Natural Resource Management Challenges Research Articles

A systematic literature review of sustainable water management in South Africa

Addressing global challenges of inequitable and unsustainable natural resource management is imperative. South African water management serves as a critical case study allowing for the deep exploration of the intricate complexities surrounding these issues. South Africa's apartheid era witnessed inequitable water distribution and, despite the efforts made through the post-apartheid National Water Act of 1998 to prioritise equity and sustainability, challenges still persist in its implementation. This review aims to bridge knowledge gaps in sustainable water management in South Africa, focusing on environmental justice and sustainable development within the framework of the three pillars of sustainability. Through a systematic literature review of 57 scientific papers published in the Web of Science database between 1995 and 2021 this study aims to provide a comprehensive examination of the complex dynamics shaping water management in South Africa. Major themes, challenges, and solutions in sustainable water management are identified, emphasising the importance of stakeholder interactions, insufficient collaboration, and a lack of capacity building. The study also explores water policy implementation, environmental impacts of business, particularly in agriculture and mining, and the management of freshwater sources and their overexploitation. Economically, the mining industry's role and associated challenges such as acid mine drainage and water use competition are assessed. The Water-Energy-Food Nexus's influence on water management, water pricing efficiency, user willingness to pay, and the potential of decentralised systems and corporate social responsibility are also explored. With South Africa facing urgent challenges of water scarcity and resource management, integrated approaches that consider environmental, social, and economic dimensions, alongside robust multi-stakeholder collaboration, are essential. This review offers valuable insights for policymakers, water managers, and researchers working toward a sustainable water future in South Africa.

Quota Consolidation in Norwegian Coastal Fisheries

AbstractBalancing the trade-off between economic efficiency and social objectives has been a challenge for natural resource managers under rights-based management. While the actual prioritization should be guided by social preferences, the mechanisms and consequences of the quota transfer system need to be well understood. We investigate the effects of the quota transfer scheme implemented in the Norwegian coastal cod fishery in 2004. This is a small-scale fishery that has traditionally been important for employment in the northern part of Norway. Using vessel-level quota registry data, we estimate the effect of quota trading on vessel exit using a difference-in-differences approach that exploits variation in implementation timing between regulatory groups. In addition, we describe the outcome of quota consolidation with descriptive statistics. Our results confirm that the quota transfer scheme accelerates the exit of vessels from the fishery by at least 5% points in the short run. The descriptive analysis reveals great heterogeneity in both the size and geographic location of exiting vessels, suggesting that the scheme has distributional impacts. While the policy change has the expected effects in the short run, our results suggest that the implications of consolidation last longer. This has implications for policymakers trying to balance economic efficiency and social objectives of rational fishery management.

Belling the cat: Designing collective action institutions for natural resource management in the peri-urban interface

Peri-urban spaces are experiencing tremendous growth in the Global South, which in turn has fuelled a suite of environmental and natural resource management challenges, including inequitable access to and conflicts over natural resources, and the existence of institutional lacunae. Against this backdrop, we examine how scholars study collective action institutions around natural resource management in peri-urban spaces, with a regional focus on South Asia, and present its implications for institutional design and development in peri-urban contexts. In order to do so, we use ‘organic institutions’ and ‘pragmatic institutions’– a type of institutional classification grounded in the origin of institutions, as a conceptual entry point. We find that less is known about the role of organic institutions in enabling collective action around natural resource management in peri-urban spaces, even though their understanding is key for efforts at building effective pragmatic institutions. The paper concludes that practitioners working in peri-urban spaces should invest resources into understanding underlying social differences and developing strategies to mobilise social groups, by developing an understanding of organic institutions in peri-urban spaces.

More Than a Service: Values of Rivers, Wetlands and Floodplains Are Informed by Both Function and Feeling

How people value rivers, wetlands and floodplains influences their attitudes, beliefs and behaviours towards these ecosystems, and can shape policy and management interventions. Better understanding why people value rivers, wetlands and floodplains and their key ecosystem components, such as vegetation, helps to determine what factors underpin the social legitimacy required for effective management of these systems. This study sought to ascertain perspectives on the value of non-woody vegetation in river-floodplain systems via an online survey. The survey found that participants valued non-woody vegetation for their provision of a range of ecosystem functions and services, with strong emphasis on ecological aspects such as regulation functions, habitat provision and biodiversity. However, the inclusion of a question framed to focus on stories or narratives resulted in a different emphasis. Responses indicated that non-woody vegetation, and rivers, wetlands and floodplains were valued for the way they made people feel through lived experiences such as recreational activities, personal interactions with nature, educational and research experiences. This highlights the important role of storytelling in navigating complex natural resource management challenges and ascertaining a deeper understanding of values that moves beyond provision of function to feeling. Improved understanding of the diverse ways people value and interact with river-floodplain systems will help develop narratives and forms of engagement that foster shared understanding, empathy and collaboration. Appreciation of plural values such as the provision of functions and services along with the role of emotional connections and lived experience will likely increase lasting engagement of the general public with management to protect and restore river-floodplain systems.

What’s local policy got to do with it? Testing the efficacy of federal interventions to protect coastal parks from sunscreen chemical pollution in Hawaii and North Carolina

Across the United States, conservation policies often differ based on the local or state jurisdiction, which can present challenges for federal natural resource managers with mandates to protect lands and waters in these areas. To reduce sunscreen chemical pollution in park aquatic ecosystems, the National Park Service (NPS) suggests that visitors apply non-nanotized mineral-based sunscreens and wear sun-protective clothing. In summer 2021, researchers tested whether visitor exposure to interventions promoting NPS sun protection recommendations was associated with these behaviors in two very different local policy contexts. A survey was fielded in July and August 2021 at coastal parks in North Carolina and Hawaii. At the time of the study, Hawaii had implemented a ban on the sale of sunscreen containing the chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate, whereas North Carolina had no pending legislation. We found similar park visitor behaviors, use of sunscreen chemical formulations, and responses to NPS interventions, regardless of local policy status. At both locations, respondents demonstrated high levels of pro-environmental intent and similar sun protection behaviors. Of the three sunscreen chemical “Os” that have been banned in regions of the United States—octocrylene, oxybenzone, and octinoxate—octocrylene was the most frequently reported active ingredient in sunscreens. Only about a third of sunscreen products reported by visitors included zinc oxide and/or titanium dioxide as the sole active ingredients, formulations most commonly cited as less environmentally harmful. And at both locations, visitor exposure to at least one of the interventions on sun protection related to higher levels of intent to practice the recommended behaviors.

Adaptation strategies for climate change impacts on water quality: a systematic review of the literature

AbstractClimate change will impact water bodies and create significant challenges for natural resource managers. Despite the increasing impacts of climate change on water quality, the development and implementation of long-term strategic adaptation measures are seldom governmental priorities. So far, research has mainly tended to focus on the availability and volume of water rather than the quality. Comparatively fewer studies have considered adaptation strategies that deal with the uncertainties of the impacts of climate change on the quality of water bodies. This paper reports the results of a systematic review of literature on adaptation options and the barriers and drivers that can exert a positive or negative influence on their implementation. Findings suggest that there has been and continues to be a cautious approach to a growing concern for a natural resource of utmost necessity. Most of the strategies mentioned in the literature use coping or incremental approaches. However, adaptation strategies offering low levels of resilience for addressing water quality may not be up to the challenge of significant future climate changes.

Effects of land use change on inter‐species and intra‐guild trophic interactions of fish communities in tropical headwater streams

Abstract Freshwater ecosystems are subjected to a broad range of anthropogenic threats. Understanding the responses of aquatic biota to these threats and identifying potential mitigating actions presents a major challenge for ecologists and natural resource managers. Here, we investigated the responses of fish communities to land use change at different scales. We assessed patterns of food web structure of fish across a gradient of human impacts in the Atlantic Forest ecoregion of southeast Brazil. We analysed stomach contents of fish and evaluated the response of five food web metrics to variation in land use change. We also calculated four metrics for intra‐guild comparisons in the omnivore, insectivore, and algivore–insectivore guilds. The proportional abundance of omnivores increased as temperature increased and canopy cover decreased. Food web specialisation decreased in deforested streams with higher nutrient input, suggesting higher resource sharing by those fish communities. Fish in the algivore–insectivore guild consumed fewer types of macroinvertebrates in streams with low canopy cover. The opposite pattern was observed within the insectivore guild with individuals consuming a larger variety of prey in impacted streams. Deforestation, and increases in water temperature and nutrient input, influenced inter‐species and intra‐guild trophic interactions in fish communities in these Atlantic Forest streams, even though the richness of fish community and composition of intra‐guild species remained unchanged. Some food web metrics were sensitive to the direct and indirect effects of disturbance on these fish communities. Our study has shown that assessments of trophic interactions can detect the effects of land‐use disturbance on fish communities that may not be evident from simple measures of species richness and composition. This approach provides direct insights into the functional integrity of fish communities and should be considered for monitoring the success of programmes aimed to protect and, where necessary, restore freshwater ecosystems.

Climate resilience and the human-water dynamics. The case of tomato production in Morocco

In Morocco, droughts are an increasing threat affecting water availability, agricultural production and producers' livelihoods. Moreover, water demand for irrigation has led to overexploitation of the groundwater table causing significant natural resource management challenges. The combination of groundwater changes and increasing drought risk raises concerns about the ability of agricultural producers to be resilient against drought. In this study, we describe the interactions of environmental and socioeconomic processes which influence farmers' livelihoods involved in tomato production in Morocco. Building on system dynamics modelling tools, we aim to improve the understanding of the long-term dynamic behavior of water management and to explore plausible policy scenarios necessary for sustainable and resilient water resource management and agricultural development. Our results show that tomato production is not yet severely impacted by droughts. However, droughts are accelerating the process of groundwater depletion, impacting farmers' livelihoods, by decreasing crop productivity and reducing farmer's revenue over a longer time period, especially since tomatoes are a high-value crop. Therefore, integrated and effective policies are presented as a set of measures for a systemic enhancement of resilience. We conclude that a more radical approach toward water resource conservation and upholding the most vulnerable producers has to be adopted in order to enhance a sustainable and inclusive resilience of the tomato production in Morocco.

Understanding and Advancing Natural Resource Management in the Context of Changing Ocean Conditions

Changing ocean conditions, such as ocean acidification, hypoxia, and ocean warming, are impacting marine ecosystems and posing a variety of immediate and future challenges for natural resource managers and affiliated industries. In order to successfully facilitate adaptation and mitigation responses to changing ocean conditions, research efforts and synthesis products should be developed in collaboration with resource managers and decision makers. Using interviews and surveys, we sought to advance collaborative science approaches by identifying the most pressing concerns, barriers, and research and monitoring needs of natural resource managers in Washington State, USA, where marine waters are particularly vulnerable to changing ocean conditions. Survey participants indicated that they are most concerned by ocean acidification, followed by water temperature and hypoxia. Our findings reveal a desire to prioritize laboratory and in situ studies to identify survival thresholds of ecologically or commercially important organisms, specifically zooplankton, fish, Dungeness crab, and conditions that promote harmful algal blooms. Scientific literature and in-person workshops and meetings were the preferred way for survey participants to learn about new science and affiliated results. Our findings highlight a need for continued and expanded monitoring and research efforts, the development of interpretive science products for resource managers, and enhanced communication between entities before information on changing ocean conditions can be effectively incorporated into resource management and policy decisions.

Ecosystem services in the Swedish water-energy-food-land-climate nexus: Anthropogenic pressures and physical interactions

Traditionally, challenges of natural resource management have been addressed with a sectoral policy approach. However, it is increasingly recognised that different sectors are interconnected in a complex and mutually interacting system. A nexus approach is proposed to identify synergies and trade-offs between sectors and to foster the sustainable and efficient use of resources, particularly in light of climate change. The nexus approach has led to studies identifying interactions between policy objectives across nexus sectors, but the physical interactions between nexus sectors that can be the result of policy interactions, have received less attention. Nevertheless, such interactions can have severe consequences for the environment, affecting ecosystems and the services they provide. Integrating the nexus approach and the ecosystem service concept may help to better understand pressures and impacts related to a resource nexus and to address trade-offs. In this study, literature and expert assessment are used to analyse the water-energy-food-land-climate nexus in Sweden through the lens of the ecosystem services concept to gain insights into interactions between the nexus sectors. By demonstrating how anthropogenic pressures originating from the nexus sectors affect ecosystem functions and services, this paper serves as a foundation to further inform policy making (within and outside Sweden) when considering the water-energy-food-land-climate nexus.

Clarifying the degree and type of public good collective action problem posed by natural resource management challenges

Clarifying the degree and type of public good collective action problem posed by natural resource management challenges

Blockchain for Environmental Governance: Can Smart Contracts Reinforce Payments for Ecosystem Services in Namibia?

The Global South harbors some of the planet’s most precious natural resources and is hence key in addressing the pressing environmental challenges of the Anthropocene. Here, payments for ecosystem services (PES) have recently gained importance as a means of environmental governance, increasingly complementing conventional command-and-control approaches. For instance, climate change is now mitigated through carbon offset payments and biodiversity loss is addressed through wildlife conservation performance payments. However, such payment schemes in the Global South face numerous challenges as identified by a large body of literature. This paper investigates if blockchain technology can help address some of the challenges by reinforcing PES programs with tamper-proof blockchain smart contracts. To this end, the paper presents a proof-of-concept of a blockchain-based wildlife conservation performance payments scheme in Namibia: the habitat integrity of an elephant corridor is assessed by remote sensing algorithms, which in turn trigger fictitious blockchain smart contract payments to surrounding communities. The application allows to practically discuss the potential of blockchain technology regarding three key aspects of PES: (i) effectiveness (conditionality) of environmental monitoring (ii) efficiency and transaction costs, as well as (iii) equity and benefit distribution. The case presented here is an example for linking the digital Blockchain sphere to practical challenges of natural resource management in the physical world. As such, it illustrates some potentials of the technology, but also shows how Blockchain technology is unlikely to provide transformative solutions in geographies with complex environmental governance.

Lost in transition: Perspectives, processes and transformations in Periurbanizing India

This paper reviews efforts at defining, conceptualizing and demarcating the periurban. We draw on different perspectives in conceptualizing and defining the periurban, employing a combination of primary data and a review of the global literature on periurban processes. The primary data is a result of longitudinal research following an empirically – inductive approach to arrive at this understanding of a periurban space and dynamics. The literature on the experience of periurbanization in India and other cities around the globe has been drawn upon; we look at different approaches and methods used to delineate, define and characterize periurban spaces as well as to address the governance and natural resource management challenges confronted by them. The limitations of these approaches are described. We conclude by making a case for a deeper understanding of the processes of transition underway in periurban contexts. These should inform approaches to policy and interventions, as well as shape efforts at theorizing about the periurban.

Evaluating core competencies and learning outcomes for training the next generation of sustainability researchers

The need to train sustainability scientists and engineers to address the complex problems of our world has never been more apparent. We organized an interdisciplinary team of instructors from universities in the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island who designed, taught, and assessed a multi-university course to develop the core competencies necessary for advancing sustainability solutions. Lessons from the course translate across sustainability contexts, but our specific focus was on the issues and trade-offs associated with dams. Dams provide numerous water, energy, and cultural services to society while exacting an ecological toll that disrupts the flow of water, fish, and sediment in rivers. Like many natural resource management challenges, effective dam decisions require collaboration among diverse stakeholders and disciplines. We linked key sustainability principles and practices related to interdisciplinarity, stakeholder engagement, and problem-solving to student learning outcomes that are generalizable beyond our dam-specific context. Students and instructors co-created class activities to build capacity for interdisciplinary collaboration and encourage student leadership and creativity. Assessment results show that students responded positively to activities related to stakeholder engagement and interdisciplinary collaboration, particularly when practicing nested discussion and intrapersonal reflection. These activities helped broaden students’ perspectives on sustainability problems and built greater capacity for constructive communication and student leadership.

Privatizing the commons: New approaches need broader evaluative criteria for sustainability

Privatization is, since Hardin, often promoted as a solution to many natural resource management challenges, particularly in common-pool resource systems. However, novel forms of privatization are being implemented in unexamined ways. In this article we explore how privatization affects natural resource management from the perspective of multi-dimensional social-ecological systems. We critique the notion that privatization is desirable due to its pure efficiency, and argue that efficiency must be relative to achieving other normative societal goals, in particular, sustainability. While sustainability outcomes often cannot be fully actualized, the processes through which privatization attempts to achieve them are more tangible criteria. First, we draw on (1) distributional and (2) procedural justice as normative societal goals to assess effectiveness of different forms of privatization. Second, we analyze the broader implications of privatization for social-ecological system functioning considering (3) path dependency and (4) spillover effects. We apply these four concepts to examine three different cases of privatization: eco-certification in fisheries, seed patents in agriculture and property rights in rangelands. We argue that the evaluative criteria for the success of privatization are often oversimplified, and highlight how privatization can influence social-ecological systems and the achievement of normative goals in largely unexamined ways.

Communication Problems When Participants Disagree (or Avoid Disagreeing) in Dialogues in Swedish Natural Resource Management—Challenges to Agonism in Practice

In this article, we analyze how participants perform disagreement in meetings organized with the explicit purpose of managing through dialogue conflicts concerning natural resources in Sweden. How is a conversation initiated about something that participants disagree about? How do they clarify to each other that, about what, and why they disagree? How do they show that they understand it is like that and what do they do when this is clear to them? Answers to these questions are important because, if dialogue is to contribute to the constructive development of conflict situations, dialogue should be regarded as a forum where disagreement is expressed and developed, rather than as a forum and tool for consensus. We conducted a sequential analysis of how disagreement is performed and accomplished in normative dialogues in which participants talk about how to reduce the negative impact of wildlife populations — such as predators and grazing birds — on human activities such as domestic reindeer husbandry and cropfarming. The analysis shows that disagreement is articulated in ways that do not seem to make ontological, epistemological and axiological differences among positions clear for participants. We identified six procedures through which disagreements are(not) accomplished in these conversations. This shows that routines and procedures in normative dialogue are characterized by consensus-preferences not helpful foragonistic dialogue. In order to avoid situations where dialogue leads to discursive closures, standards and procedures that facilitate articulation of disagreement need to be developed.

Photovoice for understanding groundwater management issues and challenges of villagers in Rajasthan, India

Water access issues pose continual problems for villages in arid areas of Rajasthan, India and the common response has been technological solutions through water management projects. Qualitative participatory research can provide alternative approaches to these issues, and this article examines role of grassroot activities to develop engagement, ownership and vision for local groundwater problems and solutions in rural development projects. The study used a participatory photography process to allow villagers to take and select photographs that represented what surface and ground waters meant to them in the present and future, along with how they saw their own responsibilities for water security of their villages.The visual and textual data was analysed using two different analytical approaches (empirical and relational), which provided complementary results. As well as allowing for exploration of basic questions about what water means to villagers amongst themselves and provided them with an opportunity to make meaning of their water situation, what they value the most, and what they can do to improve their situation.Overall, the study illustrates that participatory photography is an effective engagement process for understanding complex problems such as groundwater overexploitation and water scarcity, from the perspective of villagers. This also has the potential to create community awareness and facilitate collective action to address complex natural resources management issues and challenges.

Catalyzing self-governance: Addressing multi-faceted collective action dilemmas in densely settled agrarian landscapes

This paper summarizes lessons learnt from efforts to pilot institutional innovations to address locally salient natural resource management challenges in the eastern African highlands, where dense human settlement and steep slopes lead to a tight coupling of interactions among adjacent land users, landholdings and property regimes. The collective action problems present in these heterogeneous landscapes include common pool resource dilemmas, as well as other “commons-like problems” involving shared or intertwined interests that cut across a range of property regimes. By creatively embedding design principles derived from long-enduring common property regimes into facilitation strategies, solutions to longstanding, relatively intractable resource management challenges (e.g. pest management, erosion) were forged through collective choice arrangements. Solutions involved not just restricting access and creating incentives for users to invest in a shared resource (e.g., through clear allocation of rights and duties), but negotiating creative solutions to match provisioning with diverse forms of benefit or to minimize/offset losses that would otherwise accrue from efforts to minimize harm to others. The paper’s contributions are threefold. First, it illustrates how self-governance is not just a feature of long-enduring common property regimes, but may be catalyzed in many situations in which it is absent. It also illustrates the applicability of Ostrom’s design principles in a complex and heterogeneous landscapes involving a diversity of natural resource forms, tenure regimes and collective action problems. Finally, it illustrates the crucial importance of bringing an institutional lens to bear on classic “technological” challenges such as soil erosion control, pest management and loss of on-farm biodiversity.

Managing ecological disturbances: Learning and the structure of social-ecological networks

Ecological disturbances (i.e. pests, fires, floods, biological invasions, etc.) are a critical challenge for natural resource managers. Land managers play a key role in altering the rate and extent of disturbance propagation. Ecological disturbances propagate across the landscape, while management strategies propagate across social networks of managers. Here we use an agent-based model to examine the joint diffusion of ecological disturbances and management strategies across a social-ecological network, accounting for the fundamental role of social-ecological feedbacks. We examine the management of a generic ecological disturbance as a function of different learning strategies and the social-ecological network. Our approach provides a general scaffold that can be modified to examine a variety of processes in which both social and ecological flows propagate across a social-ecological network. Our findings highlight the importance of full and accurate information to assess successful strategy, limited clustering and alignment between the social and the ecological system.

Baseline Survey for Identification and Documentation of Natural Resources Management Status, Challenges and Opportunities for Research Interventions, Case Study of Melokoza District, Southern Ethiopia

This baseline survey work was done mainly to identify the status of existing natural resources management, challenges and opportunities for research interventions in Melokoza district and specifically intended to identify and document existing natural resources management status of the special, the major constraints and challenges of natural resources management of Melokoza special district and finally to prioritize the researchable issues of natural resources management in the districts at different agro-ecologies. Different primary data collection techniques like: open ended interview, key informant discussion and field observation of events and secondary data collection techniques as referring different literatures, data from woreda water mines and energy office, agricultural and natural resources management office. To achieve the primary data collection clustering of the female headed and male headed households and youth group have been employed. Finally, the baseline document of challenges and opportunities was reviewed by different concerning bodies from different organizations by preparing need assessment validation work shop in Melokoza woreda. At the end of the work shop different challenges, opportunities and status of existing natural resources management have been identified, prioritized and researchable points were recommended in relation to soil fertility management, agroforestry and plantation, soil and water conservation and irrigation management by different concerning bodies of natural resources experts, researchers and other responsible bodies.