Subprogramme 1: Sustainability
Examples of projects:
Equity and justice in water governance
Postdoc: Stijn Neuteleers
Supervisor: Dave Huitema
There are several challenges to water governance, such as population growth, changing management views (e.g. role of markets) and in particular climate change. All these challenges have potential distributive effects. An increasing number of authors is therefore arguing that there should be more attention for the topics of justice, equity and fairness in water governance, because this might be part of realising successful climate adaptations. There is a gradually emerging debate on these topics but it is fragmented across different disciplines and approaches, and it is not very clear what the main topics, approaches and definitions are. This study aims to examine what is known about justice in the field of water governance, to identify main research discourses and research gaps, and to connect water justice with questions of adaptive governance.
The first part of the research focused on justice and flood risk governance in cities under climate change (conducted by J. Patterson). For this, a global survey was conducted in cities around the world, including questions on justice and equity. The second part of the project starts with a systematic literature review on justice and water governance (conducted by S. Neuteleers). This review will provide both quantitative data (e.g. frequencies of water justice topics; use justice definitions; regions; methods; etc.) and a qualitative analysis about questions such as: how is water justice conceptualised (dimensions, levels, approaches, discourses)? How is water injustice coming about (mechanisms)? What are the consequences of water injustice? Why do authors believe dealing with justice issues is relevant? And, are authors also proposing positive accounts, namely how to evaluate and design just policies? In a third step, this comprehensive picture of current water justice debates will be connected with questions of institutional design. Incorporating justice issues could be part of adaptive governance, namely governance that is dynamic and can adapt to changing contexts, thereby increasing the resilient or adaptive character of policy institutions.
Output
(Accepted) Neuteleers, S. 'A systematic review of justice and water governance', 2020 Bratislava Conference on Earth System Governance, 15-19 Sep 2020, Slovak Republic.
Neuteleers, S. 'Equity and justice in water governance', LIRS Symposium, 26 October 2019, Heerlen, Netherlands.
Paterson, J.J. 'Assessing institutional innovation in cities under climate change'. Utrecht conference on Earth System Governance, 5-8 Nov 2018, Utrecht University, Netherlands.
Paterson, J.J. 'Equity in urban climate adaptation: insights from a global survey'. Adaptation Futures, 18-21 June 2018, Cape Town, South Africa.
Patterson, J.J. 'Political Feasibility of 1.5oC Societal Transformations: The Role of Social Justice'. International Studies Association 59th Annual Convention, 4-7 April 2018, San Francisco, USA.
Patterson, J.J., Thaler, T., Hoffmann, M., Hughes, S., Oels, A., Chu, E., Mert, A., Huitema, D., Burch, S., Jordan, A. (2018) Political feasibility of 1.5°C societal transformations: the role of social justice. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 31:1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2017.11.002 [Open Access]
Cross-lagged effects of resilience and indicators of sustainable employability; a study among Dutch police officers|
A project collaboration within the Organisation department
Main researcher: prof. dr. Judith Semeijn
- Diagnosing causes of failing urban solid waste management in developing countries
PhD research
Hans Breukelman
- D2Grids
- Future urban energy