scholarly journals Making Sense of “Day Zero”: Slow Catastrophes, Anthropocene Futures, and the Story of Cape Town’s Water Crisis

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 1744 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shepherd
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Complex Object ◽  
Water Crisis ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Water Wars

What form do the current and future catastrophes of the Anthropocene take? Adapting a concept from Rod Nixon, this communication makes a case for the notion of slow catastrophes, whose unfolding in space and time is uneven and entangled. Taking the events of Cape Town’s Day Zero drought as a case study, this paper examines the politics and poetics of water in the Anthropocene, and the implications of Anthropogenic climate change for urban life. It argues that rather than being understood as an inert resource, fresh drinking water is a complex object constructed at the intersection between natural systems, cultural imaginaries, and social, political and economic interests. The extraordinary events of Day Zero raised the specter of Mad Max-style water wars. They also led to the development of new forms of solidarity, with water acting as a social leveler. The paper argues that the events in Cape Town open a window onto the future, to the extent that it describes something about what happens when the added stresses of climate change are mapped onto already-contested social and political situations.

Cape Town’s “Day Zero” Drought: Notes on a Future History of Urban Dwelling

2021 ◽  
pp. 120633122199769
Author(s):  
Nick Shepherd
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Complex Object ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Water Wars ◽  
History Of

Taking the events of Cape Town’s “Day Zero” drought as a case study, this article examines the politics and poetics of water in the Anthropocene and the implications of Anthropogenic climate change for urban life. It argues that rather than being understood as an inert resource, fresh drinking water is a complex object constructed at the intersection between natural systems; cultural imaginaries; and social, political, and economic interests. The extraordinary events of Day Zero raised the specter of Mad Max–style water wars. They also led to the development of new forms of solidarity, with water acting as a social leveler. The article argues that events in Cape Town open a window onto the future, to the extent that they tell us something about what happens when the added stresses of climate change are mapped onto already-contested social and political situations. They also underline the precarious nature of many of our urban arrangements. This sense of the precarious is likely to extend beyond the case of Cape Town and to be an abiding feature of urban life as we journey deeper into the Anthropocene/Capitalocene.

scholarly journals ECONOMIC AND ADAPTATION COSTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE: CASE STUDY OF INDRAMAYU, WEST JAVA INDONESIA

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (02) ◽  
Author(s):  
Perdinan Perdinan ◽  
Rizaldi Boer ◽  
Kiki Kartikasari ◽  
Bambang Dwi Dasanto ◽  
Rini Hidayanti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Unit Cost ◽  
Cropping Pattern ◽  
Production Loss ◽  
Irrigation Canals ◽  
West Java ◽  
Adaptation Options ◽  
Adaptation Costs

ECONOMIC AND ADAPTATION COSTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE: CASE STUDY OF INDRAMAYU, WEST JAVA INDONESIA Abstract Climate change is already occurring. In Indonesia, many evidences such as changing rainfall patterns in many parts of the country (e.g., Sumatra and Java) indicate the impacts of global climate change on Indonesian climate. This new climate regime eventually will influence water availability in many parts of the country. This paper discusses economic loss (unit cost) incurred on major economic sectors (i.e., agriculture, fishery, drinking water, and health) of Indramayu districts – West Java Indonesia due to flood and drought as an approximation to quantify potential economic consequences of climate change. The estimation was based on discussions with the local authorities and communities (field survey) in 2008. The unit costs were estimated based on rice production loss (agriculture), milk fish and prawn production loss (fishery), additional costs for clean water supply (drinking water), and additional incidences of dengue fever (DBD) and diarrhea (health). Seven adaptation options and their estimated costs are also proposed to cope with flood and drought in the region. The options are: construction of a reservoir, change of cropping pattern, rehabilitation of irrigation canals, improvement of irrigation canals (cementing the canals), improvement of drainage system, normalization of rivers, and implementation of system rice intensification (SRI). Potential benefits from each adaptation are also discussed. Such discussion, together with estimated adaptation costs, will be useful for further evaluation to measure the net benefits from each adaptation, which can be helpful to assist decision makers in choosing plausible adaptation options for their region. Keywords: climate change, economic costs, adaptation BIAYA EKONOMI DAN ADAPTASI PERUBAHAN IKLIM: STUDI KASUS KABUPATEN INDRAMAYU, JAWA BARAT, INDONESIA Abstrak Perubahan iklim telah terjadi. Di Indonesia, dampak perubahan iklim global dapat dindikasikan dengan adanya perubahan pola curah hujan yang terjadi di berbagai daerah, misalnya Sumatera dan Jawa. Perubahan pola hujan tersebut pada akhirnya dapat mempengaruhi ketersediaan air di berbagai daerah. Tulisan ini membahas kerugian ekonomi (biaya satuan) yang terjadi pada sektor utama perekonomian (pertanian, perikanan, air minum dan kesehatan) di Kabupaten Indramayu - Jawa Barat, akibat dari kejadian banjir dan kekeringan yang digunakan sebagai pendekatan untuk mengukur dampak ekonomi yang terjadi akibat perubahan iklim. Penilaian dampak tersebut didasarkan pada diskusi dengan pemerintah daerah dan masyarakat setempat saat survey lapang di tahun 2008. Perkiraan biaya satuan didasarkan pada kerugian produksi beras (pertanian), produksi ikan bandeng dan udang (perikanan), biaya tambahan untuk penyediaan air bersih (air minum), insiden tambahan penyakit demam berdarah dan diare (kesehatan). Untuk mengatasi banjir dan kekeringan di wilayah tersebut, diusulkan tujuh pilihan adaptasi serta perkiraan biayanya. Adaptasi tersebut adalah: pembangunan waduk, perubahan pola tanam, rehabilitasi saluran irigasi, peningkatan saluran irigasi (penyemenan/penguatan saluran), peningkatan sistem drainase, normalisasi sungai, dan implementasi system of rice intencification (SRI). Potensi manfaat dari masing-masing adaptasi juga dibahas dalam tulisan ini. Hasil diskusi dan perkiraan biaya adaptasi yang dibahas di dalam tulisan ini, diharapkan dapat dimanfaatkan sebagai bahan dasar untuk kegiatan lanjutan yang terkait dengan penilaian manfaat atau keuntungan berbagai pilihan adaptasi, sehingga dapat membantu para pembuat keputusan dalam memilih berbagai pilihan adaptasi yang sesuai dengan daerahnya. Kata kunci: perubahan iklim, biaya ekonomi, adaptasi  

Crime stories in the historical urban landscape: narrating the theft of the Mona Lisa

Urban History ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
AARON FREUNDSCHUH
Keyword(s):  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Spatial Control ◽  
Social Fabric ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mona Lisa ◽  
Crime Stories ◽  
The City

Taking the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre Museum as a case study, this article examines the historical relation between crime storytelling and the myriad local struggles for spatial control that animate urban life. Modern Europe's most staggering art heist left city officials and police wholly clueless, and inspired a two-year outpouring of explanatory narratives from Parisians of virtually all social strata. This article shows how, in ostensibly making sense of the ‘impossible’ theft, the city's inhabitants imaginatively wove it into the social fabric of everyday life, thereby bringing the event to bear on a broad range of spatial tensions and rivalries. As they re-fashioned mass press versions of the theft to fit local concerns – both public and intimate – contemporaries understood crime stories as a tool with which to shape the city as they knew it.

scholarly journals Water Scarcity in Brazil: A Case Study

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Slater
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Human Factors ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Metropolitan Area ◽  
Water Scarcity ◽  
Water Crisis ◽  
The City

Between 2012 and 2015, Brazil experienced one of the worst droughts in its history. A combination of natural and human-made causes—including climate change, environmental degradation, poor urban planning, a lack of maintenance of existing infrastructure, corruption, and the mismanagement of water resources—contributed to a growing water crisis. This article will focus on the effects of both the drought and the subsequent water crisis on the vast metropolitan area of the city of São Paulo, illustrating how both natural and human factors combined to create a crisis in Brazil’s largest city.

scholarly journals Framework to Study the Effects of Climate Change on Vulnerability of Ecosystems and Societies: Case Study of Nitrates in Drinking Water in Southern Finland

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 472
Author(s):  
Katri Rankinen ◽  
Maria Holmberg ◽  
Mikko Peltoniemi ◽  
Anu Akujärvi ◽  
Kati Anttila ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Forest Growth ◽  
Climate Change Scenarios ◽  
Catchment Scale ◽  
Environmental Perturbations ◽  
Vulnerability Maps ◽  
Permeable Soil ◽  
Agricultural Areas

Climate change may alter the services ecosystems provide by changing ecosystem functioning. As ecosystems can also resist environmental perturbations, it is crucial to consider the different processes that influence resilience. Our case study considered increased NO3− concentration in drinking water due to the climate change. We analyzed changes in ecosystem services connected to water purification at a catchment scale in southern Finland. We combined climate change scenarios with process-based forest growth (PREBAS) and eco-hydrological (PERSiST and INCA) models. We improved traditional model calibration by timing of forest phenology and snow-covered period from network of cameras and satellite data. We upscaled the combined modelling results with scenarios of population growth to form vulnerability maps. The boreal ecosystems seemed to be strongly buffered against NO3- leaching by increase in evapotranspiration and vegetation NO3- uptake. Societal vulnerability varied greatly between scenarios and municipalities. The most vulnerable were agricultural areas on permeable soil types.

scholarly journals Do music festival communities address environmental sustainability and how? A Scottish case study

Popular Music ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Brennan ◽  
Jo Collinson Scott ◽  
Angela Connelly ◽  
Gemma Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Music Festivals ◽  
Music Festival ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Global Challenge ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
A Site

AbstractThis article discusses the findings of an Arts and Humanities Research Council project researching how music festival communities in Scotland can address issues of environmental sustainability and climate change. It investigates how music festival communities are constructed with a focus on what role, if any, they might play in responding to the global challenge of environmental sustainability. Using music festivals in Scotland as a case study, we employed a variety of research methods to interrogate different constituents in music festival communities about their views and behaviours regarding climate change and environmental sustainability. These included festival audiences via onsite questionnaires; festival organisers and promoters via interviews and focus groups; and musicians via creative practice-led research. We conclude that rather than necessarily being a site for progressive or utopian socio-cultural experimentation (as they are occasionally portrayed in festival literature), music festival communities engage in complex and often contradictory behaviours when it comes to responding to – and making sense of – their own complicity in social challenges such as climate change.

Conservation Introductions for Biodiversity Adaptation under Climate Change

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillipa C. McCormack
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Changes ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Wicked Problem ◽  
Ecological Change ◽  
Human Intervention ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Legal Frameworks

AbstractAnthropogenic climate change represents a wicked problem, both for the Earth’s natural systems and for biodiversity conservation law and policy. Legal frameworks for conservation have a critical role to play in helping species and ecosystems to adapt as the climate changes. However, they are currently poorly equipped to regulate adaptation strategies that demand high levels of human intervention. This article investigates law and policy for conservation introductions, which involve relocating species outside their historical habitat. It takes as a case study Australian law on conservation introductions, demonstrating theoretical and practical legal hurdles to these strategies at international, national and subnational levels. The article argues that existing legal mechanisms may be repurposed, in some cases, to better regulate conservation introduction projects. However, new legal mechanisms are also needed, and soon, to effectively conserve species and ecosystems in a period of unprecedented ecological change.

scholarly journals Learning from Flint: How Matter Imposes Itself in the Anthropocene and What That Means for Education

2021 ◽  
pp. 245-257
Author(s):  
Catherine Milne ◽  
Colin Hennessy Elliott ◽  
Adam Devitt ◽  
Kathryn Scantlebury
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Science Education ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Water Crisis ◽  
Dynamic Nature ◽  
Human Exceptionalism ◽  
Human Material ◽  
K 12 ◽  
The City

AbstractIn this chapter, we explore one aspect of the Anthropocene, the vital, vibrant connections between life and matter (Whatmore, Cultural Geographies 13(4):600–609, 2006.). Drawing on the effectivity of water as a solution and the “Flint water crisis,” we explore how humans tend not to notice matter unless it brings an effect upon them. Our approach follows Melinda Benson, (Natural Resources Journal 59:251–280, 2019) in seeking to decenter human exceptionalism and explore the chemical and biological actors relationally engaged in a system with humans engendering phenomena that are unpredictable as we demonstrate in a case study of the City of Flint and its access to drinking water for humans. As this case highlights, often matter only becomes noticed when it establishes an ontological disturbance forcing itself on human experience and becoming noticed in the process. Important elements of such “noticing” are tied up with the human-material intra-actions engendering phenomena that is shaped by race and geographic history. Rather than constructing Flint and other examples as emergencies or crises that need to be solved, education should explore the dynamic nature of these events and the intra-actions of all elements. This approach offers one strategy for transforming what K–12 science education looks like for both developing scientists and everyday citizens.

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