The Transdisciplinary Pathways for Sustainable Water Governance (TRANSWATER) project, implemented by researchers from UMR G-EAU (www.g-eau.fr), proposes to develop and test a framework to understand –and enhance- the ways transdisciplinary arrangements of coproduction can contribute to sustainable transformations of water governance in four hydrosocial territories. TRANSWATER aims to link recent interdisciplinary advances in water research and Sustainability Science’s commitment towards transformations while being attentive to the situated and contingent nature of research, hence contributing to the emergence of a reflexive Sustainability Science of Water. The project will be implemented in four hydrosocial territories where UMR G-EAU has on-going partnerships with a diversity of water actors: the greater Montpellier area in the South of France, the Lac de Guiers area in Senegal, groundwater-based agro-ecosystems in the south of Tunisia, and the Cambodian Upper Mekong delta. Recognizing that hydrosocial transformations are best assessed and brought about over the long term, we make the methodological choice to establish synergies with existing transdisciplinary processes that aim at identifying and implementing just and sustainable transformations in these hydrosocial territories. Grounded in what we call a “negotiated reflexivity” approach, the framework developed under the project will investigate the daily practices of designing and implementing these transdisciplinary processes while also generating new water knowledge. We expect this will yield insights of operational value to steer on-going transformations towards more just and sustainable ends in these four hydrosocial territories but also (1) generic lessons on how and why hydrosocial transformations come about and a (2) reflexive assessment of the role researchers at the science-action interface can play in these.

Irrigated agriculture is a major feature of the Mediterranean basin, and has expanded tremendously in the past decades, through access to a previously untapped resource, groundwater. Within the perspective of global challenges linked to food security, poverty alleviation, natural resources degradation in conjunction with climate change, rural development and migration patterns, irrigated agriculture is of vital importance to maintain viable farming systems within the Mediterranean basin. In addition to the imminent threat of groundwater depletion, small-scale irrigated farming systems face vulnerabilities such as soil degradation, unequal access to productive resources and difficult access to markets and information. The project VIANA (Vulnerabilities et adaptive capacities of Irrigated Agriculture in North Africa) extends previous research on vulnerabilities of irrigated agriculture in North Africa, by characterizing potentially existing local agroecological solutions and understanding the context in which such practices have emerged or been adopted. Using the lens of vulnerability and adaptive capacity, and assuming that, locally, strong capacities of adaptations and innovations developed by farmers exist, the objective of this project is to identify, characterize and co-evaluate existing adaptations and lower-input systems developed by actors at different scales (plots, farms and irrigated territory) to deal with these vulnerabilities. The project will, in particular, focus on characterizing local farming practices with a potential to maintain overall productivity of irrigated territories while improving environmental sustainability, focusing in particular on on-farm improved efficiency of input uses, water efficient cropping systems, and crop-animal diversification strategies. The project involves three contrasted groundwater-irrigated territories in North Africa: the Saïs plain in Morocco, the Haut-Chéliff plain in Algeria, and the Kairouan plain in Tunisia. From a methodological point of view, the project is resolutely transdisciplinary, and will include researchers in agronomy, water and environmental sciences, economy and political science. All these disciplines will contribute to qualify the socio-ecological system of irrigated agriculture within an interdisciplinary cognitive framework. It is also problem and action-oriented and participatory, with an emphasis on social learning, through the inclusion of farmers and institutional actors in major steps of the project. Involving six young researchers from four Mediterranean countries, in various fields of knowledge, VIANA will contribute to forming a new generation of researchers interested in apprehending challenges around irrigated agriculture, in a transdisciplinary and participative approach. In parallel, it will contribute to improve farmers’ knowledge on environmental impacts of agriculture through both the social learning process and a better understanding of their roles and actions in the research arena.

URBANFOSC addresses the triple challenge of achieving food and nutrition security in African (secondary) cities by addressing the interaction between rapid urbanization, climate change and the increased production for international value chains. The project aims to contribute to transformative adaptation strategies that enhance the resilience of urban food systems in connection with climate impacts on agricultural production in the urban hinterlands. The project uses a food systems mapping and modelling approach to identify critical linkages, actor networks and leverage points in urban food systems. Network models allow to understand the cascading impacts of climate change on the urban food system. Using such food system understanding, the project aims to co-design with stakeholders in government, the private sector and civil society, possible interventions and governance processes that contribute to improved urban nutrition and a higher resilience of urban food systems to climate change. Specific attention will be given to the role of international value chains operating in the sourcing regions of urban fresh produce in terms of competition for land and water resources, or as leverage points for new value chains feeding into the urban food system. The consortium will work in 3 African secondary cities that differ in anticipated climate change impacts and types of international value chain interaction. This allows developing a generic approach that has high transferability to other (secondary) cities across Africa. A transdisciplinary approach is chosen in which stakeholders are playing a role throughout the full project life-time and where consortium members provide complementary expertise to address the multi-dimensionality of urban food systems in an integrated manner.

Adaptation plans have become increasingly popular across the globe. While some adaptations have beneficial outcomes, many have unintended consequences for vulnerability. This is particularly relevant in coastal zones where both marine and land-based adaptations have an impact and human pressures are greatest. We believe a better understanding of the underlying social-ecological processes driving adaptation in coastal areas, particularly the feedbacks between risk from biophysical change, cognitive processes, and adaptation, will reduce the incidence of maladaptations while increasing the frequency of win-win adaptations. Findings will directly inform and support adaptation decision making in coastal areas, add to current knowledge on vulnerability and adaptation, and facilitate learning and appreciation of feedbacks in adaptation responses. We use a model of “private proactive adaptation to climate change” to assess the interactions between: a) the actual risk posed by climate change; b) cognitive factors such as perceived risk and perceived adaptive capacity; c) adaptations; and d) situated learning when decisions makers participate in modelling processes. We assess the relationship between these drivers and adaptation plans in coastal areas at three scales: individual decision makers; local communities of practice; and regional planning authorities. Participatory modelling with decision makers will result in lasting impacts for enhanced coastal resilience. In each of three coastal regions: the Languedoc-Rousillon in France; Cornwall in the UK; and the Garden Route coast in South Africa, we will identify two to three examples where users, communities of practice, and regional authorities have developed adaptation plans and strategies resulting in the unintended transfer of vulnerability from one sector, scale or place to another. We will use available empirical data and models, participatory agent-based modeling, interpretative methods; and reflexive learning to catalyze and assess changes in the cognitive perceptions of decision makers who design adaptation plans.

Optimization is what you do if you run out of on innovative ideas. Current practice in integrated water management predominantly use multi-objective optimization approaches with aggregated objectives. This biases results towards the status quo and against innovative solutions, can foster stakeholder resistance, while also raising ethical concerns related to the inclusion of undesirable and/or hidden trade-offs1. In contrast, many-objectives optimization approaches can consider many non-aggregated objectives, which has the potential to enrich the solution space with alternative courses of action that better reflect the diverging perspectives of stakeholders, and align better with ethical concerns. From the viewpoint of ethics, disaggregated assessment criteria are preferred as these may avoid undesirable and hidden trade-offs. Apart from some pioneering studies in economics and reliability engineering, no methods currently exist that are specifically aim to avoid such undesirable trade-offs. Here many-objective approaches to optimization and decision making offer a promising way-forward. Water resources management increasingly relies on integrated models to analyses the socio-economic benefits of the scarce resource. These models typically connect sectoral water uses to water resources, and to performance indicators. These integrated models offer great potential in enabling more sustainable management of water resources. Currently these advances in modelling are however in many cases not exploited because their outputs are evaluated using multi-objective optimization on pre-maturely aggregated objective functions that cancel out the potential advantages of these integrated models in unpredictable ways. In the context of Integrated Water Resources Management, many-objective approaches offer greater opportunities to handle the many non-aggregated objectives that arise from sectoral integration. In the face of climate change and growing water scarcity the expansion of the solution space and the identification of innovative strategies for water management issues that many-objective approaches have on offer is of great relevance. For dissemination and implementation it is important that these innovations do not only offer methodological improvements for water managers, but specifically address the innovative characteristics of solutions, the improved alignment with the interests of stakeholders, as well as producing solutions that are ethically more just. The promise of the many-objectives methods regarding alternative courses of action is especially relevant under conditions of climate change and socio-economic developments and a growing emphasis on sustainability and inclusiveness in addition to efficiency and effectiveness. The virtues of many-objective approaches have barely reached current practice in water management in Europe and beyond. To realize the promise this research operationalizes many-objective approaches for water management and contrasts them to existing practices. The project develops, operationalizes, and incorporates many-objective optimization in existing regional water management models. In close collaboration with local stakeholders and water managers. We apply both existing multi-objective methods and collaboratively developed many-objective approaches and compare and contrast the strategies that emerge from both as a concrete contribution to practice. Our contribution to science focusses on the validity of the many-objective hypotheses for water management. Finally for our project partners in our case study areas, we deliver operational models and software for implementation in daily management and decision making practice. Our case studies cover water management practices under divers climatic, hydrological, soil and socio-economic condition encountered in current and climate change affected Europe and beyond, and serve to disseminate innovated practices.