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A new analytic proposition is made for finding equity-based fair-share distribution of risk, which translates directly to mixed siting strategies. A new general solution concept for n-person bargaining games under nontransferable utility is proposed.

Abstract While the goals of sustainability and resilience look to the health and function of the system, a new criterion, relationality, focuses relationship and the degree of connectedness, social and otherwise, among persons (and even nonhuman others). It is founded upon an ethic of care that posits that no one is left alone, and that society must place a primary focus on the most vulnerable. This is particularly relevant when considering how cities are beginning to deal with increasingly frequent and severe weather events due to climate change. The idea of relationality is contrasted with the social and political isolation that exacerbates the effects of extreme events on the most vulnerable. The article ends with a discussion around how we might envision and craft the relational city and how this ideal responds to the challenge of climate change and extreme weather. Highlights • The emergent problem of increasingly extreme weather is discussed vis-à-vis vulnerable urban communities. • In addition to the concepts of sustainability and resilience, a new concept, referred to as relationality, is proposed. • Relationality has its roots in an ethic of care and seeks out the welfare of the most vulnerable. • Relationality is also about reconnecting the hitherto excluded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informality is thought of as a spontaneous, uncontrolled response to the mass urbanization rapidly sweeping the globe. Much of the new housing stock in the developing world is being provided for by the informal sector. Rather than treat this as an unplanned, liminal spatial practice, we should instead seek to better theorize and describe its socio-spatial logic. We propose that informal settlements do exhibit a complex logic that is grounded in practice, which we refer to as a logic of enactment. We develop a set of propositions for characterizing these logics, building on a Bourdieusian framework, and test these in Guapira II, a favela in São Paulo. Informal logic, as manifested in informal settlements, is seen to exhibit the characteristics of sociopoiesis and contextuality, constituting a complex rationality. The nature of design in the informal is a relational one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the development of marine renewable energy (MRE) is only possible inside already established marine protected areas (MPAs), and there is a risk of ecosystem loss, environmental or monetary compensation -being the last step in a hierarchy of mitigation measures- might be an option for working out a trade-off between energy production and nature protection. In this article, it is argued that for this type of siting situation, instead of the well-established strategy of no net loss, a net gain should be provided from the MRE developer to the MPA manager, which acts as an incentive for the manager to cooperate and covers future potentially lost conservation benefits due to MRE potential damages. Based on this argument, a hypothetical example is used to demonstrate that a net gain is ensured only when there is a societal surplus from a combined MRE-MPA arrangement that can be divided between the players through bargaining. However, when asymmetric information is involved, it is shown that cooperative solution concepts are more sufficient for leaving both players better off after coexistence than before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new study investigates the amount of compensation to be received by communities where noxious facilities are sited, using the case of transferable utility.

Summary: Urbanization-led development brings not just demographic, technological, and economic change, but profound institutional transition, as well. The scale and pace of China’s urbanization project have generated a crisis for millions living in rural–urban peripheries. We will utilize a model of institutional fit to conduct a critical analysis of China’s urbanization program and its implementation problems. Utilizing a semi-structured interview format, we analyze the experiences of the so-called “land-lost” residents in Changsha, China, vis-à-vis this ongoing institutional transition. The analysis provides a rich account of the myriad ways the transition to a privatized property market runs counter to the collective nature of peri-urban Chinese communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Proposes and tests a new model of collective action, based on vector payoffs. [•] Illustrates how the model better addresses normative aspects of environmental behavior. [•] Illustrates how the model better explains the power of social networks in engendering cooperation. [•] Argues for institutional arrangements that increase recognition of effects on particular others. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The literature on traditional ecological knowledge has established the importance of community narratives for storing, communicating, and activating complex environmental information. In our work, we begin to investigate how investigating narrative forms of knowing is useful to understanding urbanized, cosmopolitan societies as well. We use narrative analysis to examine how “moderns” make sense of complex issues by crafting coherent narratives about them. These narratives richly integrate multiple ways of knowing – including scientific, normative, and cultural dimensions. By comparison, discourse emerging from institutions such as the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) displays different narrative properties and is less conducive to narration by others outside the organization. While researchers have investigated the salience of climate change communication in the past, we have yet, till now, to systematically utilize narratological approaches. To spur people to action, issues like climate change need to be integrated into the everyday narratives that people tell about themselves and their world. Talk of climate, and of weather, needs to become more commonplace and not isolated from other issues, such as jobs and recession, that occupy people's everyday lives. The main point of the article is not to critique any organization's mode of discourse but, rather, to point out the crucial insights we gain through the use of narrative analysis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: To move beyond legal and regulatory gridlock around water issues in the California Bay-Delta, a new inter-agency initiative, commonly known as CALFED, was created in 1994. CALFED has been an ongoing experiment in policy innovation. Part of the change in management practice has involved constructing new arenas that engage multiple perspectives and transform regulatory impasse into provisional steps forward. We examine the construction of so-called boundary objects, which are forums and policy instruments that cross group boundaries and foster integrative deliberation. We compare the design and action of two boundary objects created by CALFED, namely the Environmental Water Account (EWA) and the Water Use Efficiency (WUE) program. We find that the presence of the boundary object, in itself, does little to explain the success of each policy experiment. Rather, the answer lies in the types of network interactions that result, along with the way meaning is coproduced. In fact, rather than create new patterns of interrelationship (e.g., between fish habitat advocates and pump station operators), the boundary object might further embed institutionalized routines. To more deeply understand what makes the new institution an integrative one, we introduce the concept of Ways of Knowing which explains how new knowledge emerges from the network of new relationships. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: There has evolved, as of late, a strong interest in decentralized modes of governance over fisheries and other marine resources, particularly that of community-based resource management (CBRM). However, analysis of this institutional model is hindered by simplistic, typological depictions of CBRM. We use organizational theory to argue how, within the broad category of CBRM, there exists a rich variation of institutional forms. We illustrate the analysis by showing how two ostensibly similar fishers’ organizations in Batangas, Philippines, differ in important ways and, furthermore, how these differences respond to particular challenges and opportunities found in their respective contexts. We also discuss implications of this research for program evaluation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Emissions trading is, essentially, a policy instrument that is designed to simulate a market for an otherwise public good. Conceptually, its justification hinges on a number of key assumptions, namely the negligibility of local impacts, the ability to separate and commodify the good in question, and characteristics of a well-functioning market. The authors examine the performance of RECLAIM, a NO x emissions trading program in Southern California, USA, and illustrate how to test these assumptions. There is some evidence that the trading of NO x generates new externalities, such as the possibility that other air pollutants, e.g. volatile organics, are essentially traded along with it. Moreover, the RECLAIM program has recently begun to experience difficulties due to the fact that the market is relatively thin. This analysis provides ways to assess more deeply and reform these trading regimes, including opening up RECLAIM to public review. The case study speaks to a wider arena, as emissions trading is presently being considered in other parts of the world to address issues ranging from acid rain to non-point source pollution to greenhouse gases. The analytic approach, illustrated herein, is a general one that has a wider applicability than the particular case of NO x trading. It is hoped that this kind of critical inquiry can lead to a more careful deliberation of the merits and challenges of emissions trading. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Despite decades of progress in disaster risk reduction, efforts to enhance risk awareness and influence behavioral change still seem to be falling short. When we reflect on our collective experience and envision the future of disaster risk reduction programs, we find promise in approaches that implicitly treat knowledge as not just something transmitted but as a relationship fostered with multiple publics. In this mode, the public is not simply a passive recipient of expert knowledge but a co-producer of risk knowledge. We argue that disaster risk reduction requires a reorientation based on a foundation built on three areas of research: (1) Indigenous and local knowledge, (2) social learning, and (3) narrative ways of knowing. We employ key ideas from these promising areas of research to formulate an integrative framework for the co-production of risk knowledge. Such an integrative framework can provide a powerful and useful vehicle for generating new practices around disaster risk reduction. • Progress in disaster risk reduction requires integrating multiple ways of knowing and include community as an equal partner. • A framework for a more integrative model, which is referred to as the co-production of risk knowledge, is proposed. • The framework integrates ideas from three areas: Indigenous and local knowledge, social learning, and narrative studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All too often, warnings and evacuation advisories during extreme weather events go unheeded. Of the many issues facing risk communication, three stand out, in particular. The first concerns the problem that risk messages often do not seem self-relevant to the public. The second, related, issue is that the language is often seen as merely technical and perfunctory. The third is that, especially among marginalized population groups, too many are not reached by risk communication. The paper takes up a relational model of risk communication that seeks to frame messages as narratives each member can transmit. This model, where residents act as local expert risk communicators, has been translated into lessons for primary curricula. The idea is that students themselves can bring knowledge into homes and neighborhoods, reaching even the most excluded. The model involves democratizing risk communication, where students become teachers, and they help others become teachers as well ("teaching to the nth"). We implement the model in a primary school in Leyte province, Philippines. Initial results are encouraging, and the paper concludes with further discussion of the broader applications of the relational model for disaster risk reduction. • Despite advances in risk communication, warnings and evacuation advisories go unheeded. • The relational model uses narrative to democratize risk communication. • People learn risk communication and train others as well (teaching to the nth). • The model is pilot tested in 6th grade classrooms in Tacloban City, Philippines. • Post-lesson survey responses show improvements over pre-lesson responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]