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The implementation of the 10-year fishing ban compensation policy in the Yangtze River basin is the first practice of the river ecological compensation project in China, which has a milestone value to protect China's ecological sustainability and boost green development. Based on the survey data of 212 retired fishing households in Ma'anshan city, this paper constructs a livelihood capital evaluation system, coupled with coordination model and mobility matrix to analyze the policy effect on participants' livelihood from the changes of livelihood capital amounts on structure and mobility. The key results are threefold. (1) Policy implementation has significantly raised retired households' livelihood capital index; (2) The households livelihood capital coupling coordination degree has significantly improved, and the capital structure has transitioned from imbalanced to coordinated; and (3) Households' livelihood capital exhibits a high mobility, and the gap between rich and poor has been narrowed. This paper theoretically contributes to the research on ecological compensation by providing a more comprehensive perspective of policy effect analysis, and it can also provide a micro level empirical basis for policymakers to optimize the follow-up fishing ban policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is not an understatement to say that a thriving and healthy river system for the Mesopotamian region means a thriving economy for all with a productive agriculture and a sustainable manufacturing base that needs reliable water supply and cheap power. When looked at from a 30,000 feet from the ground, the Mesopotamian region began experiencing a steady decline in the health of its rivers from the 1980s with a series of unfortunate man‐made events ranging from wars to uncoordinated dam development. While there have been many analyses and historical dissection of the current water situation, one question that we all need to ask now is How can we restore the Mesopotamian rivers? Plain Language Summary: We believe we need to think in radical ways and drive our multi‐year and multi‐disciplinary research agenda with the goal of driving sustainable economic development. Research just for research sake and publication of research papers is now an outdated concept that benefits a few in this region in the near term. We call on the key players of the region, such as the national governments, water ministries, US Department of State, and European Government agencies to push for win‐win solutions. It is in their best economic and sovereign interest too to see Mesopotamian rivers restore sooner rather than later. Because, if the Mesopotamian rivers fail, then we as a world fail. Key Points: Mesopotamian rivers have declined steadily over the past 40 years with a reduced flood pulse due to dams by Turkey Iraq and SyriaSuch decline has lead to an unsustainable state of affairs and livelihood for downstream nationsThere are practical solutions to restore the rivers by seeking answer to how much water is really available [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the New Zealand landscape, the mahika kai sites (resource gathering areas) are marked through place names, which act as central reference points (whai take) for a wider ecosystem catchment area and indicate changes over time. The traditional ecological knowledge, awakened through place names, informs and influences the way Māori realise cultural, social, environmental, and economic aspirations and practices (past and present). This paper will draw from a research project in Te Wai Pounamu (South Island), New Zealand that utilises traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) surrounding the place name, Matainaka, which indicate places where Kāi Tahu (South Island Māori tribal group) gathered whitebait (īnaka, Galaxias maculatus): an important fresh water species. A major focus of the research project is the knowledge around socio-cultural tipping points that will impact directly on the future cultural, social and economic sustainability within a specific catchment location, the Waikōuaiti River. The river has spawning and fishing sites for the īnaka mahika kai and comes under the mana whenua (recognised traditional authority) of the Māori tribal group, Kāti Huirapa Rūnaka ki Puketeraki. Traditional ecological knowledge kōrero (speech) explains the importance of Matainaka and its contribution to the surrounding catchment area, and - in contemporary times - works alongside that of scientific knowledge. The project merged TEK and science to find ways to improve future planning and adaptation for habitat restoration and modification, and to lessen impacts on īnaka spawning sites from the expected impacts of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human pressures on river systems pose a major threat to the sustainable development of human societies in the twenty-first century. Previous studies showed that a large part of global river systems was already exposed to relevant anthropogenic pressures at the beginning of this century. A relevant question that has never been explained in the literature so far is whether these pressures are increasing in time, therefore representing a potential future challenge to the sustainability of river systems. This paper proposes an index we call "Differential Human Pressure on Rivers" (DHPR) to quantify the annual evolution of human pressure on river systems. DHPR identifies a per-year percentage increment (or decrement) of normalized human pressures on river systems (i.e., ratio of annual values to long-term average). This index, based on annual nightlights and stationary discharge data, is estimated for 2195 major river basins over a period of 22 years, from 1992 to 2013. The results show that normalized annual human pressure on river systems increased globally, as indicated by an average DHPR value of 1.9 % per year, whereby the greatest increase occurred in the northern tropical and equatorial areas. The evaluation of DHPR over this 22-year period allows the identification of hot-spot areas, therefore offering guidance on where the development and implementation of mitigation strategies and plans are most needed (i.e., where human pressure is strongly increasing). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In the article, on the basis of quantifying the emergy water ecological footprint, a sustainability evaluation system for the overall water ecological economic system of the basin and each province (region) was proposed. And using the subjective and objective combination of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Entropy Weight Method (EWM) to determine the weight of the indicator system, a TOPSIS model for sustainability evaluation was constructed. And taking the Yellow River Basin as an example, the results indicate that (1) Throughout the entire basin, the sustainability of the water ecological economic system showed a fluctuating upward trend year by year during the study period, from 0.37 to 0.51. (2) In each province (region), the sustainability of the water ecological economic system had gathered in space. The overall sustainability level of the upstream Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu provinces is high, always at level (I). The overall sustainability level of the midstream Ningxia and Neimenggu was low, always at level (IV). The overall sustainability level of the downstream Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan and Shandong provinces is high, rising gradually over time, from level (III) to level (II) or (I). Against the backdrop of the rapid development of the economy and society, the contradiction between economic and social development, ecological environment protection, and sustainable utilization of water resources is becoming increasingly severe, which has become a key factor restricting the sustainable development of the ecological economic system in Yellow River Basin. Multidimensional comprehensive evaluation of the sustainability level of the regional water ecological economic system is a prerequisite for identifying sustainable development issues in the Yellow River Basin, and also the basis for formulating targeted policies for sustainable utilization of regional water resources and high-quality economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental threats and progressive degradation of natural resources are considered critical impediments to sustainable development. This paper reports on a participatory impact assessment of alternative soil and water conservation (SWC) scenarios in the Oum Zessar watershed, Tunisia. The first objective was to assess the impact of three SWC scenarios on key social, economic and environmental land use functions. The second objective was to test and evaluate the applicability of the 'Framework for Participatory Impact Assessment (FoPIA)' for assessing scenario impacts in the context of a developing country, in this case Tunisia. The assessed scenarios included: the originally planned SWC policy implementation at 85 % coverage of arable land of the watershed, the current implementation (70 %), and a hypothetical expansion of SWC measures to the entire watershed (100 %). Our results suggest that implementation of the SWC policy at 100 % coverage of arable land achieves the maximum socioeconomic benefit. However, if stakeholders' preferences regarding land use functions are taken into account, and considering the fact that the implementation of SWC measures also implies some negative changes to traditional landscapes and the natural system, SWC implementation at 85 % coverage of arable land might be preferable. The FoPIA approved to be a useful tool for conducting a holistic sustainability impact assessment of SWC scenarios and for studying the most intriguing sustainability problems while providing possible recommendations towards sustainable development. We conclude that participatory impact assessment contributes to an enhanced regional understanding of key linkages between policy effects and sustainable development, which provides the foundation for improved policy decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic sustainability is particularly important in agriculture. It is related to the basic economic goal of farmers and the reason for their economic activities. Household-level adaptation and mitigation measures reflect the relative importance of economic goals for sustainability. Researchers collected data via a questionnaire designed to include household demographics, farm-specific variables, inputs, and outputs. The empirical model uses stochastic frontier and technical inefficiency models to analyze economic sustainability. Bered and Teleta were the two most economically sustainable and unsustainable regions. Differences in levels of economic sustainability have been attributed to characteristics that are expected to vary from household to household and from region to region. Output-oriented and input-oriented measures of inefficiency loss show that agriculture can be more economically sustainable as long as it is less efficient. Farmers could expand production with existing inputs, or they could reduce their inputs without lowering production levels. In addition, the return to scale was compared with the growth potential in each region. The political decision makers, therefore, seem to emphasize efforts to improve efficiency instead of investing in new technologies and inputs for the greater economic sustainability of the Koga Irrigation and Watershed Project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to insufficient understanding of human-water interaction, many water-related problems arise in watersheds, posing severe threats to the sustainability of watershed development. Although water environmental carrying capacity (WECC) is a powerful tool to support sustainable development of watersheds, few studies considered aquatic ecological factors and uncertainty in indicator values, leading to losses of sample information in the evaluation of WECC. This paper developed a systematic framework for comprehensive WECC assessment that included the indicator system and a novel variable fuzzy pattern recognition (VFPR) approach. The WECC index system incorporated aquatic ecological factors, and addressed uncertainties associated with the indicator values. The proposed VFPR-based assessment model could realize successive evaluation to retain more original information of the sample and distinguish similar result values by treating the sample as having a continuous degree of membership instead of the traditional point form. In addition, it could be more adaptable to various circumstances including extreme cases, and closely reflect the impacts of indicator changes on the results. The established evaluation framework has been applied to Dongjiang River Basin in Guangdong Province. The spatial differences and main influencing factors of WECC in the study area were analyzed. Results show that 50% and 16.7% of the sub-regions in the study area would be subject to a poor level of WECC under pessimistic and optimistic circumstances, respectively. WECCs in the upper and lower reaches are the best and worst, respectively, which is in line with the levels of economic development in the Dongjiang River Basin. The proposed method can also be applicable to many other problems involving numerous indicators. • Traditional VFPR model was improved from both model structure and model parameters. • A systematic framework was proposed for continuous and comprehensive evaluation of WECC. • Water ecology and the uncertainty in indicator values were considered in the index system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work emphasizes the need for sustainable river basin planning and management, which is considered as a pre-requisite for socioeconomic and cultural development of a nation. Since the pollution and abstraction of riverine water resources for various purposes are inevitable, an effective decision-making and policy implementation are needed to strike a balance between the development and sustainability. Keeping these concerns in view, the study provides a novel decision-making approach for rejuvenating major river across the globe by trying to achieve following objectives: (a) providing a scientific in-depth discussion about the inter-related and complex threats and challenges; (b) assessing the success and limitations of earlier and recent programmes initiated by government for rejuvenating river basin; (c) developing strength–weakness–opportunities–threats matrix to derive policies; and (d) procuring the opinions of multiple stakeholders at all levels to suggest best strategies for reaching sustainability goals. A case study of one of the heavily polluted river basins of the world, namely Ganges, India, has been considered for demonstrating the decision-making approach. The study proposes certain modifications in the current policies, and also some innovative strategic policies are recommended to strengthen the task of achieving development of the river basin in an integrated and sustainable manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development and use of indicators is common practice in efforts to promote sustainable development of water use systems. Building on the balanced network structure derived from the analysis of ecological information, in this study, we proposed a conceptual model and the network structure index (NSI), a new indicator that includes network efficiency and resilience. Furthermore, considering the need to cover measures of the state of water use systems, we combined the NSI with conventional multi-dimensional indicators including economic, social, and environmental factors to form an aggregated index for a more thorough and practical sustainability measurement. Based on the proposed new indicators, we used the four sub-basins of China's Huaihe River as case studies. The goal of this study is to develop a new metric incorporating whole-system attributes for assessing the sustainability of water use systems. It represents the first attempt to provide a more reliable methodological tool to advance current assessments of sustainable water use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In urban and suburban areas, stormwater runoff is a primary stressor on surface waters. Conventional urban stormwater drainage systems often route runoff directly to streams and rivers, thus exacerbating pollutant inputs and hydrologic disturbance, and resulting in the degradation of ecosystem structure and function. Decentralized stormwater management tools, such as low impact development (LID) or water sensitive urban design (WSUD), may offer a more sustainable solution to stormwater management if implemented at a watershed scale. These tools are designed to pond, infiltrate, and harvest water at the source, encouraging evaporation, evapotranspiration, groundwater recharge, and re-use of stormwater. While there are numerous demonstrations of WSUD practices, there are few examples of widespread implementation at a watershed scale with the explicit objective of protecting or restoring a receiving stream. This article identifies seven major impediments to sustainable urban stormwater management: (1) uncertainties in performance and cost, (2) insufficient engineering standards and guidelines, (3) fragmented responsibilities, (4) lack of institutional capacity, (5) lack of legislative mandate, (6) lack of funding and effective market incentives, and (7) resistance to change. By comparing experiences from Australia and the United States, two developed countries with existing conventional stormwater infrastructure and escalating stream ecosystem degradation, we highlight challenges facing sustainable urban stormwater management and offer several examples of successful, regional WSUD implementation. We conclude by identifying solutions to each of the seven impediments that, when employed separately or in combination, should encourage widespread implementation of WSUD with watershed-based goals to protect human health and safety, and stream ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy science has developed various approaches, such as agenda-setting and goal-setting theory, aimed at explaining the emergence of policy shifts and behavioural changes. The 2030 Agenda sets an ambitious vision for human development in times of global environmental change and makes for an interesting subject to study the explanatory power of these approaches. While the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) enshrined in the 2030 Agenda resulted from a process of intergovernmental negotiations, they will ultimately have to be implemented by national governments. Using the case of Mexico, we take the governance of water as a starting point to investigate whether the 2030 Agenda has indeed become a focusing event for sustainability transformation. Building on data from 33 expert interviews and findings of a Social Network Analysis of communications between water stakeholders from different sectors in the Cuautla River Basin, we conclude that major paradigm shifts in water governance in Mexico are thus far rather attributable to domestic focusing events and windows of opportunity than to the motivating impact of globally set goals. The Mexican case also illustrates that the implementation of the 2030 Agenda is strongly dependent on political will at the highest level. Ensuring the continuity of its implementation across administrations will, therefore, require mainstreaming and anchoring the SDGs into the sectorial strategies that determine activities at the lower working level of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed at assessing tourism potential of a place to meet requirements of sustainable development policies. We studied the Haraz watershed because of its particular environmental characteristics and a high potential for ecotourism. The required data for this descriptive-analytical research were collected by combining field and desktop studies. First, the ecotourism capability assessment of the area was done using Arc GIS 10.3 software based on the Hyrcanian Forest Tourism Development Model for concentrated tourism and extensive tourism. Next, the most important effective indices included (i.e., 19 indices) were determined by Delphi questionnaire and SPSS 17. Finally, AHP technique was applied to analyze the body mass of the indices in order to verify the validity of the model. The results show that 0.0044, 01.3, 3.52, and 37.71% of the study area is suitable for concentrated ecotourism (grade 1), concentrated ecotourism (grade 2), extensive ecotourism (grade 1), and extensive ecotourism (grade 2), respectively. Based on the model applied, slope, direction, and fundamentals (infrastructure) with the body masses of 0.232, 0.116, and 0.115 were identified as the first priorities. Comparing the results of this model and AHP confirms the validity of the model. To strengthen the tourism development potential of the watershed and protect its ecosystems and biodiversity, it is necessary to choose a proper development model. Failure to identify the existing capacities and the field’s sensitivities can cause dissatisfaction of local residents and also damage to the ecosystem of the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]