2022/03/24     Dresden, Germany

From agri-food and forest systems to climate change and biodiversity, researchers at UNU-FLORES engage in a range of research themes to advance the Resource Nexus. In further advancing the nexus mindset, we also consider various analytical perspectives from governance to health. This edition spotlights our researchers’ work centring on water.

A truly integrated management of environmental resources calls for a study of not only the individual components of the Resource Nexus but also the interlinkages between them. To get an idea of what our researchers have been busy with, here are our recent publications:

Citizen Science Projects in Freshwater Monitoring. From Individual Design to Clusters?
Journal of Environmental Management
Sabrina Kirschke, Christy Bennett, Armin Bigham Ghazani, Christian Franke, Dieter Kirschke, Yeongju Lee, Seyed Taha Loghmani Khouzani, Shuvojit Nath

Based on a global survey, this article provides a systematic comparative analysis of the design of 85 citizen science projects in the field of freshwater monitoring. A cluster analysis allows to identify seven distinguished clusters of citizen science projects, revealing differences between groups of projects regarding institutional motivation, citizen characteristics, and interaction forms.

Environmentally Safe Technology to Increase Efficiency of High-Viscosity Oil Production for the Objects with Advanced Water Cut
Energies
Aleksandra Palyanitsina, Elena Safiullina, Roman Byazrov, Dmitriy Podoprigora, Alexey Alekseenko

The depletion of conventional oil reserves creates a significant demand for the development and improvement of methods and technologies to produce hard-to-recover oil. This study identifies and substantiates an effective technology for oil production from such deposits using polymer flooding. Implementation of the best practices through the prism of the Resource Nexus allows sustainable water management by applying environment-friendly polymers for enhanced oil recovery.

Scenarios of Water Extremes: Framing Ways Forward for Wicked Problems
Hydrological Processes
Hannah Kosow, Sabrina Kirschke, Dietrich Borchardt, Johannes Cullmann, Joseph H. A. Guillaume, David M. Hannah, Simon Schaub, Jale Tosun

Many of the current scenario studies on future water extremes do not seem to adequately address their emerging wickedness. This paper summarises five central recommendations resulting from expert discussions at a workshop. They indicate how to develop scenarios that more adequately address the emerging wickedness of double or even triple water extremes.

The Effect of Policy Incoherence on the Emergence of Groundwater-Related Subsidence Phenomena: A Case Study from Iran
Water International
Seyed Taha Loghmani Khouzani, Sabrina Kirschke, Ali Yousefi, Rudolf Liedl

Land subsidence due to overexploitation of aquifers is often attributed to incoherent public policies. Taking the case of the Mahyar valley in Iran as an example, and based on a mixed-method research design, this study analyses the effects of policy incoherence on well use for agricultural irrigation and the resulting groundwater levels.

Translating the ‘Water Scarcity – Water Reuse’ Situation into an Information System for Decision-Making
Sustainability Science
Andrea B. Müller, Tamara Avellán, Jochen Schanze

One key challenge of water resources management is the identification and processing of the information necessary for decision-making. Aiming to optimise water scarcity risk reduction and water reuse sustainability, this article provides avenues for translating a ‘water scarcity–water reuse’ situation into an information system, consisting of a multi-layer and a lane-based approach.

Water Resources Management: Integrated and Adaptive Decision Making in Handbook of Water Resources Management: Discourses, Concepts and Examples
Daniel Karthe, Janos J. Bogardi, Dietrich Borchardt

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) has evolved into one of the leading water management paradigms. Revisiting the starting points and the development of the IWRM concept, this chapter critically analyses the rationales and the major elements to be considered in the framework of IWRM. Based on theoretical and empirical analyses of contemporary IWRM research, it provides best practice examples of science-based implementation and synthesises the lessons learnt.

Web-Based Decision Support System for Managing the Food–Water–Soil–Ecosystem Nexus in the Kolleru Freshwater Lake of Andhra Pradesh in South India
Sustainability
Meena Kumari Kolli, Christian Opp, Daniel Karthe, Nallapaneni Manoj Kumar

In the case of India’s largest freshwater lake, the Kolleru freshwater ecosystem, environmental resources have been adversely impacted by an increase in food production. This manuscript introduces a web mapping application that provides fishpond data from the current monitoring programme and helps government organisations, resource managers, stakeholders, and decision makers better understand the lake ecosystem dynamics and plan any upcoming restoration measures.

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