Author:
Polaine Xanthe K.,Nicol Alan,Amezaga Jaime,Berihun Meklit,Dessalegn Mengistu,Haile Alemseged Tamiru
Abstract
Water management has followed a basin unit paradigm for several decades. This framing often inherits a pre-defined spatial and institutional boundary of analysis, one that largely fails to account for various externalities influencing water security beyond the hydrological unit. Moving away from this established basin-scale analysis, we present the concept of problemscapes, a systems approach for understanding how multiple physical and social drivers surrounding (and as part of) contextual water systems determine how they work and, ultimately, the outcomes in terms of the water security they provide. By first discussing the concept of boundaries for water paradigms, we argue that problemscapes can help us understand water security as a more dynamic and hybrid system by adapting these boundaries; enabling a clearer understanding of leverage points, interconnections and possible strategic solutions to longer-term water security challenges. We apply the method for establishing and utilizing a problemscape analysis across the Central Rift Valley, Upper Awash, and Abbay basins, as well as the capital city of Addis Ababa. The interactions in this part of Central Ethiopia are notoriously complex, with sets of critical water management issues at national and international scale, hybrid water security challenges across user communities, and contested management at different scales amidst multiple, and sometimes competing, ideologies. We show that problemscaping as an approach could support future planning decisions for long-term water security by enabling a systems perspective to emerge where complexity and connectivity between actors, institutions, and physical and social entities is considered.
Funder
Economic and Social Research Council
Subject
Water Science and Technology
Reference64 articles.
1. The use of urban spatial scenario design model as a strategic planning tool for Addis Ababa;Abo-El-Wafa;Landsc. Urban Plann,2018
2. AllanT.
Watersheds and Problemsheds: Explaining the Absence of Armed Conflict Over Water in The Middle East. Middle East Review of International Affairs1998
3. The management dimensions of water security: a review;Bakker;Philos. Trans. R. Soc. A,2013
4. Socio-environmental impacts of land use/cover change in Ethiopian Central Rift Valley Lakes Region, East Africa;Bekele;Appl. Ecol. Environ. Res,2018
Cited by
1 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献
1. Systems thinking for water security;Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems;2022-07-03