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Water related problems caused by climate change are threatening the future of food systems in both Netherlands and Ghana. In this paper we present the results of a comparative case study analysis. The objective is identifying similarities in the use of spatial information by experts and stakeholders in their attempts to remove the barriers or foster the enablers of NbS uptake in view of climate change. Experiences in this field have been listed in the Rhine-Scheldt Estuaries (the Netherlands) and Bono East Region (Ghana) about rainwater harvesting and reuse of wastewater. The analysis focused on identifying similarities in the use of spatial information by stakeholders in their attempts to remove the barriers or foster the enablers of NBS uptake. Both rainwater harvesting and wastewater treatment techniques are available, and ready to be accepted and applied by farmers and food processing industry. Their uptake however is hampered by multiple barriers, ranging from biophysical and technical barriers to social and institutional barriers. We conclude that spatial information can be an enabler for adoption of nature-based solutions, if the spatial information is applicable for the assessment of a wide range of possible solutions for water scarcity considering food production, either nature-based solutions or technologies. In both case studies we observe a struggle to make the future spatially explicit. In both case studies, the effect on biodiversity of respectively reuse of effluent water and RWH did not play a direct role in the stakeholder dialogue.

Nature-based solutions (NbS) are promising in contributing to societal goals such as food security and combatting and adapting to climate change. However, existing assessment approaches of nature and biodiversity lack a clear connection to food systems and food system outcomes such as food security and food system resilience. We propose a new methodology to assess benefits and costs of NbS in food systems from a social and an economic perspective that can be used by researchers, NGOs and governments. The approach includes 3 steps: -1. Theory of Change, - 2. Food system framework and - 3. Extended stakeholders analysis including distribution of benefits and costs. The approach is tested in two case studies from Ghana using information on workshops, focus group discussions and interviews with stakeholders.-The case study results indicate that rainwater harvesting for irrigation (RWHI) and the Modified Taungya System (MTS) positively affect food security because of increased production, but both examples have negative impacts as well.

The content of this Mansholt lecture came about through a wide science-policy consultation process. Existing ‘seeds of innovation’ in the biodiversity climate-food nexus were collected in a WUR-wide dialogue on 10th May 2022, which involved some 150 interdisciplinary experts. These seeds were collated into interventions for nature-positive futures, in an interdisciplinary workshop of WUR colleagues on 13th May 2022. They were further clustered into five entry points for nature-positive changes to the food system. The resulting entry points and interventions were discussed with several EU policy makers in another workshop in Brussels on 30th June 2022. We thank everyone involved in this process for their input

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) responds in order to sustain agriculture under a changing environment, and is a major priority in the development sphere. However, to achieve impact at scale, CSA innovations must address agricultural systems’ context-specific and multi-dimensional nature and be purveyed through feasible scaling processes. Unfortunately, knowledge on the scaling of CSA innovations under smallholder farming systems and in the context of developing countries remains scant. Understanding scaling processes is essential to the design of a sustainable scaling strategy. This study aimed to draw lessons on scaling from 25 cases of scaling CSA, and related projects in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania implemented by public institutions, local and international research organisations, Non-Govermental Orginsations(NGOs), and community-based organisations. Generally, scaling follows a linear pathway comprising technology testing and scaling. Most cases promoted technologies and models geared towards climate change adaptation in cropbased value chains, and only a few cases incorporated mitigation measures. Efforts to engage the private sector involved building business models as a potential scaling pathway. The cases were very strong on capacity building and institutionalisation from local, national, and even regional levels. However, four critical areas of concern about the sustainability of scaling emerged from the study: (i) There is little understanding and capture of the dynamics of smallholder farming systems in scaling strategies; (ii) climate data, projections, and impact models are rarely applied to support the decision of scaling; (iii) considerations for the biophysical and spatial-temporal impacts and trade-offs analysis in scaling is minimal and just starting to emerge; and (iv) there are still challenges effecting systemic change to enable sustainable scaling. In response to these concerns, we propose investment in understanding and considering t

This article shows how Bangladesh and India intentionally maintain the status quo for the Brahmaputra River at the transboundary level, using material and ideational resources. Results show that India wants to reduce its hegemonic vulnerabilities and Bangladesh aims to maintain its control over the Brahmaputra river, simultaneously building its technical and negotiation skills. We conclude that the underlying processes of maintaining the status quo can be comprehended as ‘non-decision making’. The analysis presented will help policy actors to push towards a forward-looking climate change adaptation planning for the Brahmaputra River.

Since the early work on defining and analyzing resilience in domains such as engineering, ecology and psychology, the concept has gained significant traction in many fields of research and practice. It has also become a very powerful justification for various policy goals in the water sector, evident in terms like flood resilience, river resilience, and water resilience. At the same time, a substantial body of literature has developed that questions the resilience concept's systems ontology, natural science roots and alleged conservatism, and criticizes resilience thinking for not addressing power issues. In this study, we review these critiques with the aim to develop a framework for power-sensitive resilience analysis. We build on the three faces of power to conceptualize the power to define resilience. We structure our discussion of the relevant literature into five questions that need to be reflected upon when applying the resilience concept to social?hydrological systems. These questions address: (a) resilience of what, (b) resilience at what scale, (c) resilience to what, (d) resilience for what purpose, and (e) resilience for whom; and the implications of the political choices involved in defining these parameters for resilience building or analysis. Explicitly considering these questions enables making political choices explicit in order to support negotiation or contestation on how resilience is defined and used. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water Governance. Engineering Water > Planning Water., QC 20191001

Climate change, ecological degradation and socio-economic developments are increasingly putting pressure on people’s living environments. Societies, regions and cities need to increase their resilience through adaptive governance, which is their capacity to adapt to changing relationships between society and ecosystems. In this article, we explore how three core conditions for adaptive governance, referred to as; 1) discourse arenas, 2) epistemic networks and 3) leadership, have proved to be useful in the shaping of the Markermeer-IJmeer region, part of the Amsterdam Metropole Region in the Netherlands. We find that discourse arenas and epistemic networks have set the scene for societal actors to invest in a sustainable transformation of the area. Moreover, they were a push factor for the transformation of opinions how to govern and plan the area. Actors identified links to overcome the division between socio-economic development and environmental conservation in the Amsterdam Metropole region. Actors from the industry took steps to include nature conservation. We recommend that adaptive governance should be enhanced with notions such as discourse, learning, trust, responsibility and leadership in future research and policy making for resilient urban areas

Deliberation over how to adapt to short or long-term impacts of climate change takes place in a complex political setting, where actors’ interests and priorities shape the temporal dimension of adaptation plans, policies and actions. As actors interact to pursue their individual or collective interests, these struggles turn into dynamic power interplay. In this article, we aim to show how power interplay shapes local adaptation plans of action (LAPAs) in Nepal to be short-term and reactive. We use an interactional framing approach through interaction analyses and observations to analyse how actors use material and ideational resources to pursue their interests. Material and ideational resources that an actor deploys include political authority, knowledge of adaptation science and national/local policy-making processes, financial resources and strong relations with international non-governmental organizations and donor agencies. We find that facilitators and local politicians have a very prominent role in meetings relating to LAPAs, resulting in short-termism of LAPAs. Findings suggest that there is also a lack of female participation contributing to short-term orientated plans. We conclude that such power interplay analysis can help to investigate how decision making on the temporal aspects of climate adaptation policy takes place at the local level. Key Policy insights Short-termism of LAPAs is attributed to the power interplay between actors during the policy design process. Improved participation of the most vulnerable, especially women, can lead to the preparation of adaptation plans and strategies focusing on both the short and long-term. It is pertinent to consider power interplay in the design and planning of adaptation policy in order to create a level-playing field between actors for inclusive decision-making. Analysis of dynamic power interplay can help in investigating climate change adaptation controversies that are marked by uncertainties and ambiguitie

The priority of climate change on political and research agendas fluctuates but got a recent boost after the 2015 UNFCCC Paris Agreement. The amount of climate data is surging and so is the number of climate information portals.Portal developers usually aim at serving ‘‘users” and therefore consult them. But how useful are the resulting portals really? And for whom? How effective was the involvement of users in developing the portal?This paper aims to provide some answers to these questions.Reflections which have been carried out in this paper are based on the situation in Europe, building on experience in a number of European projects, in particular the CLIPC project (Climate Information Portal for Copernicus), a ‘‘pre-operational” research project for Copernicus.

Environmental pollution, animal diseases, and food scandals have marked the agricultural sector in the Netherlands and elsewhere in the 1990s. The sector was high on the political and societal agenda and plans were developed to redesign the sector into a more sustainable direction. Generally, monitoring of the agricultural sector is done by means of quantitative indicators to measure social, ecological, and economic performance. To give more attention to the normative character of sustainable development, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature, and Food Quality requested for a participatory approach to evaluate Dutch agriculture, which was characterized by stakeholder workshops, dialogue, and learning. This article describes and reflects on this approach, using the Fourth Generation Evaluation framework developed by Guba and Lincoln (Fourth generation evaluation, 1989). Although there are several improvements to be made, the evaluation approach was successful in the way that it gave insight into perceptions, visions, and ambitions of agricultural stakeholders with regard to sustainability. It also encouraged learning about ways to make the agricultural sector more sustainable. And it contributed to the development of a monitoring approach that is complementary to the quantitative, indicator-based, evaluation approach that is generally used and that can be used every few years to see how perceptions and ambitions of stakeholders have developed.