparative study of local irrigation governance in Uzbekistan

The irrigation sector constitutes the backbone of Uzbekistan's economy, providing social and economic stability in the region. The sector collapsed with the fall of the Soviet Union, due to worsening of infrastructure conditions causing tensions among resource users. Subsequent irrigation management reforms were implemented in a top-down manner. More than a decade after the initial reforms – which established local Water Consumers Association (WCA) and transferred operation and maintenance responsibilities for on-farm irrigation canals – the poor performance of these associations is still apparent, illustrating the heritage of the strong role of state agencies in Uzbek water management that still affects collective irrigation management today. This paper identifies the necessary and sufficient conditions for successfully managing common pool resources (CPRs) and, more specifically, irrigation canal maintenance in the rural Bukhara region of Uzbekistan. Fifteen WCAs were examined regarding conditions that may facilitate successful irrigation canal maintenance. Methods involved focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with the associations concerned. Data gathered was analyzed using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. The results indicate that two paths of local factors can lead to well-maintained irrigation canals: (1) the combination of appropriate chairmanship skills with sustainable resource appropriation or (2) the combination of appropriate chairmanship skills with the presence of effective participatory governance. The results also illustrate the role of path-dependence and traditional co-production of irrigation management in Uzbekistan.     

生物过滤饮用水深度处理:机遇与挑战

源水水质的恶化给传统的饮用水处理工艺带来了挑战.生物过滤是饮用水消毒输配之前管理、维护及增强颗粒滤料表面生物活性以去除有机和无机物的过程.由于具有高效、低成本等优点，生物过滤在饮用水深度处理工艺中逐渐得到广泛的应用.本文综述了生物过滤在饮用水处理过程中对水中溶解性有机质（消毒副产物前体物）的去除、微量污染物的削减、嗅味化合物及氨氮的去除等.此外，针对生物过滤在水深度处理过程中存在的问题，本文详细讨论了含氮消毒副产物前体物的生成、低温下生物过滤效能下降等挑战，并提出了今后需要研究的问题.     

锡林郭勒盟农村牧区饮用水水质现状

根据锡林郭勒盟环境保护监测站2010年,对全盟13个旗县市区所辖农村牧区的42个饮用水供水点水质监测结果,进行单因子评价和综合评价,研究分析锡盟农村牧区饮用水水质现状及饮用水水质超标的主要原因,提出了相应的改善措施与保护对策。     

改善农村饮水水质的一种方法--SODIS

如何改善发展中国家广大农村贫困地区的饮用水水质问题仍然是当前一项十分急迫的任务。瑞士联邦环境科学技术研究院近年来在许多发展中国家推行一种新的饮用水消毒方法———阳光消毒法(SODIS),取得了良好的效益。该方法利用太阳光钝化导致腹泻的病原体的活性,从而提高饮用水的质量。该方法成本低、易操作、经济可行并可持久使用,已经在一些发展中国家逐步推广应用。     

Ecological restoration as a strategy for mitigating and adapting to climate change: lessons and challenges from Brazil

Climate change is a global phenomenon that affects biophysical systems and human well-being. The Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change entered into force in 2016 with the objective of strengthening the global response to climate change by keeping global temperature rise this century well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 °C. The agreement requires all Parties to submit their “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) and to strengthen these efforts in the years ahead. Reducing carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation is an important strategy for mitigating climate change, particularly in developing countries with large forests. Extensive tropical forest loss and degradation have increased awareness at the international level of the need to undertake large-scale ecological restoration, highlighting the need to identify cases in which restoration strategies can contribute to mitigation and adaptation. Here we consider Brazil as a case study to evaluate the benefits and challenges of implementing large-scale restoration programs in developing countries. The Brazilian NDC included the target of restoring and reforesting 12 million hectares of forests for multiple uses by 2030. Restoration of native vegetation is one of the foundations of sustainable rural development in Brazil and should consider multiple purposes, from biodiversity and ecosystem services conservation to social and economic development. However, ecological restoration still presents substantial challenges for tropical and mega-diverse countries, including the need to develop plans that are technically and financially feasible, as well as public policies and monitoring instruments that can assess effectiveness. The planning, execution, and monitoring of restoration efforts strongly depend on the context and the diagnosis of the area with respect to reference ecosystems (e.g., forests, savannas, grasslands, wetlands). In addition, poor integration of climate change policies at the national and subnational levels and with other sectorial policies constrains the large-scale implementation of restoration programs. The case of Brazil shows that slowing deforestation is possible; however, this analysis highlights the need for increased national commitment and international support for actions that require large-scale transformations of the forest sector regarding ecosystem restoration efforts. Scaling up the ambitions and actions of the Paris Agreement implies the need for a global framework that recognizes landscape restoration as a cost-effective nature-based solution and that supports countries in addressing their remaining needs, challenges, and barriers.

     

Legitimacy of local REDD+ processes. A comparative analysis of pilot projects in Brazil and Tanzania

This paper compares the legitimacy of pilot projects in Kilosa and Kondoa districts of Tanzania and the Amazon region in Brazil. The analysis is both normative – i.e., based on external criteria – and sociological – i.e., based on local people’s perceptions. Results show that the quality of decision-making in terms of local participation, balanced representation, openness and sufficient information increases local acceptability of REDD+. The research also suggests that power asymmetries may undermine legitimacy if not dealt with. Finally, the paper reveals that legitimacy outcomes differ under various contexts, which calls for REDD+ processes to be flexible.     

Boundary work in climate policy making in Brazil: Reflections from the frontlines of the science-policy interface

Despite challenges to the authority and legitimacy of science as a neutral representation of the world, expert advisors are playing an increasingly central role in environmental policy-making in both the Global North and South. This article explores the science-policy interface, based on the experience of the main author as a scientist and policy-maker at FEAM, a state-level environmental agency in Brazil. Contributing to the literature on boundary objects and organizations, the article details the practices necessary to manage the relationship between political and scientific norms in the development of the regional Climate and Energy Plan (CEP) for the state of Minas Gerais. To sustain the role of FEAM as a boundary organization mediating between political and scientific demands, a team of scientists and policy-makers had to perform different types of boundary work in a closely connected manner. It was necessary to actively frame climate change as an economic problem, and structure its solution in terms of mitigation mechanisms. Responding to changes in the national and international political context, FEAM reframed climate change from mitigation into largely an adaptation issue that could lead to win-win solutions as to attain saliency and avoid insurmountable political obstacles for its approval. Based on this experience, the article argues that the performance of boundary objects and organizations in the science-policy interface not only requires an ability to bring ‘truth to power’ but to also the capacity to sense, anticipate and avoid political obstacles. For this reason even though boundary organizations provide a breeding ground for institutional learning it is an unsuitable location for scientific or political revolutions.     

Knowledge brokerage designs and practices in four european climate services: A role model for biodiversity policies?

Environmental policies are broadly claimed to rely on sound scientific evidence because of the complexity, the uncertainty and the diverging political stakes that characterize issues like biodiversity decline or climate change. Classical advisory formats like assessments or standing advisory bodies have proliferated widely – especially at the global and national levels – yet exert only a limited influence on political decision-making, particularly in sub-national and local implementation contexts. Against this background, scholars have called for ‘bottom-up’ approaches to Science-policy interfaces that move from ‘problem to policy’. In the area of climate change, numerous ‘climate services’ have evolved at national, sub-national and even local levels, with the promise of being more decision-oriented. Four climate services in three European countries (the United Kingdom, Germany and Switzerland) are investigated regarding whether and how they institutionalize and enact knowledge brokerage in a credible, salient and legitimate way. Focusing on the institutional and strategic design principles of this advisory setting in climate policy, insights are generated for the biodiversity policy field, where comparable settings are still broadly lacking.     

风险污染物短期高剂量暴露下的生态风险评估方法

水污染事故的短期高剂量暴露造成的急性生态危害及水生生物安全问题成为人们研究的重点,但我国以往的水污染事故,多采用地表水环境质量标准和生活饮用水卫生标准来判断水体是否安全,缺乏对水生生物保护的安全效应阈值或风险值.国外在水生生物保护方面,虽然限定了一些风险污染物对水生生物的安全效应阈值或称为无效应阈值或风险值,但其无效应阈值的计算是基于长期暴露下的慢性毒性值,其生态风险值也是基于长期暴露下的风险,缺少对水污染事件短期高剂量暴露下化学品的阈值限定及风险评估.本研究结合常规生态风险评价的理念及美国EPA短期暴露情况下保护水生生物基准值的制定方法,探讨了水污染事件的短期高剂量暴露情况下风险污染物的生态风险评价及生态效应阈值的计算方法,并进行了实例应用,同时对建立我国水污染事故生态风险评估方法体系提出了建议.