Water Resource Management & Environment

Water Resource Management and Environmental Perspective

• Managing and protecting water necessitate a localized, systemic approach. This aids visualization and impact assessment in social, environmental, and economic dimensions.
• Surface water systems are investigated through an environmental justice lens, pinpointing crucial paths that either foster or hinder progress toward justice.
• Socio-economic factors significantly impact surface water systems, creating unexpected challenges, addressed via future scenarios based on Global Scenarios Group archetypes.

Exploring Impact Through an Environmental Justice Lense

• The influence of diverse future scenarios on surface water, analyzed via environmental justice, reveals crucial leverage points and helps in forming a conceptual framework.

Analysis of the Model

• Analysis of a conceptual model highlights feedback loops focused on circular generation, managing costs to bring back value, and urban growth. Development of models and visuals enables analysis of environmental and societal impacts through a justice-focused lens.

Communication and Knowledge Sharing

• Enables driver and impact exploration via accessible methods for sharing information.

Water as a Global Resource

• Water is essential but globally scarce or poor in quality, affected by commodification trends.
• Anthropogenic actions have degraded UK water systems since the 19th century, despite infrastructure and policy advancements.
• Surface waters in the UK do not meet all standards, while public concern over water environments grows.
• Disparities in environmental impact and power imbalances regarding water access result in (in)justice concerns.

Standard of Water

• Potable water quality standards are consistent across England, wastewater impacts and water service costs vary regionally based on affluence. Weather and climate change worsen these disparities. Legacy combined sewers with surfaces made waterproof due to expanding urbanization raise risks of overflows.
• The quality of receiving waters matters when treated/untreated sewage is released into rivers. Spatial and cost inequities arise, with uneven investment distribution to address disparities across the UK.

Water Justice

• Justice in water systems relates to allocation and distribution among human users. Environmental justice adds considerations within the environmental context in England. A more intersectional strategy is needed for integrating environmental justice themes into policy frameworks for clarity.
• Environmental justice definitions shift between grassroots movements and research. Defining it as "equity in the distribution of environmental benefits and harms for human and other-than human beings".
• Water and justice intersect with various applications; its functionality is wide ranging, existing as a economic or public resource.
• Water systems are impacted by various actions in society, requiring systemic tools for cross-sectoral cooperation.
• System mapping visualizes direct and indirect cause-and-effect impacts throughout the water system.

Visual Methods

• Causal loop diagrams highlight driving forces by mapping the ways things relate. Study focuses of justice in England as it relates to the surface water system. Justice is often implied in current regulations, influencing decision-making. Since 2000, roughly £10 billion each year has ben designated as investment to the water and wastewater sector of water and wastewater, how it is applied impacts results in a big way. Recent work stresses connecting natural and people within communities.

Inclusivity

• System approaches create tools for discussion for many different sectors and wide array of societies. Tools can uncover a systems impacts at different systems levels for location specific results. This paper describes usage and methods addressing water and justice issues by using a justice led-framework to be used in development of a system model.

Future Scenarios

• Exploring systems within extreme conditions, future scenarios uses a wide array of social and economic constructs. Future generations will be considered through exploration of relationships, outcomes and impacts using these scenarios as well as methods from urban development.

Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus

• Interest is drawn to exploring how these sectors interact. Researchers see water more as a a tool of exploration by the fields of consumption, sector of industry and the practice of farming.

Approaches of Exploring Water Systems Using Causal Loop Diagrams

• Continued study of Water-Energy-Food nexus, dairy farms, and impact areas. Local assessments of services and values influences project sustainability trade offs.
• Implementing CLD at policy and levels of governments when in a area specific location is key.
• Multiple viewpoint integration is key where resource conflict exists. Participation from stakeholders is needed over a period of time in order to be successful. Systems can be represented even though they involve people of different motives.
• The WEF nexus and ontology approach of system map development can have barriers to connect with social phenomenon.

Defining Problems in Water

• Assessment of system and scale is beneficial given development in policy development an global scales.
• Objectives are critical to outcomes, a focus on resilience without raising questions.

Framing

• Framing is critical achieve proper objectives. Applying scenarios from group assessment can influence results across many generations. This will explore all the relationships, effects and results across future generations. A justice focused solution is an option, as justice is a result of dependability, to sustainability.

Perspectives

• Viewing environmental effects that will impact equity and ecology within the system is critical to gaining ability to factor breadth regarding issues.

Methods For Improving Visual Communications (water system focused)

• Used to help communications within the water system, by which use of scientific basis is helpful to generate baseline. Exploration between the two, common relationship and points of integration with different sectors were found in the water system. Discussion from focus groups of people around Sweden, United kingdom and other places helped discussion.

Exploring Visuals (outside of the current environment) to Better Communications

• A series was used to consider factors. The global scenario group scenarios were adapted as they provide unconstrained context. Visual developments were broken down into elements to frame the research with environmental, social and economic perspectives clarified.

Application

• Relationships within were studied using justice framework for environmental outcomes. Evidenced based methods from literature explored interconnections. A range of potential factors were explored within the system. Scenario narratives were included. A multi driven framework was used to determine impacts of using extreme, but plausible characteristics.

Market Forces- Water Scenario

• Influenced heavily by monetary driven motivation and economy shift as well as global driven sector. There is an inequality financially as many activities impact the system.

Policy Reform - Water Scenario

• Framework focuses on international policy with multi-protection and maintenance. Tech is favoured over changed actions.
• Barbarization occurs at a focus here. Military action occur in the areas due to elites controlling those areas.

Technology - Water Scenario

• Tech flourishes with the goal to transfer between groups. Humane globalisation was another note. System maps were then used at the second part to be focused on areas where they can be understood with integrity. Interactive visuals was an aim.

Visual Breakthrough - Water

• Exploration was done to find out major points from effects.
• Identified as the paths were leading as were recognized, as it pertains to justice areas. Diagrams were the foundation this is related to justice outcomes.

Effects - Water

• Interventions influence, that ultimately affect and modify, testing against pricing shows it was an economic commodity.

Water Cycle (natural)

• Influenced by activities that extend human consumptive and no consumptive uses, effects system and adds changes.
• Defined boundaries, cannot ignore interconnected natures.
• Systems can be biased by human lens, an Environmental justice lens will account for the equity and requires definitions.

Framework

• Economy is seen as macro while micro level see the flow of finances. As a economic stand point it focuses on achieving nations prosperity, as a lens of equity it accounts for water services. The society within which the economy is sat, benefits if able to survive under justice. A environmental influence will ensure the ecosystem thrives. This from these angles, there is generation of more specific guidelines to system models.

Examaining Maps

• By going across different maps, the ability to see certain influences and visualizaitons was key. Maps were made into presentations and branches contain linked activities, policies.
• For the public to thrive a solid line was made to be solid to show the way society did this via water supply. Heavy rain is damaging. All actions and influences whether it is helping or hurting with dashed and solid lines.

Scenarios for the Future

• Different scenarios and relationships that effect water systems were used to show their effects on justice and policy impact within the water system decisions. Market forces is like what is currently going on, with interplay between supporting and not supporting the idea of thrive. By force, a natural ecosystem can enable individual gain but not properly support everything that is required.
• Policies have a balance between planets and providing profit. Regulations support great water while economic drivers persist. All three provide benefits in a similar method.

Other Scenarios

• With a collapse in social, degradation become bad where water quality and social can benefit the entire system. Focus from both help the future.
• System Maps present great details, exploring the water areas in the system. All this will result in great influential relationships.

Analyses

• Key ways were identified influenced by governing and range, those will be points diagram. Relationship of people had the closest effects.
• After looking into it, if a service was high cost that is something would come. Actions within each make the system more and more connected. With the help of certain influences, it is found a large amount of details and connections come to fruition, therefore making it key to communicate in clear manner.