Lauren Withycombe Keeler

A comprehensive sustainability appraisal of water governance in Phoenix, AZ

In Phoenix, Arizona and other metropolitan areas, water governance challenges include variable climate conditions, growing demands, and continued groundwater overdraft. Based on an actor-oriented examination of who does what with water and why, along with how people interact with hydro-ecological systems and man-made infrastructure, we present a sustainability appraisal of water governance for the Phoenix region. Broadly applicable to other areas, our systems approach to sustainable water governance overcomes prevailing limitations to research and management by: employing a comprehensive and integrative perspective on water systems; highlighting the activities, intentions, and rules that govern various actors, along with the values and goals driving decisions; and, establishing a holistic set of principles for social-ecological system integrity and interconnectivity, resource efficiency and maintenance, livelihood sufficiency and opportunity, civility and democratic governance, intra- and inter-generational equity, and finally, precaution and adaptive capacity. This study also contributes to reforming and innovating governance regimes by illuminating how these principles are being met, or not, in the study area. What is most needed in metropolitan Phoenix is enhanced attention to ecosystem functions and resource maintenance as well as social equity and public engagement in water governance. Overall, key recommendations entail: addressing interconnections across hydrologic units and sub-systems (e.g., land and water), increasing decentralized initiatives for multiple purposes (e.g., ecological and societal benefits of green infrastructure), incorporating justice goals into decisions (e.g., fair allocations and involvement), and building capacity through collaborations and social learning with diverse interests (e.g., scientists, policymakers, and the broader public).

Plausibility indications in future scenarios

Quality criteria for generating future-oriented knowledge and future scenarios are different from those developed for knowledge about past and current events. Such quality criteria can be defined relative to the intended function of the knowledge. Plausibility has emerged as a central quality criterion of scenarios that allows exploring the future with credibility and saliency. But what exactly is plausibility vis-a-vis probability, consistency, and desirability? And how can plausibility be evaluated and constructed in scenarios? Sufficient plausibility, in this article, refers to scenarios that hold enough evidence to be considered ‘occurrable’. This might have been the underlying idea of scenarios all along without being explicitly elaborated in a pragmatic concept or methodology. Here, we operationalise plausibility in scenarios through a set of plausibility indications and illustrate the proposal with scenarios constructed for Phoenix, Arizona. The article operationalises the concept of plausibility in scenarios to support scholars and practitioners alike.

RESEARCH ARTICLE: Envisioning the Future of Water Governance: A Survey of Central Arizona Water Decision Makers

The future of the American West depends on sustainable water resource governance. A variety of uncertainties associated with limited freshwater supplies, population growth, land use change, drought, and climate change impacts present substantial challenges. To inform decision making, managers are adopting new techniques such as scenario planning to understand how water resources might change and what practices can support economic, environmental, and social sustainability. Scenario planning can be informed by understanding the normative future preferences of a variety of stakeholders, including decision makers, who influence water governance. This article presents a survey of central Arizona decision makers to understand their visions for a desirable future for the water system in terms of supply, delivery, demand, outflow, and crosscutting activities. Principle components analysis is used to identify patterns underlying responses about preferences for each domain of the system and correlation analysis is used to evaluate associations between themes across the domains. The results reveal two distinct visions for water in central Arizona—one in which water experts and policy makers pursue supply augmentation to serve metropolitan development, and another in which broadened public engagement is used in conjunction with policy tools to reduce water consumption, restore ecosystem services, and limit metropolitan expansion. The results of this survey will inform the development of a set of normative scenarios for use in exploratory modeling and anticipatory governance activities.

Utilizing international networks for accelerating research and learning in transformational sustainability science

A promising approach for addressing sustainability problems is to recognize the unique conditions of a particular place, such as problem features and solution capabilities, and adopt and adapt solutions developed at other places around the world. Therefore, research and teaching in international networks becomes critical, as it allows for accelerating learning by sharing problem understandings, successful solutions, and important contextual considerations. This article identifies eight distinct types of research and teaching collaborations in international networks that can support such accelerated learning. The four research types are, with increasing intensity of collaboration: (1) solution adoption; (2) solution consultation; (3) joint research on different problems; and (4) joint research on similar problems. The four teaching types are, with increasing intensity of collaboration: (1) adopted course; (2) course with visiting faculty; (3) joint course with traveling faculty; and (4) joint course with traveling students. The typology is illustrated by extending existing research and teaching projects on urban sustainability in the International Network of Programs in Sustainability, with partner universities from Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa. The article concludes with challenges and strategies for extending individual projects into collaborations in international networks.

The Monster and the polar bears: constructing the future knowledge landscape of synthetic biology to inform responsible innovation

Responsible innovation in synthetic biology requires a research agenda to analyze and assess functional applications and their plausible future impacts on social–ecological systems alongside the many other ‘solutions’ (e.g. technologies, policies, social and behavioural interventions, changes to infrastructure) available to achieve shared goals for a sustainable society. Constructing the future knowledge landscape of synthetic biology could inform anticipation to explore how synthetic biology may redefine human–environment interactions and shape visions, expectations, and fears about the future.