The aim of this documentary database is to provide grey literature on the various topics addressed in our activities. It is mainly made up of documents collected and/or used by the COSTEA network as we implement our actions. It includes study reports, strategic documents, activity reports, technical files, scientific articles, theses, press articles, books, legal texts, etc. We regularly add to this database as our work moves forward.
These bibliographical references have not been produced by COSTEA and are pooled and shared for collaborative purposes. COSTEA is not accountable for their content.
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groundwater recharge is generally low, leading to groundwater degradation. State responses are seldom effective in addressing this issue, which leads to fatalist narratives of the unsustainability of profitable agricultural growth and the collapse of aquifers. We argue that such narratives make it difficult to recognise more promising instances in which communities find solutions to groundwater degradation. We call for a fine-grained analysis of the social practices around the use of groundwater, which, we argue, represent a process of commoning. We do so while recognising that the collective action of communities is embedded in an intricate set of relations with other stakeholders including the state, and that the positive environmental and transformative social change that is often associated with commoning cannot be taken for granted at the outset. Building on the case of the arid Drâa Valley in Morocco where watermelon production has expanded rapidly, we illustrate how the process of commoning evolves through different social practices, including: 1) the use of new farming practices that reveal the potential of the aquifer; 2) the representation of the aquifer as severely degraded and the development of a narrative around
it being a collective good to be protected against outsiders; 3) the defining and negotiating of rules to control groundwater access and use; and 4) the engagement in negotiations and the resolving of conflicts. Our analysis shows that commoning, as performed by young local farmers, is about extending the lifespan of the aquifer for agricultural production rather than preserving it indefinitely; however, an examination of commoning practices also reveals the capacity of the community to change the course of the future.
de régulation des crues pour protéger les secteurs aménagés et les villes, les collectivités riveraines les considèrent comme des espaces productifs, défavorisés par les crues. L’étude montre des visions contrastées des services écosystémiques, où chaque acteur a une vision utilitariste des merjas. Malgré le débat international sur la biodiversité et le stockage de carbone dans les zones humides, les dimensions
écologiques sont peu citées. L’approche par les services écosystémiques dévoile les antagonismes entre acteurs, mais peut être un moyen de négociation sur le devenir des merjas dans une vision territoriale
flood extent on a basin- or delta-wide scale. Yet the sustainable development of this region is relying on dynamics at more local and specific scales, which have not been addressed so far. This paper presents a methodology to track the evolution of hydrological regimes and associated inundations in tropical deltas such as the upper Mekong delta in Cambodia, where it is applied over the past 30 years. Data
scarcity and heterogeneity of the environment in this region necessitated the use of combined approaches. We established a link between water levels measured in situ and flood maps derived from optical and radar satellite images (Sentinel-1 and − 2).The robustness of the link was assessed using Sentinel, Landsat imagery and the TanDEM-X (12 m) elevation model. This water level-flood link (WAFL) was then used to reconstruct a daily time series of inundation extents reaching back to the beginning of hydrological measurements in 1991 (30 years). On
this basis, changes in the incidence, duration, and spatial distribution of floods were analysed. The results indicated that WAFL can be used to reconstruct inundation maps with an overall robustness of 87% in comparison to historical inundation maps derived from remote sensing imagery. Comparisons of WAFLderived flood extents with Landsat images further underscored the significant role of local infrastructure, sedimentation dynamics, and land cover to explain changes in inundation dynamics. WAFL-based analyses revealed that inundation durations have decreased by an average of 19 days when comparing the periods before and after 2008, which was identified as a break point in the hydrological time series. Furthermore, a drastic decrease in inundation the annual frequency with which individual pixels are flooded can be detected during the first half of the traditional flood season, with an average of − 21% in early August, negatively impacting water-based livelihoods, from agriculture to fisheries.