Suchergebnisse

Nine bilbies were reintroduced to a 14-km2 reserve free of rabbits, cats and foxes in South Australia in April 2000. The survival, growth and ecology of the population were studied for 17 months after release by means of radio-tracking and trapping. Reproduction was continuous over the study period, with juveniles successfully recruited into the population. Home-range size of female bilbies averaged 0.18 km2 and was significantly smaller than home ranges of males, which averaged 3.16 km2. Wild-born subadults had smaller home ranges than adults. While male home ranges, and male and female home ranges overlapped considerably, females appeared to maintain areas discrete from other adult females. Bilbies showed a significant preference for dune habitat. As swale habitat appears too hard for burrow construction and males moved greater distances from diurnal burrows than females, males are likely to access food reserves that are under-used by females. Both males and females reused at least 30% of their burrows, and females displayed long-term site fidelity. The release was considered successful and suggests that despite historical damage from rabbits and stock, bilbies are able to successfully recolonise parts of their former range in arid South Australia once rabbits, cats and foxes are removed.

Water markets are a form of decentralized resource allocation, yet their success often depends on strong coordination institutions to establish appropriate regulatory frameworks, address disputes and minimize third party impacts as water is redistributed. Water markets and associated institutional reforms are prevalent in countries with federal political systems. The territorial division of authority in federal countries enhances representation of diverse interests and creates incentives for local innovation but it also creates potential coordination challenges in river basins shared by multiple jurisdictions. This paper compares water markets and associated institutional reforms in Australia, Spain and the Western USA - three federations with longstanding experience with water markets but different approaches to distributing authority and intergovernmental coordination in water allocation. We conduct an institutional mapping of national and sub-national roles in market-based water allocation reforms across the three countries and employ process tracing techniques to examine coordination challenges and institutional responses associated with water markets. The comparative institutional analysis illustrates how the policy goals addressed by water markets vary across – and within – the three countries in part due to the level of centralisation and the different balance of national versus sub-national interests driving water market development. Despite these differences, all three cases show that water markets require well-developed inter-governmental coordination institutions, which come in multiple forms matched to the local context, history and specific regional governance challenges.

This article joins the debate over factors which affect sustainability in China's rural areas at both the village and individual level. It assesses gender-based differences in response to environmental problems, effects of farmer innovation circles on village sustainability, and development of environmental consciousness. We find that both sexes have low environmental consciousness, but women are more likely to be environmentally aware. Despite an increase in labor from agriculture reforms, women's status does not increase within the family, limiting their ability to act on their environmentalism. Education, income, and age are additional demographic factors related to environmental consciousness. Villagers feel the village is most responsible for environmental protection. The importance of governmental sources of agricultural information was highlighted, as was the impact increasing wealth has on environmental consciousness. In the future women must be vital participants in future sustainability programs, due to high incidence of male migrant city workers, and women's deep connectedness and dependence on the land.

There is a recognised need for a fundamental change in how the UK manages urban water and flood risk in response to increasingly frequent rainfall events coupled with planned urban expansion. Approaches centred on 'living with and making space for water' are increasingly adopted internationally. Nonetheless, widespread implementation of Blue-Green infrastructure (BGI) is currently hampered by barriers that impede uptake and innovation. We investigate the barriers to implementation of BGI in Newcastle, UK, through a series of semi-structured interviews with professional stakeholders. We identify and categorise 17 types of barrier and identify targeted strategies to overcome the dominant barriers. We recommend promotion of BGI's capacity to meet the objectives of multiple organisations and Local Authority departments, in addition to managing urban water. We conclude that strong business cases, supported by monetised evidence of benefits, and collaborative, inter-agency working could advance implementation of BGI within the current flood risk management legislation.

After 2 decades of cooperative governmental reforms on water, Australia established a world-leading hybrid governance system involving top-down regulation, water markets and water planning with stakeholder cooperation. Yet, with the abolition of the National Water Commission (NWC) in 2015,1 there is a growing belief that Australia may have "dropped the ball on water". At this critical juncture, it is both significant and timely to examine the challenges and future direction of Australia's water reforms. In light of these concerns, in December 2015, the Faculty of Law and the Connected Waters Initiative Research Centre at UNSW Australia hosted a group of water law specialists to consider the key successes and limits of Australia's hybrid water governance system, as well as to explore how best to steer water governance towards a more sustainable future path. At the conclusion of the workshop, it was apparent that although Australia has come a long way in water management under the NWI, the design and implementation of this national reform does not appear sufficient to meet future water challenges. Further reforms and changes will be required and this article sets out 10 priorities that should be considered and addressed by governments, civil society and industries if we are to achieve a sustainable water future for Australia.

Background: Competition for freshwater between cities and agriculture is projected to grow due to rapid urbanization, particularly in the Global South. Water reallocation from rural to urban regions has become a common strategy to meet freshwater needs in growing cities. Conceptual issues and associated measurement problems have impeded efforts to compare and learn from global experiences. This review examines the status and trends of water reallocation from rural to urban regions based on academic literature and policy documents. Methods: We conduct a systematic literature review to establish the global reallocation database (GRaD). This process yielded 97 published studies (academic and policy) on rural-to-urban reallocation. We introduce the concept of reallocation 'dyads' as the unit of analysis to describe the pair of a recipient (urban) and donor (rural) region. A coding framework was developed iteratively to classify the drivers, processes and outcomes of water reallocation from a political economy perspective. Results: The systematic review identified 69 urban agglomerations receiving water through 103 reallocation projects (dyads). Together these reallocation dyads involve approximately 16 billion m3 of water per year moving almost 13 000 kilometres to urban recipient regions with an estimated 2015 population of 383 million. Documented water reallocation dyads are concentrated in North America and Asia with the latter constituting the majority of dyads implemented since 2000. Synthesis: The analysis illustrates how supply and demand interact to drive water reallocation projects, which can take many forms, although collective negotiation and administrative decisions are most prevalent. Yet it also reveals potential biases and gaps in coverage for parts of the Global South (particularly in South America and Africa), where reallocation (a) can involve informal processes that are difficult to track and (b) receives limited coverage by the English-language literature covered by the review. Data regarding the ...

Background: Competition for freshwater between cities and agriculture is projected to grow due to rapid urbanization, particularly in the Global South. Water reallocation from rural to urban regions has become a common strategy to meet freshwater needs in growing cities. Conceptual issues and associated measurement problems have impeded efforts to compare and learn from global experiences. This review examines the status and trends of water reallocation from rural to urban regions based on academic literature and policy documents. Methods: We conduct a systematic literature review to establish the global reallocation database (GRaD). This process yielded 97 published studies (academic and policy) on rural-to-urban reallocation. We introduce the concept of reallocation 'dyads' as the unit of analysis to describe the pair of a recipient (urban) and donor (rural) region. A coding framework was developed iteratively to classify the drivers, processes and outcomes of water reallocation from a political economy perspective. Results: The systematic review identified 69 urban agglomerations receiving water through 103 reallocation projects (dyads). Together these reallocation dyads involve approximately 16 billion m3 of water per year moving almost 13 000 kilometres to urban recipient regions with an estimated 2015 population of 383 million. Documented water reallocation dyads are concentrated in North America and Asia with the latter constituting the majority of dyads implemented since 2000. Synthesis: The analysis illustrates how supply and demand interact to drive water reallocation projects, which can take many forms, although collective negotiation and administrative decisions are most prevalent. Yet it also reveals potential biases and gaps in coverage for parts of the Global South (particularly in South America and Africa), where reallocation (a) can involve informal processes that are difficult to track and (b) receives limited coverage by the English-language literature covered by the review. Data regarding the impacts on the donor region and compensation are also limited, constraining evidence to assess whether a water reallocation project is truly effective, equitable and sustainable. We identify frameworks and metrics for assessing reallocation projects and navigating the associated trade-offs by drawing on the concept of benefit sharing.