Investments In Water Management Research Articles

Associations between a cash voucher intervention, food consumption, and coping strategies in Somali food-insecure populations

BackgroundThis cross-sectional study aimed to explore the association between cash voucher assistance on building community resiliency and improving food security among 1371 households (HH) living in northern and southern regions of Somalia. The secondary data analysis used endline data from participants in World Vision’s Emergency Food Security Program from May 2018 to May 2019. The participants received unconditional cash vouchers, conditional cash for work vouchers, and nutrition and livelihood trainings. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to explore the association between program interventions and food consumption score (FCS, borderline/poor: 0–35, acceptable: > 35) and reduced coping strategy index (rCSI, acceptable: 0–3, emergency/crisis: 4–56).ResultsA total of 41.5% of all HH that received cash vouchers reported borderline/poor FCS and 71.1% had emergency/crisis rCSI. Utilization of vouchers for food purchase (0.34; 0.23, 0.51) and purchase of more types of food for greater dietary diversity (0.70; 0.55, 0.89) were negatively associated with acceptable FCS. Participants who redeemed cash vouchers were less likely to have an emergency/crisis rCSI (0.68; 0.61, 0.76). Utilization of cash vouchers had a positive association with increased conflict within the HH (2.90; 1.29, 6.48). Participants reporting benefits from improved community rehabilitation through increased check dams were more likely to have acceptable rCSI (2.37; 1.45, 3.89).ConclusionsOur findings suggest that interventions utilizing cash vouchers have to consider contextual factors in calculations of voucher entitlements, increase investment in water management and livelihood skills training, and expand nutrition and livelihood trainings to men and boys to foster women empowerment and improve food security outcomes.

The Archaeology of the Bonito Paleochannel Cycle at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico: Implications for Communal and Household Level Investment in Water Management

This study examines the archaeological record for water management in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, in relation to the Bonito Paleochannel cycle, ca. AD 1075–1150. We present evidence for a canal system at Pueblo Bonito that was destroyed by the entrenchment of the paleochannel. This canal system is associated with the peak of great house construction. Other water control features throughout the canyon were small and date to the period of paleochannel aggradation or afterward. We suggest that while the Pueblo Bonito canals represent some degree of corporate group investment, small features were managed at the household level. The limited archaeological evidence for formal water control infrastructure can be explained at least in part by the physical geography of Chaco Canyon, which we view as essentially a regional-scale water harvesting structure.

ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORT OF STATE MANAGEMENT OF WATER RESOURCES ACCORDING TO THE BASIN PRINCIPLE

Water resources are an integral part of nature management, which in terms of market relations is considered a commodity. Uneven territorial distribution of water resources and significant anthropogenic pressure lead to acute water shortages. At present, Ukraine's water management has a significant number of problems, including: deepening the trend of irrational water use; unsatisfactory water quality in natural water bodies; significant increase in material damage from the negative impact due to floods, flooding of groundwater, waterlogging, secondary salinization of land, water erosion, reduced investment in water management. The realities of water use, especially in the field of water resources management, have led to the need to improve existing scientific approaches that will allow more efficient allocation of resources and will be based on the principles of sustainable development. For a long time there was a notion of unlimited water resources and, accordingly, of free access to them. However, with the development of the country's productive forces and especially water-intensive enterprises, pollution of water sources, disputes between water users over the use of water resources, and, finally, water scarcity in some large river basins, society's costs of increasing water resources and bringing them to quality standards have risen sharply. It has become clear that water is a limited and rather expensive resource for society. The main essence, features and main advantages of the basin principle of water resources management are considered in the work; the functions, types and features of the water resources management system based on the basin principle were studied and researched, the structure was analyzed, the main problems of implementation were identified and measures for the effective operation of the water resources management system were proposed. It is noted that the development of the basin system of water resources management in Ukraine should be carried out with maximum use and significant expansion of the functions provided by the water sector of the State Water Management. This approach makes it possible to predict the consequences of human activities, for early prevention of environmental and man-made disasters.

The influence of corporate governance practices on public sector sustainable development: A developing economy study

The study examines the relationship between corporate governance practices (CGPs) on the public sector’s investment in water management (IWM). The critical question addressed in the paper was how good CGPs can provide a vehicle for increasing IWM in the context of local government. The need for addressing an underinvestment gap in local government is necessitated by the surge in poor CGPs that continue to constrain efforts to attract and manage water sector investments (WSIs) (Jacobs, 2019). The study employed secondary data (2009–2019) concerning a sample of eight South African metropolitan municipalities (SAMMs) collected from the annual reports. The multivariate regression analysis is employed using the pooled ordinary least squares (POLS) and feasible generalised least squares (FGLS) models. The results revealed that gender equity and external audit outcomes had a positive and significant relationship with IWM except for human resources which shows an insignificant effect. The results have important implications for water service authorities (WSAs), the public sector, and policymakers to incorporate good CGPs for improved management of water investments to eliminate water provisioning challenges. The research findings acknowledge the degree of adherence to good CGPs requires endless attention. Future studies should focus on ensuring local municipalities comply with the existing water provisioning governance framework to eliminate shortfalls in IWM.

Determinants of the Energy Development Based on Renewable Energy Sources in Poland

In this article, we aim to identify the determinants that profoundly impact renewable energy sources development in Poland. To this end, the authors have conducted qualitative and quantitative analyses of Poland’s renewable energy sector. In this paper, we demonstrate an original approach considering the different development levels of the given sector across provinces (voivodeships). It uses panel data from the Local Data Bank of the Statistics Poland on electricity production from renewable energy sources in individual voivodeships in Poland from 2005 through 2019. The study confronts the results of previous studies and sheds light on the situation in Poland—specifically, upon the changes that have happened over the ten years (2010–2019). The qualitative analysis shows a negative correlation between energy consumption and the share of renewable energy sources in total energy production. Evidence shows that favorable changes are underway in the energy production structure: RES share is growing and by degrees satisfying energy demand, and there is growing potential of energy entities in Poland. Furthermore, the analysis shows that R&D and total expenditures on environmental protection and water management investments do not significantly affect the development of RES. A dynamic panel data model has been used to analyze the group and time effects on the dependent variable. The findings confirm the existence of the persistency effect and indicate positive effects of total installed electric capacity (IEC) and household electricity consumption (HEC). Nonhousehold electricity consumption (NHEC) has a negative effect on the endogenous variable, i.e., the renewable energy sources share in the gross final energy consumption (RESS). The research results may be applicable as recommendations for energy efficiency policy development based on renewable energy sources depending on the RES development level in the regions of Poland.

Evaluation of ecological and economic efficiency of investment in water management and land reclamation projects

Evaluation of ecological and economic efficiency of investment in water management and land reclamation projects

INVESTMENTS IN WATER MANAGEMENT IN RURAL AREAS

The aim of this study is to evaluate the implementation of environmental investments in rural areas and prepare a ranking of voivodships. Detailed studies covered Polish rural areas according to voivodship division and were focused on environmental investments related to water management: the sewage network, water supply systems, collective and individual sewage treatment plants, water treatment plants and flood embankments. The research period covered the years 2010-2019. The research uses indicators characterizing investments in water management. The method of zero unitarization was used, which allowed to compare the values of the adopted indicators and establish a synthetic indicator determining a ranking of voivodships according to the implementation of environmental investments. Research shows that more than half of all expenditure are investments related to the sewage and water supply network. The exceptions are the Łódzkie and Podkarpackie voivodships, where greater expenditure is incurred on collective treatment plants than on the water supply network. The values of the synthetic index make it possible to determine the regions where the most and least environmental investments were implemented. The highest values of the synthetic index are found in the Mazowieckie, Wielkopolskie and Małopolskie voivodships. The lowest values of the indicator are recorded for the Opolskie, Podlaskie, Świętokrzyskie and Śląskie voivodships, where the least environmental investments were implemented.

Measuring economic water scarcity in agriculture: a cross-country empirical investigation

High water availability enhances agricultural performance and food security. However, many countries where water is abundant according to hydrological indicators face difficulties in the utilization of water in agriculture, being in a situation of economic water scarcity (EWS), due to lack of institutional and material means for water management and governance. EWS faces a stronger challenge of measurability, if compared to physical water scarcity. Since the Sustainable Development Goal Indicator on Integrated management of domestic and transboundary water resources (IWRM) is a unique attempt to quantify information on water management at a national level, we explore whether it can represent a valid metric for EWS measurement. We first show that a high level of water management is neither necessarily associated to high economic power of the country nor to low physical water availability. Then, we analyze whether the indicator can predict typical EWS situations such as low agricultural productivity and inefficient water use. Although the importance of water institutions for agriculture is well known through case studies at the local level, we make the first attempt to quantify the strengths of this relation at a global scale for different crops in climatic diverse countries. We detect a positive and significant association between IWRM level and yield, and consequently a negative and equally significant association between the IWRM level and the crop water footprint. Statistical significance holds also when potentially confounding variables are included in a multiple regression analysis. We infer from this analysis that good water management, as detectable through the IWRM indicator, improves land productivity and water saving, in turn mitigating EWS. Our findings pave the way toward the use of the IWRM indicator as a valuable tool for measuring EWS in agriculture, bridging the measurability gap of economic water scarcity, with straightforward policy implications in favour of investments in water management as a lever for enhancing food security and development.

Economic evaluation of stormwater capture and its multiple benefits in California.

Urban stormwater is increasingly being considered a viable alternative water supply in California and throughout the southwestern U.S. However, current economic analyses of stormwater capture do not adequately examine differences in stormwater project types and do not evaluate co-benefits provided by the projects. As a result, urban stormwater capture is undervalued as a water supply option. To advance economic analyses of stormwater capture, we determined the levelized cost of water in U.S. dollar per acre-foot of water supply (AF; 1 AF = 1233.5 m3) for 50 proposed stormwater capture projects in California, characterizing the projects by water source, process, and water supply yield. In addition, we incorporated reported co-benefits of projects into the analysis to determine the net benefit of proposed projects. Proposed urban stormwater capture projects were more expensive than non-urban stormwater capture projects on a per-volume basis ($1,180 per AF and $531 per AF, respectively); however, this was primarily driven by the relatively large size of the non-urban stormwater capture projects examined. When incorporating the limited number of reported co-benefits of the projects, the expected levelized cost of water from urban stormwater capture projects decreased dramatically. For projects that reported even a limited number of additional benefits, the net levelized cost decreased from $1,030 per AF to $150 per AF, with some of the projects demonstrating a net benefit. Thus, scaling urban stormwater capture projects to capitalize on economies of scale and incorporating co-benefits of projects can dramatically improve the economic feasibility of these projects. This work demonstrates that stormwater capture can present a cost-effective water supply option in California, and that beyond California, fairer comparisons among projects and inclusion of co-benefits can provide decision makers with adequate information to maximize investments in water management.

Risk aversion in agricultural water management investments in Northern Ghana: experimental evidence

AbstractSub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) is one of the regions in the world most affected by food price volatility and production variability. Poor small‐scale farmers in this region are particularly vulnerable to this variability. As a result, households may be reluctant to adopt new agricultural water management (AWM) technologies when they involve more risk than what they mitigate.Despite risk's role in AWM investments, there have been few attempts to estimate the magnitude and nature of risk aversion in relation to this type of farm decisions. To partially close this gap, this article uses an experimental approach applied to 137 households in Northern Ghana. We find that more than 70% of households are moderately or slightly risk averse. This contrasts with other studies in SSA, where most household decision‐makers exhibit severe to extreme risk aversion.We also find that households that stand to lose as well as gain something from participation in games are less risk averse than households playing gains‐only games. This result suggests that most farmers’ current wealth put them at risk of falling into a poverty trap. Thus, the losses from the riskiest investments on AWM technologies may fall more heavily on the poor, suggesting that additional efforts be given to the creation of viable insurance mechanisms.

Introduction: Challenges to Africa's Agricultural Transformation

This special issue of the African Development Review relates to the theme of 2016 African Economic Conference (AEC): ‘Feed Africa: Towards Agro-Allied Industrialization for Inclusive Growth’. Ending poverty and overcoming hunger and food insecurity permanently are clearly an important policy agenda. They are, respectively, the first and second Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) endorsed in September 2015 by United Nations member states. Similarly, the African Union Agenda 2063 recognized the right of all Africans to be well nourished and to lead healthy and productive lives. Agriculture and industrialization are also at the heart of the African Development Bank's vision and long-term strategy for a prosperous and inclusive Africa. The attainment of food security requires African countries to revisit their agricultural policies and practices, while paving the way for an agro-allied industrial development. Specifically, this special edition of the African Development Review (ADR) includes a number of articles that discuss Africa's agricultural transformation, identify remaining gaps, lessons learnt and generating valuable insights for improved agro-industrialization policies across the continent. The selected articles consist of empirical studies recently conducted in different African countries and cover a broad range of topics pertaining to the challenges and opportunities Africa is facing in its agro-allied industrialization process. They include technological innovation, land reforms, irrigation, climate change, trade, value chains and gender gap in resources access. These topics are key issues as they shape agricultural productivity as well as the inclusiveness and sustainability of Africa's agricultural transformation. In what follows, we discuss the papers that fall under the major themes though the arrangement of the published papers do not follow a similar order. A comprehensive transformation of the agriculture sector in Africa towards agro-allied industrialization requires investments in technology and innovation in order to improve the productivity of land and labor. Adebayo, Kehinde, Adeyemi, Kabir and Philips assess the success of agricultural research programs driven by agricultural innovation system concepts. The authors examine the extent to which such innovative programs in Nigeria have enhanced the livelihoods of rural households, in terms of productivity and both income level and diversification of income portfolios. In Nigeria, an innovation system has radically changed the way farmers communicate with the market and take strategic decisions to develop agribusiness. Investment in water management and intensification of irrigation in Africa has become a priority to reduce Africa's dependence on rain-fed agriculture, increase productivity and enhance resilience to climate change. Nonvide studies the adoption of irrigation in Benin and shows its positive effect on rice yield. The author uses a Heckman selectivity model to determine the factors influencing the adoption of an irrigation scheme, such as age, gender, access to credit or distance from home to irrigation scheme. He highlights the importance of irrigation for crop productivity improvement. He also identifies complementary measures such as institutional support services to the famers in order to develop irrigation and, ultimately, enhance agricultural productivity. Innovation can also facilitate commercialization and enhance farmers’ access to broader markets and financial systems. Katunze, Kuteesa, Mijubi and Mahebe look at the Warehouse Receipt System (WRS) in Uganda and discuss the reasons why the 2004 WRS pilot phase has failed to enhance agricultural commercialization in the country. Focusing on the benefits and challenges met by private stakeholders in the WRS, the authors analyze the market structure and the obstacles that led to poor market and credit performance. They provide key policy implications to encourage agro-allied industrialization, pointing to the government's responsibility in enhancing quality standards, smallholder productivity and collective action capacity. Anyanwu and Kponnou conduct a thorough cross-country comparison and analysis of the food, beverages and tobacco manufacturing value-added activities in selected African countries. Using a panel of African countries over the period 1990–2011, the authors look at the main determinants shaping the agro-manufacturing sector shares in each country, pointing to differences in the performance at the policy and institutional level and in terms of trade openness. The authors also provide policy recommendations to improve agribusiness productivity. A sound institutional and business environment is essential to achieve a sustainable and inclusive agro-industrialization. Regarding agricultural trade, regional integration is a key driver to enhance African farmers’ marketing and export activities as it gives farmers access to additional markets, capital and skills, thereby enabling the agricultural sector to produce in larger quantity and with higher value addition. Gammadigbe looks at the performance of regional integration in West Africa and the extent to which trade and monetary integration contributes to food security and agricultural trade in the region. Using an augmented gravity model, the author highlights the determinants of intra-regional trade in agricultural products and provides some policy recommendations to increase it in the West Africa region. Adopting a green agriculture is crucial to avoid long-run stagnation in crop production and rising cost of inputs and thus, to ensure its sustainability. However, sometimes there is a trade-off between protecting the environment and enhancing agricultural productivity. Some, Mbaye and Barbier look at agricultural strategies aimed at mitigating carbon emission by smallholder farmers in Burkina Faso. The authors simulate three different scenarios to analyze the impact of less polluting crops as an emission reduction strategy on farmers’ production. As it implies a trade-off between environmental and economic objectives such as farmers’ productivity and income, authors discuss policy implications including incentives to compensate smallholders for foregone income. Land reform is also key to raising African farmers’ productivity, expanding agricultural output and moving away from subsistence agriculture. Given the complex and outmoded land rights, customary practice and unregulated regimes across the continent, most of Africa's agricultural land is currently fragmented. Around 80 per cent of African farmers are smallholders, cultivating low-yield staple food crops on small plots with minimal use of inputs. Land reforms could not only increase production scale and enhance security of tenure, they are likely to encourage investment as well as the expansion of adequate insurance and financial instruments suited to the agricultural production cycle. Habyarimana and Nkunzimana analyze the impact of Land Use Consolidation (LUC) programs, defined as a reallocation of parcels to remove effects of fragmentation for agricultural improvement, on food security at household level in Rwanda. Using a dataset of 658 households, the authors studied the effects of LUC on households’ incomes and food consumption. They also analyzed the satisfaction of households in LUC programs, conducting a gender-disaggregated study between female- and male-headed households. Drawing on a panel of 4,355 plots in rural Tanzanian villages, Sipangule analyzes the effects of enlarged versus reduced agricultural land holdings on smallholder farmers’ productivity, employment (through contract farming and out-grower schemes), investment and tenure security. The author highlights the importance of taking a comprehensive impact assessment of agribusiness on local smallholder communities. Agro-allied industrialization is also increasingly associated with rising inequality in the distribution of arable land and risk of expropriation for smallholders. Coker, Akogun, Adebayo, Mohammed, Mwojo, Sanusi and Jimoh offer a detailed analysis of the gender disparities in rice farming in Nigeria, in terms of resource access, utilization, productivity and willingness to undertake agribusiness. They look at the factors influencing farmers’ participation in agribusiness across gender. They indicate that gender disparities in access to resources in agriculture is a critical challenge to the achievement of food security and inclusive growth. Women represent 47 percent of the labor force in Africa's agricultural sector and essentially consist of smallholder farmers working in the informal sector (AfDB, OECD and WEF, 2015). Overall, developing an agro-allied industrialization in Africa requires the advancement of an inclusive growth agenda given that half of the labor force in the continent works in the agriculture sector in rural areas, of which 80 percent are smallholder farmers and a significant share are female workers. Land reform, technological innovation, better tailored and more accessible financing schemes are necessary for small-scale farmers not only to raise productivity but also to enhance their resilience to the growing risks related to climate, market and political shocks. Providing an adequate institutional and business environment as well as supporting trade finance are also key in encouraging private sector participation and investment in the agro-business industry and raising the comparative advantage of exporters in this sector. Ultimately, agro-allied industrialization is expected to diversify national economies in Africa and promote economic growth.

Water management and livelihood choices in southwestern Bangladesh

Coastal Bangladesh faces an increasing number of challenges including cyclones, tidal surges, floods, drought, saline water intrusion, waterlogging and land subsidence, which pose substantial threats to the livelihoods of the coastal inhabitants. In addition to these threats, profound social and land-use changes are complicating the livelihoods of resource users in the region, including the introduction of aquaculture and increasing competition for ground and surface water sources. The government of Bangladesh has targeted this region for investment with irrigation expansion. This paper uses a sustainable livelihood lens to understand the role of investments in water management and irrigation in driving and shaping livelihood changes and transitions over the past ten years and offers recommendations for investments. We find that while water infrastructure development has greatly enhanced the role of agriculture in coastal livelihoods over the last 10 years, further development of irrigation infrastructure should only be prioritized after issues of water governance and inequity across agricultural and aquacultural livelihoods are addressed.

Reflections onThe draining of the Somerset Levels

Several messages emerge from reading this monograph in the light of the floods of 2013–14. Michael Williams showed that attempts at water control in the Levels extended over many centuries, and that construction of farms and settlements on very low-lying land carried major risks. There were precedents for the recent magnitude of flooding, caused in the past by very heavy rainfall, poor maintenance of channels, and insufficient investment in water management. Despite modern pumps, winter flooding remains uncontrollable without massive investment. Unlike his earlier emphasis on ‘improvement’, Williams argued in later writing that some stretches of peat moor in Somerset might be conserved as wetland rather than being subjected to further drainage.

Water management and agricultural intensification of rice farming at the late-Neolithic site of Maoshan, Lower Yangtze River, China

Intensifying water management for rice farming and related land use involves increasing labour investment in transforming local landscapes. By applying geoarchaeological investigation at the well-preserved late-Neolithic rice paddy site of Maoshan, Lower Yangtze River, during the excavation, this study provides detailed information of the changing relationship between water management, agricultural intensification, environmental change and social evolution during the critical time period of the late Holocene. It illustrates that the intensification of rice farming was facilitated by successful water management and landscape management in most time, and it was the combined effect of gradually increasing aridity, fluctuating sea-level patterns and increasing labour investment in water management that led to the eventual abandonment of the paddy field at the end of the Neolithic in this region. This study therefore draws attention from large-scale sites to small-scale, but economically important, sites in enhancing our understanding of the dynamic relationship between human societies and environmental changes during the late Holocene in this region.

Analysis of instruments for assessment of planned investments in water management

Integrated water resource management is a process oriented towards sustainable development through the shaping, allocation and monitoring of water resources, taking into account social, economic and environmental objectives. The water management policy realized in Poland is based on the idea of sustainable development and requires the use and application of appropriate evaluation tools in the process of socialized decision-making concerning the initiation and realization of investments with an impact on water management. This study discusses methods of assessment of planned investments, such as: cost and benefit analysis, and environmental impact assessment. These are balanced against the method recommended by the World Commission on Dams – A New Framework for DecisionMaking, as well as the main guidelines of the Positional Analysis (PA) method based on Ecological Economics. The latter opposes Neoclassical Economics, as well as Environmental and Natural Resources Economics. Integrated water resource management is a philosophy that informs the attitude that considers the balanced shaping of water resources as the most important objective of managerial activities. Those responsible for the decision making are obliged to take into consideration the wider context that accompanies such a process. They search for and invite many stakeholders to participate in the decision-making process, creating or utilizing the platforms for exchanging often opposing opinions that are present in democratic societies. In such activities, multi-criteria assessment may be a useful instrument, taking into consideration the coincidence of many, often equivalent, objectives, and utilizing a multi-element set of selection criteria. This paper emphasizes the functional values of the multi-criteria evaluation model for an investment, which is based on sustainable development objectives.

Portfolios of adaptation investments in water management

This study explores how Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) can guide investment decisions in integrated water resources management (IWRM) and climate change adaptation under uncertainty. The objectives of the paper are to: (i) explain the concept of diversification to reduce risk, as formulated in MPT; (ii) discuss the conditions for applying MPT to IWRM, and provide examples of these; and (iii) analyze the opportunities and limitations of applying MPT to the design of IWRM and adaptation policies. It is shown that MPT can be applied when a case meets four conditions: (1) there is more than one possible investment at a given time; (2) these investments are subject to risk; (3) there is information about the historical and/or expected return of these investments; and (4) the same conditions do not affect all investments equally, meaning that their returns are imperfectly correlated. Analysis of a case study Noorderkwartier in the Netherlands concludes that MPT can contribute to designing portfolios of combinations of investments in flood risk management—technical measures, spatial planning and insurance—which are robust to uncertainty in long-term projections such as present in climate change scenarios.

Water: Issues in Planning for Poverty Alleviation

Considering the fact that only about 1 per cent of the global water resources are available to humankind for drinking and other uses, the issue of water scarcity gives renewed significance to water management. This article aims to explore several socio-economic and hence, planning issues related to this highly significant environmental resource. Water management and specifically water issues have been looked at from a multi-dimensional view. This article highlights the linkages between water scarcity, food security and agriculture. Water usage and its impact on poverty are deliberated upon, with an emphasis on investments in water management for poverty alleviation. The article asserts that prudent management of scarce water resources is imperative to ensure food security for our burgeoning population and to eliminate poverty. Learning from international best practices, recommendations with a futuristic perspective form the concluding section.

Consumer demand for green stormwater management technology in an urban setting: The case of Chicago rain barrels

Hydrological disruption and water pollution from urbanization can be reduced if households in urban areas adopt decentralized storm water controls. We study a citywide municipal subsidized rain‐barrel program in the third biggest city in the United States, Chicago, to explore what factors influence whether households purchase this sort of green storm water management technology in an urban setting. Specifically, we regress census‐tract level data on the number of rain barrels adopted in different parts of the city on socioeconomic variables, data on local flood frequency, and features of the housing stock. We find that rain‐barrel purchases are not correlated with local levels of flooding, even though city residents were told by program managers that rain barrels could alleviate local flooding. Instead, rain barrels are heavily concentrated in places with high‐income attitudinally green populations. We do find more rain barrels were adopted in places close to rain‐barrel distribution points and near sites of hydrological information campaigns; thus, policy makers might increase green‐technology adoption in areas where they can do the most good by reducing transaction costs and providing education programs to those areas. Finally, our results indicate that owner occupancy is positively correlated with green‐technology adoption. Low‐rise rental housing may have inefficiently low levels of adoption, such that city managers might want to develop programs to encourage storm water management investments by landlords who do not live in their own properties.

The domestication of water: water management in the ancient world and its prehistoric origins in the Jordan Valley

The ancient civilizations were dependent upon sophisticated systems of water management. The hydraulic engineering works found in ancient Angkor (ninth to thirteenth century AD), the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan (thirteenth to fifteenth century AD), Byzantine Constantinople (fourth to sixth century AD) and Nabatean Petra (sixth century BC to AD 106) are particularly striking because each of these is in localities of the world that are once again facing a water crisis. Without water management, such ancient cities would never have emerged, nor would the urban communities and towns from which they developed. Indeed, the 'domestication' of water marked a key turning point in the cultural trajectory of each region of the world where state societies developed. This is illustrated by examining the prehistory of water management in the Jordan Valley, identifying the later Neolithic (approx. 8300-6500 years ago) as a key period when significant investment in water management occurred, laying the foundation for the development of the first urban communities of the Early Bronze Age.

Are Peasants Risk‐Averse Decision Makers?

Previous articleNext article No AccessReportsAre Peasants Risk‐Averse Decision Makers?1JosephHenrich and RichardMcElreathJosephHenrichWissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Wallotstr. 19, 14193 Berlin, Germany ([email protected]) and Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, Calif. 90095, U.S.A. ([email protected]). 29 vi 01 Search for more articles by this author and RichardMcElreathWissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Wallotstr. 19, 14193 Berlin, Germany ([email protected]) and Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, Calif. 90095, U.S.A. ([email protected]). 29 vi 01 Search for more articles by this author Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Wallotstr. 19, 14193 Berlin, Germany ([email protected]) and Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, Calif. 90095, U.S.A. ([email protected]). 29 vi 01PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Current Anthropology Volume 43, Number 1February 2002 Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/338291 Views: 414Total views on this site Citations: 81Citations are reported from Crossref 2002 by The WennerGren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Xin Xie, Zefeng Tong, Shulin Xu Risk attitudes and household consumption behavior: Evidence from China, Frontiers in Public Health 10 (Sep 2022).https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.922690Toritseju Begho, Tare Philip Daubry, Irabor Arnold Ebuka What do we know about Nigerian farmers attitudes to uncertainty and risk? 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