Unit for
Social and
Environmental 
Research
 Editor: Louis Lebel
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Pervasive and rapid land-use and water-use changes are being compounded by changes in global and regional climates to fundamentally alter the dimensions of water insecurity in river basins across the Asia-Pacific. Development in some instances is reducing vulnerabilities to some social groups, whereas in other instances it is exacerbating the burdens and risks from large-scale environmental changes to the others.

This project is a comparative and synthetic study with new data gathering and analysis of water insecurities and responses by multiple stakeholders to reduce them within river basins of the Asia-Pacific. It deals with responses to risks that are high at the current science and policy agenda, and are associated with changes in both water quantity and quality: floods, water shortages, the disruption in food production systems and changes in access to water of good quality for growing and vulnerable urbanized areas. Combinations of policies and tools, including science and engineering, institutional, financial, socio-economic will be needed to reduce water insecurities. Furthermore, mitigation and adaptation efforts will be needed by not only the governments of Asia-Pacific, but also by many other stakeholders working individually and collectively.

The focus of this project is on the benefits, opportunities and limitations of multi-stakeholder participation in river basin management. It explores the proposition that deliberation, negotiation and coordination among stakeholders is crucial to good water governance and sustainable river basin development. In practice, however, it is likely that different stakeholders have benefited more or less from engagement in initiatives labelled as “participatory”. In this study research findings will be generalized across major stakeholder groups for a variety of water insecurities in five basin case studies. Findings will be compared to each other and results elsewhere.

Regional collaboration

Coordinator: Elena Nikitina (EcoPolicy Research and Consulting, ussian Federation) Partners: Dushmanta Dutta ( Monash University, Australia) +  Xu Jianchu (World Agroforestry Centre, ICRAF, China) + Louis Lebel (Unit for Social and Environmental Research, Thailand) +  Bach Tan Sinh (National Institute for Science and Technology Policy and Strategy Studies., Vietnam).

Sponsorship

This project is funded by APN: ARCP2008-15NMY-Nikitina
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   Websites
M-POWER: The Mekong Program on Water, Environment and Resilience  The website summarizes the research, capacity building and policy exploring activities of the M-POWER network in mainland southeast Asia. Their work covers water governance issues in the major basins like the Irrawaddy, Salween, Chao Phraya - Ping, Mekong and Red as well as smaller ones. (1)
USER - Unit for Social and Environmental Research  Is an interdisciplinary research organization based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It conducts and coordinates research aimed at improving ecological sustainability, human well-being and social justice in the Southeast Asia region. Their website contains information programs and events as well as working papers and published material. (15)
APN: Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research  Is an inter-governmental network for the promotion of global change research and links between science and policy making in the Asia-Pacific Region. APN provides modest funding through competitive calls for proposals, supports meetings and has a newsletter. (32)
   Events

25 Mar 10 - 28 Mar 10
Adaptive water governance and stakeholder participation in river basin management in Asia and in Europe (REWIND & Twin2Go) Chiang Mai, Thailand.( M-POWER, USER ) (188)

19 Jan 10 - 22 Jan 10
Conference on Governance of Natural Resources in a Multi-level context Leipzig, Germany.( EU research and training project GoverNat ) (220)

22 Jun 09 - 24 Jun 09
Human Security in an Era of Global Change Oslo, Norway.( GECHS ) (216)

   Publications

Nikitina, E., V. Kotov, L. Lebel, and B. T. Sinh. 2009. How stakeholder participation and partnerships could reduce water insecurities in shared river basins. USER Working Paper WP-2009-16. Unit for Social and Environmental Research, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai. (470) WP-2009-16

Lebel L, Sinh BT, Nikitina E .2009. Adaptive governance of risks: climate, water and disasters. USER Working Paper WP-2009-13. Unit for Social and Environmental Research, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai. (469) WP-2009-13

Lebel L, Lebel P, Daniel R. 2009. Water insecurities and climate change adaptation in Thailand. USER Working Paper WP-2009-12. Unit for Social and Environmental Research, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai. (468) WP-2009-12

   Projects
Gender and water insecurities  Women are often excluded from formal consultations and decision-making about water conflicts and resource management. This project endeavours to improve the meaningful involvement and engagement of women in stakeholder consultations in three locations in Thailand with long histories of complex conflict over water management. (48)
Twin2Go  Twin2Go reviews, consolidates, and synthesises research on integrated water resources management (IWRM) in basins around the world. See: www.twin2go.eu (63)