This paper outlines a five year investigation which aimed to develop a measurement to predict community intended behaviour in relation to the reuse of wastewater. It has been apparent that communities support the concept of water reuse as a means of responsible water resources management. However, reactions from people when it comes to actually using the recycled water are frequently quite different, particularly when it involves close personal contact or ingestion of the water. Little has been known of how people make their decisions to accept or reject schemes. Therefore, a research program was designed to systematically identify, measure and test the major factors that govern people's decision-making. A social experiment was designed whereby a large group of random community members participated in tasting and swallowing what they believed to be recycled water from different sources and products grown with recycled waters. This provided an immediate experience for the development of measures of psychological and other factors in decisions to taste and/or swallow. This then formed the basis for whole of city surveys which tested and refined an hypothesised model of intended behaviour, and three case studies over time which sought to replicate the model.
Traditionally water reticulation systems have been operated so that pipeline repair/renewal occurs on a reactive basis, based upon the number of failures, the consequence of failure and the cost. Planning for future replacements and the costs associated with these has been based upon a best guess of pipe lifetimes, which have generally been very conservative, when compared to the actual pipe life obtained. Factors such as the required level of customer service, trade-offs between repair and renewal, or operating practices such as pressure reduction or shut-off block reduction have not been widely considered, except when they are required under the water authorities operating licence. To allow long-term strategies to be implemented for the repair/renewal of water pipelines, a Pipeline Asset and Risk Management System (PARMS) is being developed. This planning model has been designed to allow a range of “what if” scenarios to be analysed to determine their effects on water authorities’ long-term costs. This model is based upon whole of life costing and includes data on externality and customer impact costs. It analyses the failures of individual pipe assets, rather than the traditional practice of predicting failure of pipe cohorts, currently used by many authorities. This paper discusses the application of the PARMS planning model to allow selection of pipeline repair/renewal, and briefly analyses the influences that a range of customer service or operating decisions can have on a water authority’s capital and operational expenditure.
Community engagement and integrated research are key approaches to solving complex socio-ecological challenges. This paper describes the experience of bringing together a team of natural and social scientists from Australia and Indonesia in the ‘Gambut Kita’ (translated as ‘Our Peat’) project. Gambut Kita aims to produce new knowledge and support efforts to successfully, and equitably, restore Indonesia’s tropical peatlands and ensure that livelihoods can be maintained on restored (rewetted) landscapes. The paper focuses on experiences of using community engagement for integrated research. It discusses three community engagement approaches used in the project—resilience, adaptation pathways and transformation approach (RAPTA), participatory rural appraisal (PRA), and community-led analysis and planning (CLAP). It also describes the qualitative analysis of 14 interviews with the project team of lessons learned in community engagement for integrated research. ‘Criteria for success’ from the literature on international development projects is used to assess progress. The findings highlight the specific complexities of working across countries and cultures. Successful community engagement is not so much about the ‘tool’ but about the trust, agency, and support to change. The tools do, however, have different strengths. PRA and CLAP can build deep community understanding and relationships. RAPTA has strengths in framing visions and pathways to the future, systems thinking, anticipatory learning, and taking a cross-scale systems view which is required to solve many of the problems manifesting at local or community scales. Similarly, success in integrated research is not just about individuals, but structures (e.g. explicit process) and infrastructure (e.g. access to technology). These findings suggest that integrated research needs special considerations in terms of design, and these relate across scales to individual researchers as well as teams, leaders and organisations. Integrated research projects need careful, inclusive, iterative management with a lot of interaction to learn from each other, build a common vision, achieve clarity of roles, and share emerging findings.
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