Nathanial Matthews

Sustainable intensification of agriculture for human prosperity and global sustainability.

There is an ongoing debate on what constitutes sustainable intensification of agriculture (SIA). In this paper, we propose that a paradigm for sustainable intensification can be defined and translated into an operational framework for agricultural development. We argue that this paradigm must now be defined—at all scales—in the context of rapidly rising global environmental changes in the Anthropocene, while focusing on eradicating poverty and hunger and contributing to human wellbeing. The criteria and approach we propose, for a paradigm shift towards sustainable intensification of agriculture, integrates the dual and interdependent goals of using sustainable practices to meet rising human needs while contributing to resilience and sustainability of landscapes, the biosphere, and the Earth system. Both of these, in turn, are required to sustain the future viability of agriculture. This paradigm shift aims at repositioning world agriculture from its current role as the world’s single largest driver of global environmental change, to becoming a key contributor of a global transition to a sustainable world within a safe operating space on Earth.

Transboundary water interaction III: contest and compliance

This paper serves international water conflict resolution efforts by examining the ways that states contest hegemonic transboundary water arrangements. The conceptual framework of dynamic transboundary water interaction that it presents integrates theories about change and counter-hegemony to ascertain coercive, leverage, and liberating mechanisms through which contest and transformation of an arrangement occur. While the mechanisms can be active through sociopolitical processes either of compliance or of contest of the arrangement, most transboundary water interaction is found to contain elements of both. The role of power asymmetry is interpreted through classification of intervention strategies that seek to either influence or challenge the arrangements. Coexisting contest and compliance serve to explain in part the stasis on the Jordan and Ganges rivers (where the non-hegemons have in effect consented to the arrangement), as well as the changes on the Tigris and Mekong rivers, and even more rapid changes on the Amu Darya and Nile rivers (where the non-hegemons have confronted power asymmetry through influence and challenge). The framework also stresses how transboundary water events that may appear isolated are more accurately read within the many sociopolitical processes and arrangements they are shaped by. By clarifying the typically murky dynamics of interstate relations over transboundary waters, furthermore, the framework exposes a new suite of entry points for hydro-diplomatic initiatives.

Global linkages among energy, food and water: an economic assessment

The resolution adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 25 September 2015 is symptomatic of the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus. It postulates goals and related targets for 2030 that include (1) End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture (SDG2); (2) Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all (SDG6); and (3) Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all (SDG7). There will be tradeoffs between achieving these goals particularly in the wake of changing consumption patterns and rising demands from a growing population expected to reach more than nine billion by 2050. This paper uses global economic analysis tools to assess the impacts of long-term changes in fossil fuel prices, for example, as a result of a carbon tax under the UNFCCC or in response to new, large findings of fossil energy sources, on water and food outcomes. We find that a fossil fuel tax would not adversely affect food security and could be a boon to global food security if it reduces adverse climate change impacts.

Opportunities for improved promotion of ecosystem services in agriculture under the Water-Energy-Food Nexus

In this study, we focus on water quality as a vehicle to illustrate the role that the water, energy, and food (WEF) Nexus perspective may have in promoting ecosystem services in agriculture. The mediation of water quality by terrestrial systems is a key ecosystem service for a range of actors (municipalities, fishers, industries, and energy providers) and is reshaped radically by agricultural activity. To address these impacts, many programs exist to promote improved land-use practices in agriculture; however, where these practices incur a cost or other burden to the farmer, adoption can be low unless some form of incentive is provided (as in a payment for ecosystem services (PES) program). Provision of such incentives can be a challenge to sustain in the long term, if there is not a clear beneficiary or other actor willing to provide them. Successfully closing the loop between impacts and incentives often requires identifying a measurable and valuable service with a clear central beneficiary that is impacted by the summative effects of the diffuse agricultural practices across the landscape. Drawing on cases from our own research, we demonstrate how the WEF Nexus perspective—by integrating non-point-source agricultural problems under well-defined energy issues—can highlight central beneficiaries of improved agricultural practice, where none may have existed otherwise.

False promises : the contours, contexts, and contestation of good water governance in Lao PDR and Alberta, Canada.

‘Good water governance’ in Lao PDR and Alberta, Canada emerged in different political contexts of, respectively, communism and democracy. Yet both espouse similar principles of participation, transparency and accountability. Drawing on multiple methods, this paper examines how contests over governance affect the adoption of, and mechanisms for, ‘good water governance.’ It gives particular emphasis to how both scale and context influence, and at times curtail, the promises of good water governance. In both Lao PDR and Alberta, we examine how governance mechanisms have been wielded by what we call closed communities. These communities are part of the dark side of water governance. They espouse good governance principles yet retain political power apart from them. We suggest good water governance is far from guaranteed by particular political systems, new institutions or even legislation. Keywords: Water Governance, water resources, Laos, Alberta, politics, scale.

Global Water Governance: An Overview

This chapter distinguishes water management from water governance. It provides an overview of international water management from the UN Conference on Water in Mar del Plata to projects of global water governance that began in earnest in 2000. It emphasizes the important role that programs of integrated water resources management (IWRM) played during the 1990s, the problems and potential of which significantly shaped the challenges taken up by global water governance. Through this historical overview, the chapter defines and explains the specific attention that water governance gives to the social and political structures of decision making. As the result of the significant role of IWRM, existing structures of international water management connected water governance to programs of sustainability that aim to maximize outcomes across the triple-bottom line of environmental, economic, and social well-being. The chapter identifies the liberal compromise of sustainable development and the ways in which liberal notions of political and social order have both compelled and constrained notions of sustainable development.

Global Challenges in Water Governance

After a century of massive human interventions into the hydrological cycle, governing water is a critical global concern in the new millennium. Growing evidence that human impacts on the planet are shaping global and local hydrology is challenging long-held assumptions regarding resource management, development, and sustainability. Global Challenges in Water Governance introduces and examines physical, social, and ethical factors that affect how relationships to water amongst humans, social institutions, other species, and Earth systems are governed. Each volume in the series tackles issues of critical importance to water governance— from relationships of science to policy, to water politics and human rights, to ecological concerns—in order to clarify what is at stake and to organize the complex contexts in which decisions are made. Broadly interdisciplinary, the series provides fresh, accessible insights across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities from established academics and talented young scholars. Individual books are ideal for educators, as policy primers for governmental and non-governmental sectors, and for researchers whose work is directly or incidentally connected to water issues.