escaping the trap of short-termism to take the nexus ... · escaping the trap of short-termism to...
TRANSCRIPT
Escaping the trap of short-termism to take the Nexus approach:
Exiting from the water crisis in Iran
S. Jalaleddin MirnezamiPhD Researcher at Tarbiat Modares University
Workshop A2: Unsustainable Pathways and Leverage Points
Understanding the Water-Energy-Food Nexus
https://www.wef.uni-osnabrueck.de/
OSNABRÜCK, Germany
15/06/2016 1
Groundwater depletion in Iran
2(Source: National report)
Groundwater crisis in Iran
• Population growth
• National policies
• Oil-economy
• Technology
Driver
• Overexploitation of water resources
• Land use change
Pressure• Degradation and
depletion of water resources
State
• Dried regions
• Forced migration
• Land subsidence
Impact
3
Question:Why the critical trend is still going on while the users and the government are aware of the crisis?!
4
Context of water conservation (CIT)
Water Users
CognitionMotivationResource
Administrator
CognitionMotivationResource
Target Implementer
process
Specific Context
Structural Context
Wider Context
• Problem context• Political context• Economic
context• Cultural context• Technological
context
Governance• Scales and levels• Actors and
networks• Problem
perspective and goal ambitions
• Strategies and instruments
• Resources and responsibilities
Property rights
• Previous decisions
• Specific conditions
5(Source: de Boer and Bressers, 2011)
Internal contextExternal context
Data gathering
6
Sources of data Documents
Interview
Questionnaire
Governance structure (Issues)
• Top-down management• Too much distance between the levels
Scales and levels
• Conservation as a governmental affair• Conflicting interests between different
governmental organizations
Actors and networks
• Dealing with conservation as a project• Emphasis on regulative rules• Conflict in rules (changing rules)• Emphasis on efficiency instead of
productivity
Strategies and instruments
7
Governance structure (Issues)
• Misallocation of financial resources• No transparent mechanism for sharing
information between actors
Resources
• Lower priority of conservation in comparison with other problems
• Deep belief in the effectiveness of the obligatory approach
• Lack of comprehensive studies• Lack of required skills for
conservation processes• Unclear about the trade-off between
the water and food security• Unclear about the policy for
population size
Problem perspectives
8
Actors’ Characteristics (Issues)
• Other actors (state) intervention and inadvertence has been the major problem
Cognition • Conservation as a responsibility of the government
Water users
• Low intention for conservation and instead high intention for coping with intensifying scarcity by irrigation system improvement
Administrators
• Controlling the water abstraction rate by installing smart metering devices and filling illegal wells
Motivation
• Lack of support from the other state actors and insufficient power for facing with unruly users
Resource • Lack of cooperation between users for conservation
9
Governance effect on actors
“Conservation of groundwater
resources in none of our business”
Water users:
“We know how to conserve, we just
need high power to enforce
conservation”
Administrators:
Trap of short-termism
10
Dynamics in the governance system
Implementation and evaluation
Develop operation goals and measures
Strategic goal setting and policy formulation
11(Source: Pahl-Wostl et al, 2013)
Escaping the trap
• What is the cost of fixing the monitoring and evaluation function to transform the governance structure?
12
Social and political process of conservation
Users’ behaviorMacro economic
settingGovernment’s
role
National and international
policies
Dilemma
• Transforming the governance (and beyond) or leaving it unchanged!?
Governance transformation
Insisting on the previous approach
13
Thank you
14