Hydropower vs. fisheries conservation: a test of institutional design principles for common-pool resource management in the lower Mekong basin social-ecological system

Villamayor-Tomás, Sergio; Avagyan, Mikayel; Firlus, Marit; Helbing, Georg; Kabakova, Margarita

doi:10.5751/es-08105-210103

Cited by 18 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Navigating this WEF nexus has been an ongoing challenge for the transboundary governance of this globally significant river basin. The CGIAR WLE (CGIAR's Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems) Challenge program on water and food (2002–2013) and subsequent research investments on various dimensions of the Mekong WEF nexus (Gallagher et al, ; Foran, ; Grafton et al, ; Lebel & Lebel, ; Molle, ; Middleton et al, ; Orr et al, ; Pittock et al, ; Smajgl & Ward, ; Smajgl et al, ; Villamayor‐Tomas et al, ) mean this is one of the best researched WEF nexus cases globally. Our Mekong WEF nexus case study is a WEF situation in Kratie Province, Cambodia (Liu et al, ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Participatory Modeling Updates Expectations forIndividuals and Groups, Catalyzing BehaviorChange and Collective Action inWater‐Energy‐Food NexusGovernance

et al. 2019

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Participatory modeling is a potentially high-impact approach for catalyzing fundamental sustainability transformations. We test if participation in a group system dynamics modeling exercise increases participants' agency through a novel method to evaluate potential behavioral change using expectation measures. A water-energy-food nexus-a functionally interdependent but underconceptualized system with low consensus and high scientific uncertainty-was mapped, and its evolution simulated by 46 participants in three interventions in a region undergoing hydropower infrastructure development in Northeastern Cambodia. Participants' system-related expectations were measured before and after the interventions. Our results suggest that participants became significantly more optimistic about their individual agency to increase agricultural and fishing income and, interestingly, less likely to participate in local government development planning procedures. Findings also reveal how some uncertainties for multiple variables were reduced within and across the groups. Such converging expectations suggest that participatory modeling could contribute to making collective solutions and institutionalized agreements more likely. This research contributes to innovation in sustainability because it unpacks some underlying mechanics of how participatory processes can lead to new adaptive capacities, shared perspectives, and collective actions. Plain Language SummaryOur research contributes to understanding actionable knowledge for sustainability using a before-after intervention with fishing and farming community representatives in a situation of conflicting water, energy, food, and livelihoods priorities in rural Cambodia. We explain why reducing uncertainty and building consensus on action through participatory research could potentially catalyze new behavior that promotes sustainability and test how this happens in our intervention. The result is a new and much needed evaluation framework and method for behavioral change outcomes in sustainability interventions.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Participatory Modeling Updates Expectations forIndividuals and Groups, Catalyzing BehaviorChange and Collective Action inWater‐Energy‐Food NexusGovernance

et al. 2019

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“…SESMAD is the first formal consistent operationalization of SES variables and is a collaborative tool for researchers to describe and compare various CPR systems. Since its conceptualization in 2011, SESMAD has been applied to a variety of systems and research questions regarding resource management issues, ranging from fisheries to forests to the ozone layer (Epstein et al 2014;Evans et al 2014;Fleischman et al 2014;Rivero and Hakizamana 2016;Villamayor-Tomas et al 2016). This study uses SESMAD's flexible design to identify and measure influential variables in order to answer four research questions: (1) How do management goals within each squid governance system compare?…”

Section: Sesmadmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring squid fishery governance efficacy: A social-ecological system analysis

Aguilera

2018

Int J Commons

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As finfish fisheries increasingly shrink due to overexploitation, management and industry have shifted their attention to the world's squid fisheries. The emergence of squid fisheries in the global seafood market calls for welldesigned and effective management strategies if they are to remain viable. This study assesses the efficacy of squid governance from a social-ecological perspective in three fisheries. This analysis uses an evidence-based approach to characterize the social-ecological system variables that contribute to each fishery management system meeting its stated goals. To do so, I test the hypothesis that the presence of the ten institutional design principles formulated by common pool resource theory leads to more effective squid fishery management. I measure five outcome variables (governance system effect, commons condition trend, basin switch, user group well-being, compliance) to assess governance effectiveness from social and ecological perspectives. This is the first attempt to examine the design principles and operationalize Ostrom's Social-Ecological System framework to compare globally competitive squid fisheries. Results indicate that each of the three analyzed squid governance systems has met its specified management goals and is associated with positive social and ecological outcomes. Using the Socio-Ecological Systems Meta-Analysis Database (SESMAD), I used secondary data supplemented with semi-structured interviews with key informants to find a strong presence of the design principles in each case. Findings suggest effective squid governance is associated with user-involvement in system operations and contextually appropriate policies, rather than a single overarching squid based strategy.

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“…These tended to be descriptive case studies. Those studies that took a more analytical approach all used the design principles to assess the effectiveness of management in their case studies (Lacroix and Richards 2015, Lancaster et al 2015, Villamayor-Tomas et al 2016. Drafts of several articles initially attempted to do both, i.e., use the SES framework and design principles, but ended up focusing on design principles only.…”

Section: Observations and Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This special feature thus had two objectives: (1) provide examples and support for teachers committed to engaging students with ideas around complex SESs (Ban et al 2015a, Cox 2015, and (2) provide a set of case studies led by or involving students that examines large case studies (> 10,000 km²; Ban et al 2015b, Lacroix and Richards 2015, Lancaster et al 2015, Taggart-Hodge and Schoon 2016, Tyson 2017, Villamayor-Tomas et al 2016). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Advancing social-ecological research through teaching: summary, observations, and challenges

Ban¹,

Cox²

2017

E&S

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Hydropower vs. fisheries conservation: a test of institutional design principles for common-pool resource management in the lower Mekong basin social-ecological system

Cited by 18 publications

References 41 publications

Participatory Modeling Updates Expectations forIndividuals and Groups, Catalyzing BehaviorChange and Collective Action inWater‐Energy‐Food NexusGovernance

Participatory Modeling Updates Expectations forIndividuals and Groups, Catalyzing BehaviorChange and Collective Action inWater‐Energy‐Food NexusGovernance

Measuring squid fishery governance efficacy: A social-ecological system analysis

Advancing social-ecological research through teaching: summary, observations, and challenges

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