In the Mediterranean, the increasing social impacts of water scarcity are growing, but effective measures to manage such scarcity are difficult to implement due to the variability of stakeholders and the weak means to handle new policies. To ameliorate the future of water management in the region, communication between stakeholders has to be improved. The Water Framework Directive (WFD 2000) defines a European framework for water management and protection at each hydrological basin level and gives priority to environment conservation through participatory and consultative programmes. In the perspective of developing and analysing a set of comprehensive scenarios of Europe freshwater futures up to 2050, SCENES project (Water Scenarios for Europe and for Neighbouring States) suggests the use of fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) as an Information and Communication tool significantly able to support public participation. The present paper reports on the use of FCM in a typical Mediterranean area, the Candelaro river basin in southern Italy, to elicit public perceptions on the current pressures on and state of water resources. Based on these perceptions and down-scaling the global scenarios, local visions of future changes were developed and their potential environmental and socio-economic effects explored.
Keywords: candelaro river basin, FCM, Mediterranean, participatory process, scenarios, WFD
A scarcity of clean, fresh water presents increasing risks to companies in many countries and many economic sectors. These risks are difficult for investors to assess, due both to poor information about the underlying supply conditions and to fragmentary or inadequate reporting by individual companies. As a result, market prices of securities are unlikely to accurately reflect the potential costs of water-related problems.
In this report, JPMorgan Global Environmental, Social, and Governance Research offers...
Untitled Document
The Water Framework Directive will
fundamentally change the way water
is managed in the European Union,
introducing a new concept of “good
status” which incorporates biological, chemical
quality and quantity criteria. The directive also
aims to reduce (or phase out) emissions, discharges
and losses of priority and priority hazardous
substances, reduce groundwater
pollution and mitigate the effects of flood and
drought. To achieve all this,...
Water management in most parts of the world has long followed a pattern of functional specialization (FS). Water agencies, companies, or departments of government supply water. Other agencies, companies, or departments supply wastewater services. Yet a third group is charged with flood control and storm runoff management. Of course some water utilities supply both water and wastewater services, and some government departments include all three branches of the water sector. These may appear to be exceptions, but...
Abstract:
This paper analyses informal networks and their utilisation during a period of water scarcity in an upstream and a downstream district in the Khorezm Province, Uzbekistan. The evaluation is based on an organisational theory approach on informal networks. Communication patterns between farm managers, district water departments and district governors in a year with a sufficient amount of water and in a year of water scarcity are compared with informal network structures. The analysis shows that in the...
This paper considers the institutional arrangements that are needed and that being developed to enable
communities to depart from sectoral and isolated water management in order to reach a higher level of integration. Key aspects are described that should be properly handled to manage river basins as a whole and in an integrated way.
The justification for various countries to opt for systems of integrated river basin management is explored.
Triggers for change are identified: the need for integrated water...
The UK’s prestigious Royal Society recently held a discussion group on the subject of Flood Management and Climate Change. With much of the Northern Hemisphere approaching the winter flooding season, we spoke to Wallingford Software’s David Fortune to find out the role of modelling in flood forecasting and flood management. He set out his ideas as follows:
We must remember first that, while we might expect more flooding as our climate changes, it is not a simple matter to predict the extent of flooding. It’s not...
Up to now, the recovery of precious metals used as catalysts in chemical processes has involved the use of incineration. Now, however, a British-Swedish joint venture has developed a process which uses supercritical water oxidation instead, which provides many economic and environmental advantages.
Precious metals are used extensively in catalysts in a wide range of industrial chemical processes. Sometimes they are used in a homogeneous form, but more often fixed to a solid support for ease of handling. In many...
A wave of privatization is rolling through the water industry – at the environment‘s expense? In order to provide an answer to this question, the Environmental-Rating agency oekom research AG, Munich, put a number of water supply companies and manufacturers of water appliances to the environmental test. In results published today, oekom identifies the British water supplier Severn Trent as the environmental leader of the water supply group with a B grade in the overall Environmental-Rating. The Austrian water...
Abstract
Due to modern environmental packaging requirements the question of recyclability of post-consumer PET-recyclate into new food packaging applications is of increasing interest. In consequence the recycling process and the quality assurance of the PET-recyclate must satisfy special requirements.
The Fraunhofer-Institute has developed so-called `Challenge-Tests` for the testing of various different recycling processes. These Challenge-Tests investigate if a recycler provides a PET-recyclate quality...
Introduction
Increasing concerns about the potential risks of anthropogenic climate change over the past ten years have led to a series of international conferences intended to combat climate change and its adverse effects. However, the Kyoto Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) and, more so, the conference in Buenos Aires revealed the tremendous complexity of the climate change issue, which makes consensus about necessary mitigation measures almost impossible. Not...
Abstract
Africa
The economic and social needs of Africa depends more on its environmental resources but these natural resources are seriously declining and that is really effecting the entire region. Sustainable development in this rapidly changing region has become an imperative, and must take place in the complex context of a diverse and changing ecosystem, political transition and evolution toward market economies.
The region is heading towards integrating environmental components into sectors like...
Introduction:
Co-metabolism is one form of secondary substrate transformation in which enzymes produced for primary substrate oxidation are capable of degrading the secondary substrate fortuitously, even though the secondary substrates do not afford sufficient energy to sustain the microbial population. An emerging application involves the injection of water containing dissolved primary substrate (e.g. methane, toluene) and oxygen into ground water to support the co-metabolic breakdown of targeted organic...
In the semi-arid region surrounding Whyalla in South Australia, BHP is creating an artificial wetland that promises to make its effluent cleaner than its input water. The wetland is projected to cost around 40% of a conventional treatment works, with significantly less operating costs. The project will conserve one of the most precious resources in the world’s driest country - water - and will improve the local environment. The wetland`s design may also be picked up by local authorities to treat stormwater and...
Fuel contaminants are generally nonhalogenated. Information presented for nonhalogenated VOCs and nonhalogenated SVOCs may also be appropriate for many of the fuel contaminants presented in this subsection.
Contamination by fuel contaminants in the unsaturated zone exists in four phases: vapor in the pore spaces; sorbed to subsurface solids; dissolved in water; or as NAPL. The nature and extent of transport are determined by the interactions among contaminant transport properties (e.g., density, vapor pressure,...
` In order to determine the impacts of a particular discharge on ambient water quality, it is usually necessary to model the diffusion and dispersion of the discharge in the relevant water body. The approach applies both to new discharges and to upgrading of existing sources. This note provides guidance on models that may be applicable in the context of typical Bank projects.`
Introduction
Mathematical models can be used to predict changes in ambient water quality due to changes in discharges of wastewater. In...
A treatment train is the combination of different treatment technologies. A system diagram of a common treatment train for inorganics is illustrated below. Metal contaminated soil is treated using the combination of electrokinetics and phytoremediation. Electrokinetics is used to remove metals from deep soil and ground water. A low density direct current is applied to mobilize charged species, causing ions and water to move toward the electrodes. Metal ions move toward the cathode, and anions move toward anode....
The U.S. Department of Energy`s (DOE`s) Environmental Restoration Program directs the assessment and cleanup of inactive sites and surplus facilities contaminated from previous defense and non-defense-related programs. All cleanup activities must comply with federal, state, Indian Nation, and local laws and regulations. In completing environmental restoration activities, DOE is committed to working with stakeholders to understand technical issues and evaluate alternatives. Two important program goals include...
Customer comments
No comments were found for Down-scaling pan-European water scenarios to local visions in the Mediterranean: the Candelaro Basin case study in Italy. Be the first to comment!
