Synergistic Interplays of Emerging Contaminants: Rethinking Water Security, Risk, and Resilience in a Changing World

Developing water resiliency solutions at military installations

Water scarcity represents an increasing threat to sustainable development, particularly in arid and semi-arid nations such as Egypt. Desalination has emerged as a principal alternative to increase water supply. This paper introduces a new framework, complemented by the iWater Index, a novel holistic evaluation tool designed to quantify desalination’s contribution to water security and resilience. The new DECSI framework integrates five interconnected dimensions—Drinking Water and Human Needs, Ecosystem Sustainability, Climate Resilience, Socio-Economic Equity, and Institutional and Governance Capacity—operationalized through 31 indicators spanning technical performance, environmental sustainability, social acceptability, economic feasibility, and governance effectiveness. The framework was illustrated for Egypt to qualitatively assess the current performance and strategic priority of each indicator. Results highlight the approximately intermediate performance along most axes, with climate resilience being a primary gap, indicating a challenge in reinforcing overall water resilience. The DECSI-iWater tool provides diagnostic and decision-support capabilities, enabling prioritization of interventions, the identification of critical gaps, and the formulation of a step-by-step roadmap for the integration of desalination into national agendas for sustainable water security and resilience. Although developed in Egypt, the model is designed for use in any geographic, institutional, and socio-economic setting, offering a globally relevant strategy for integrating desalination planning with robust water security objectives.

Learning the diverse Indigenous meanings of water governance and resiliency is critical to addressing ongoing drinking water crises in remote Indigenous communities in Canada. Many such communities continue to face long-term drinking water advisories, aging and inadequate infrastructure, contamination risks from surrounding land use, and limited jurisdiction over water decision-making. Indigenous communities hold distinct cultural and relational epistemologies of water, yet dominant resilience frameworks often overlook these perspectives, further compounding water insecurity in remote contexts. Guided by a relational theoretical framework and a community-based participatory research (CBPR) design, this study sought to understand Indigenous meanings of drinking water governance and resiliency through engagement with a rural and remote First Nation community, [the community], located in Treaty 4 territory, Saskatchewan. Data were generated through a water-sharing circle with Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and community members, creating a respectful space for collective reflection on lived experiences, responsibilities, and relationships with water. Findings demonstrate that Indigenous traditional knowledge and practices are central to community understandings of water governance and resiliency. For participants, water resiliency is not defined solely by infrastructure or supply, but by living well with water in ways that ensure intergenerational access, uphold cultural practices, and maintain reciprocal responsibilities to the land and all living beings. These insights highlight the importance of self-determined, Indigenous-led approaches to water governance. The study underscores the limitations of current water protection strategies and offers contributions relevant to Indigenous communities, policymakers, and researchers seeking more equitable and culturally grounded responses to drinking water insecurity.

This essay defines the concept of water security and explores the implications of the eternal pursuit of it. I will describe how water security is perceived by wealthy and by poorer nations, the tensions that arise from these differing views, and how these tensions are being resolved in a world in which the geography of economics and power is changing rapidly. I outline a few iconic cases of how societies have built institutions and infrastructure to deal with both floods and droughts. The essay assesses the effects of changes in climate and land use systems, and the differing reactions to the new perception of “nonstationarity”: the idea that these systems are less predictable than they have historically been. The essay concludes with some reflections on the challenges of educating young people seized with passion for the issues of their generation but who may have difficulty taking a long view of water security. Many have been taught about the environmental ravages wrought by water infrastructure, but few understand how these same infrastructure and institutions underpin the water security that the United States has achieved. 1 Similarly, we teach the next generation too little about the remarkable contributions of “thinking practitioners”: experts who are also involved in policy-making and planning–whose work underpins the food, water, and energy security of their societies.

October 01 1998 Homosexuals in the U.S. Military: Open Integration and Combat Effectiveness Elizabeth Kier Elizabeth Kier Elizabeth Kier is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley and an SSRC/MacArthur Postdoctoral Fellow for Peace and Security in a Changing World. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Elizabeth Kier Elizabeth Kier is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley and an SSRC/MacArthur Postdoctoral Fellow for Peace and Security in a Changing World. Online Issn: 1531-4804 Print Issn: 0162-2889 © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.1998 International Security (1998) 23 (2): 5–39. https://doi.org/10.1162/isec.23.2.5 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Elizabeth Kier; Homosexuals in the U.S. Military: Open Integration and Combat Effectiveness. International Security 1998; 23 (2): 5–39. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/isec.23.2.5 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentAll JournalsInternational Security Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.1998 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Water security is one of the main paradigms presently shaping global water governance. At its very core, water security aims at preserving freshwater resources from any form of risk, natural or human-caused, that could imperil or further delay the stability and the sustainability of societies and ecosystems. The adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals has acknowledged this paradigm as a key avenue towards the alleviation of poverty, the promotion of gender equality, the universal access to sanitation, and the protection of natural environments. However, reaching a universal water secure state, a harsh endeavor in itself, has been further complicated by the pervasive effects of global environmental change, among which widespread climate anomalies and population growth represent the main hurdles. The instability caused by environmental change has led to the emergence of risk situations that have never been encountered before and for which global analysis tools and governance strategies have yet to be designed. Wildland fires are one of the most important natural drivers of vegetation dynamics at the surface of the globe. In many parts of the world, global environmental change has led to more conducive fire weather patterns combined with a higher ignition frequency due to landscape anthropization. This situation has increased the occurrence, extent, and severity of catastrophic wildfires in many areas critical for the provision of surface freshwater supplies to downstream human and natural communities. Although fire-caused alterations of the hydrological cycle have been recognized for a long time, the upsurge of extensive and severe blazes in many basinsâ headwaters has shed light on the exposure of downstream populations and aquatic ecosystems to post-fire hydrogeomorphic hazards, such as floods or nutrient pollution. Exposed assets are therefore made vulnerable to harmful consequences such as the degradation of environmental flows, the disruption of the drinking-water supply, or the destruction of infrastructures. The emergence of wildfire-related risks to freshwater resources is thus becoming a new challenge to add to the long list of threats to water security, and solving this issue will not be done without innovative research efforts. The research presented hereafter offers the first global exploration of wildfire risks to water security. The resulting work offers three main outcomes. First, it widens the water security paradigm by demonstrating the growing danger that wildfires represent to the freshwater supply. Secondly, it provides an efficient and highly flexible risk analysis framework to researchers, managers, and policy-makers involved in the resolution of water security matters and the design of disaster risk reduction strategies. Finally, it proposes a reflection on the deleterious, though often overlooked, emerging effects of global environmental change affecting the interactions between fire activity and the hydrologic cycle. This work will hopefully help to better guide global water governance by acknowledging the extensive and potentially dangerous effects of wildfires on socio-hydrological systems.

Invisible water security: Moisture recycling and water resilience

Facing Global Environmental Change

International audience

Eighty per cent of the world's population is exposed to high levels of threats to water security and a severe water crisis is looming by 2070. Faced with these alarming estimates, the author argues that a business-as-usual attitude will not work. Water management is a scientific issue, but it is also a matter of politics, governance and societal values. A new transdisciplinary science is urgently needed.

Two key components of water security are water quality and water quantity. Safe drinking water is essential for public health and linked with adequate sanitation. At global level the access to safe drinking water has improved to the point where more than 91% of world's population has access to safe drinking water. However, at the same time the target level set for sanitation improvement by the UN's Millennium Development Goals has not been obtained, consequently, drinking water is still an important source of gastroenteric diseases. In addition, environmental toxicants such as cyanotoxins, pharmaceuticals and toxic disinfection by-products continue to provide treatment challenges. Designing and ensuring the safe drinking water supply systems is a multi- and interdisciplinary challenge, where close collaboration and cooperation between veterinary, public health and medical professionals together with experts on security and quality, water engineering and communication is essential. Water is vital not only for drinking, but also for agricultural production, electricity generation, and manufacturing. Accelerated global population growth combined with the acceleration of Gross Domestic Product growth has placed significant stress on global water supplies. The concept of water/energy/food nexus highlights these stresses in an effort to mitigate the risks associated with stressed global water supplies. Ignoring these risks can have catastrophic consequences from both social and economic perspectives. The water / energy / food nexus provides a major challenge at a global scale, yet it must be addressed at a regional level with region-specific solutions. It requires coordination across utility and market sectors that have limited coordination in the past. Failure to coordinate this effort will not only impact economic growth, but could ignite civil unrest. As indicated by the World Bank (2016b) in their report: “water management will be crucial in determining whether the world achieves the Sustainable Development Goals and aspirations for reducing poverty and enhancing shared prosperity.”

The Pursuit of Justice Through EU Security Strategies: Sisyphus Redux?

On 1 July 2004 the Secretary of State for Defence (SofS) released the Defence White Paper (DWP) ‘Delivering Security in the Changing World’, in which he set out his strategy to deliver security into the 21st century. The announcement followed a thorough analysis of the emerging security environment and was conducted in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, and amidst a continuing Global War on Terror. The DWP announced major changes to the structure, size and organization of Defence generally, with significant changes to the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Royal Navy (RN). Changes to the Army were presented under the banner of ‘Future Army Structures’ (FAS), which primarily represented a rebalancing of capability to ‘meet the new threats . . . of international terrorism’ (MoD, 2004) through the provision of a ‘truly robust and expeditionary Army’ according to the Chief of General Staff (2004). FAS was part of the response by the Army to increasing budgetary pressure to save money and within this the Army decided to restructure the Infantry in a programme designated Future Infantry Structures (FIS). However, in delivering FIS the Army runs the risk of ignoring some of the key tenets of change management. This paper presents examples of how the Army has not recognized issues of establishing a guiding coalition, stakeholder engagement and the role of communications. However, the prime concern is that the Army appears to believe that major change (culturally significant) can be achieved without giving due attention to appropriate resourcing of change. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Water is in the news, with alarming headlines about water wars and dire photos of dried-up reservoirs.Is this our new reality?We'll look at global assessments that reveal where and how declining water supply clashes with human water use, and whether changes in water management could ameliorate conflict.Water measures and flow forecasts are critical to decision makers, but they need information interpreted and integrated with contextual geographic and social data in order to operationalize research.The national security community in particular is looking to integrate water and climate information in assessments of water, food, health, energy, and associated unrest as they anticipate demands for assistance.We'll look at how science is translated for this type of policy use through boundary organizations like the Global Water Security Center.

Cities in Africa face escalating water-related challenges, compounded by worsening climate change and rising urbanization. Water insecurity threatens economies, livelihoods and the health and wellbeing of billions. The answer: smart, systematic investments in urban water resilience that ensure communities have safe, reliable and affordable water; and that water resources are protected through disaster preparedness and water-sensitive infrastructure. Water Resilience in a Changing Urban Context: Africa's Challenge and Pathways for Action, demonstrates that African cities can address these challenges with a fresh approach centered on water resilience. This publication frames core challenges and major barriers that prevent water resilience in African countries. The authors, experts in water resilience, highlight the potential power of city-regions in Africa to drive transformation. It offers four priority pathways for action as a starting point for cities to build urban water resilience: 1) plan for water, 2) prioritize the most vulnerable, 3) create change at scale and 4) get finance right. Water resilience is essential to many development goals, from the Sustainable Development Goals and UN Habitat’s New Urban Agenda, to the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the Paris Agreement.