Cameron Holley

Pathways for adaptive and integrated disaster resilience

The world is experiencing more frequent, deadly and costly disasters. Disasters are increasingly uncertain and complex due to rapid environmental and socio-economic changes occurring at multiple scales. Understanding the causes and impacts of disasters requires comprehensive, systematic and multi-disciplinary analysis. This paper introduces recent multidisciplinary work on resilience, disaster risk reduction (DRR), climate change adaptation (CCA) and adaptive governance and then proposes a new and innovative framework for adaptive and integrated disaster resilience (AIDR). AIDR is defined as the ability of nations and communities to build resilience in an integrated manner and strengthen mechanisms to build system adaptiveness. AIDR provides the ability to face complexities and uncertainties by designing institutional processes that function across sectors and scales, to engage multiple stakeholders and to promote social learning. Based on the review of existing academic and non-academic literature, we identify seven pathways to achieve AIDR. These pathways are a conceptual tool to support scholars, policy makers and practitioners to better integrate existing DRR strategies with CCA and more general development concerns. They describe institutional strategies that are aimed at dealing with complexities and uncertainties by integrating DRR, CCA and development; strengthening polycentric governance; fostering collaborations; improving knowledge and information; enabling institutional learning; self-organisation and networking; and provision of disaster risk finance and insurance. We also examine the implications of these pathways for Indonesia, one of the most vulnerable countries to natural hazards and climate change impacts. Our findings suggest that there is an urgent need to commit more resources to and strengthen multi-stakeholder collaboration at the local level. We also argue for placing the community at the centre of an integrated and adaptive approach to DRR and CCA.

Social tipping points in global groundwater management

Groundwater is critical to global food security, environmental flows, and millions of rural livelihoods in the face of climate change1. Although a third of Earth’s largest groundwater basins are being depleted by irrigated agriculture2, little is known about the conditions that lead resource users to comply with conservation policies. Here we developed an agent-based model3,4 of irrigated agriculture rooted in principles of cooperation5,6 and collective action7 and grounded on the World Values Survey Wave 6 (n = 90,350). Simulations of three major aquifer systems facing unsustainable demands reveal tipping points where social norms towards groundwater conservation shift abruptly with small changes in cultural values and monitoring and enforcement provisions. These tipping points are amplified by group size and best invoked by engaging a minority of rule followers. Overall, we present a powerful tool for evaluating the contingency of regulatory compliance upon cultural, socioeconomic, institutional and physical conditions, and its susceptibility to change beyond thresholds. Managing these thresholds may help to avoid unsustainable groundwater development, reduce enforcement costs, better account for cultural diversity in transboundary aquifer management and increase community resilience to changes in regional climate. Although we focus on groundwater, our methods and findings apply broadly to other resource management issues.Global groundwater resources are threatened by over-extraction. An agent-based model is presented, incorporating cooperative and collective action theory that reveals tipping points in social attitudes toward conservation in three at-risk regions.

Conjunctive Management Through Collective Action

This chapter focuses on the interaction between conjunctive management and collective action. Collective action has several characteristics that provide a natural ‘fit’ with conjunctive management. These include building trust and ownership to enhance water user’s acceptance of the need for better and more integrated management and resolving conflict and facilitating trade-offs between and across water users. But what are the opportunities and challenges for conjunctive management through collective action? And what types of settings encourage broad-based collective action by water users and governments? These questions are addressed through a comparative analysis of specific instances of groundwater governance in Australia, Spain, and the western United States of America. For each case, the diverse policy and institutional settings are explained, and consideration given to the motivators for, and successes of, conjunctive management and collective action. The chapter draws comparisons across the cases to suggest lessons on incentives for conjunctive management, as well as exploring its challenges, before identifying future directions for more effective integrated water management.

Neighbourhood environment improvement plans: Community empowerment, voluntary collaboration and legislative design

This article examines a bold and imaginative experiment in facilitative regulation: the Neighbourhood Environment Improvement Plan (NEIP). It explores the NEIP’s regulatory objectives and techniques, connecting them to similar approaches and trends discussed in the regulatory literature, before outlining the NEIP’s achievements, limitations and challenges. It is argued that although NEIPs have the potential to provide an innovative and much needed tool to address complex second generation environmental problems, they suffer from a number of design flaws concerning how they engage stakeholders, facilitate community-based decision-making and resource their operation and implementation. Recommendations are made as to how these problems might be overcome. Theoretical implications are identified in the final part of the article.

Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations and Russian Environmental Governance: Accountability, Participation and Collaboration

This article examines the role of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) in Russia and the impact of tightening governmental accountability measures. Drawing on 18 interviews conducted in 2012–13 with Russian and international ENGOs, the article examines three key governance issues, namely: the collaborative relationship between the state and ENGOs, the impact of accountability measures on ENGO activities, and the relationships between ENGOs themselves. The findings reveal that ENGOs maintain a legitimate and effective role within Russian environmental governance. However, their legitimacy and success is significantly limited and threatened by increasing accountability measures and state actions. The article accordingly identifies a number of recommendations for increasing the likelihood of successful ENGO action in Russian environmental governance, including improving ENGO collaboration with the state and resolving tensions between participation and accountability.

Replenishing Australia’s Water Future: From Stagnation to Innovation

This chapter charts Australia’s leading-edge water law and governance reforms. It discusses progress on implementation and the challenges this has posed. Connections are drawn between Australia’s experience and the water law and governance literature. After outlining the book’s chapters, four fundamental questions are analysed and answered, namely how successful is Australia’s approach to designing and implementing water governance? What conditions have enabled or blocked its success, including environment, social, political and legal? How does Australia’s water governance system compare and contrast with different international water governance practices? And what are the broader insights for future water governance practice and theory?

Water Markets and Regulation: Implementation, Successes and Limitations

Although markets are widely promoted as an efficient tool for managing water, little critical attention has been directed to the legal and governance issues of water markets, including matters such as compliance and enforcement, water accounting, and the overall effectiveness of water trading. In response to these gaps, the chapter critically evaluates Australia’s cap and trade instrument, drawing on a review of the literature and survey and interview data collected from government and non-government stakeholders. The findings reveal achievements, including flexible responses to past and future droughts; efficiencies that contribute to economic and environmental benefits; and increasing trade and market functionality. Yet, the results also suggest cap and trade schemes are not functioning at the peak of their powers because of seven key flaws, namely a lack of robust regulatory underpinning; limited accuracy in water accounting; challenges in addressing universality of impact and source; queries over environmental benefits; lack of accounting for wider social impacts; windfall gains; and limited operation across Australia. Some of these flaws are correctable, and the chapter pinpoints relevant areas for market policy reform. However, a number of the identified flaws require water law and policy to look beyond markets. The chapter argues in these areas, such as groundwater, complementary regulatory tools are needed to ensure Australia’s future water security and sustainability.

Future Water: Improving Planning, Markets, Enforcement and Learning

1 Associate Professor, UNSW Faculty of Law. This research was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE140101216) and an Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP170100281). I am gratefully for the research assistance of Genevieve Wilks, Antonia Ross and Bonnie Perris, and the excellent suggestions made by Darren Sinclair, Ron Levy and the anonymous reviewer of this chapter. 2 UN Sustainable Development Goals, Goal 6, www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/water-andsanitation. 3 National Water Commission (NWC), Sustainable Levels of Extraction: National Water Commission Position (NWC, 2010). Future Water: Improving Planning, Markets, Enforcement and Learning

Mine site water-reporting practices, groundwater take and governance frameworks in the Hunter Valley coalfield, Australia

ABSTRACT At mine sites in a stressed watershed, groundwater dominated licensed water take, and water-use productivity was dependent on site practices and constraints. Solutions for mining and water in this context include: (1) state-based water governance within a national framework; (2) information tools, including mine site water-reporting frameworks; (3) site water sharing and salt trading; and (4) technologies and leading practices. While water reporting has improved, evaluating the significance of hydrological changes over the long-term remains a challenge, particularly for groundwater and saline discharges to rivers.

Modelling for Managing the Complex Issue of Catchment-Scale Surface and Groundwater Allocation

Kinetic Analysis of the Coke Calcination Processes in Rotary Kilns.- Behavior of Elastomeric Seismic Isolators Varying Rubber Material and Pad Thickness: A Numerical Insights.- Numerical Simulation of Coastal Flows in Open Multiply-connected Irregular Domains.- System Dynamics and Agent-based Simulation for Prospective Health Technology Assessments.- Simple and Efficient Algorithms to get a Finer Resolution in a Stochastic Discrete Time Agent-based Simulation.- Numerical Study of Turbulent Boundary-layer Flow Induced by a Sphere above a Flat Plate.- Airflow and Particle Deposition in a Dry Powder Inhaler: An Integrated CFD Approach.Air pollution caused by small particles is a major public health problem in many cities of the world. One of the most contaminated cities is Mexico City. The fact that it is located in a volcanic crater surrounded by mountains helps thermal inversion and imply a huge pollution problem by trapping a thick layer of smog that float over the city. Modeling air pollution is a political and administrative important issue due to the fact that the prediction of critical events should guide decision making. The need for countermeasures against such episodes requires predicting with accuracy and in advance relevant indicators of air pollution, such are particles smaller than 2.5 microns (PM 2.5). In this work two different fuzzy approaches for modeling PM 2.5 concentrations in Mexico City metropolitan area are compared with respect the simple persistence method.