Kevin Grecksch

Scenarios for resilient drought and water scarcity management in England and Wales

ABSTRACT Current drought and water scarcity management in England and Wales is reactive rather than proactive and the array of instruments and measures focuses primarily on what to do when in a drought, but less on how to prevent a drought or to plan ahead for a drought. This paper presents the results of a workshop that was held in late 2016 with stakeholders and researchers from UK drought and water scarcity management – the environment ministry (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), the Environment Agency, water companies, the economic regulator and water consultancies using the explorative scenario technique. The workshop offered the opportunity for unconstrained blue-sky thinking about drought management options based on the question What can happen? and it is useful in cases where there is fairly good knowledge regarding how the system works at present, but one is interested in exploring the consequences of alternative developments in drought management. The workshop developed four scenarios on the topic of resilient drought and water scarcity management in England and Wales in 2065: (1) ‘Accepting decline’, (2) ‘Rising to the challenge’, (3) ‘Enjoying their luck’ and (4) ‘Passive acceptance’. The corresponding narratives are presented as are limits of the workshop but also potential uses of the scenarios.

Property rights revisited – are narratives the way forward?

Purpose This paper aims to show how property rights predominantly shape discussions about the governance of natural resources and thereby neglect questions of (collective) identities and alternative solutions to govern natural resources. The purpose is to introduce narratives as an alternative approach to the discussion about the governance of natural resources. Design/methodology/approach Guided by the question of how we acquire property and what that tells us about our understanding of to whom natural resources belong to, the paper reviews the history of property rights by looking into property theories starting from Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. It then takes a closer look at The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study and the Nagoya Protocol with regard to property rights. Second, the paper introduces the concept of narratives surrounding property rights in the past and present. Findings Property rights are a social concept dominant in the industrialised world. This has strong implications when looking at the way indigenous people look at natural resources. Mostly, property rights are unknown to them or alternative concepts exist. Yet, documents such as the Nagoya Protocol or the TEEB study presuppose an understanding of property rights originating in European property concepts. A narrative approach to property rights introduces new ideas and looks beyond legislation and policies at the stories people tell about property and natural resources, at property stereotypes and identities and what this might entail for future natural resource governance. Originality/value The paper fulfils a need to find alternative approaches to govern natural resources against the background of global environmental challenges.