Academics and practitioners agree that in water governance, the quality of a decision making process should influence the quality of the outcome and the degree to which it is accepted by interested parties. However, finding a feasible way to evaluate and then improve the quality of a decision making process...
Extensive research has been published on a large-scale Cascadia subduction zone (CSZ) rupture off the Oregon coast, including the requirements of evacuation, shelter, and mass care of a diverse coastal population due to earthquake and tsunami related hazards. Adequate preparedness centers around the understanding of a hazards characteristics, and the...
The conflict over water resources exploitation and sharing in the Aral Sea Basin is one of the most pressing environmental issues yet to be resolved in Central Asia. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and establishment of the New Independent States (NIS) within the Aral Sea Bain led...
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Aaron T. Wolf
The conflict over water resources exploitation and sharing in the Aral Sea
We are witness to an ever tighter coupling between natural hazard-related disasters ("disasters") and violent social conflict ("conflict"). Previous research has established that disaster has the propensity to lead to conflict, and conflict, in turn, has been found to contribute to disaster vulnerabilities. The field of disaster diplomacy, by contrast,...
Since the Wolf, Yoffe, and Giordano 2003 Basins at Risk study, examining human interactions with transboundary water resources through a lens of conflict and cooperation has been a dominant paradigm. The Basins at Risk (BAR) method involves categorizing events on a scale from most conflictive (e.g. war or extensive casualties)...
River basins provide essential services for both humans and ecosystems. Understanding the connections between ecosystems and society and their function has been at the heart of resilience studies and has become an increasing important endeavor in research and practice. In this dissertation, I define basin resilience as a river basin...
With the increasing international focus on transboundary cooperation as a part of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Framework, there is global recognition of transboundary water cooperation as a tool for improved governance and management of transboundary surface and groundwaters. Yet, there is not an agreed upon definition of transboundary water...
Human security is a framework related to the stability and sustainability of political, environmental, economical, and socio-cultural areas of concern. Water resources around the world are under increased pressure from increased development, growing populations, pollution, and global climate change. Large-scale dam development while still popular for political and economic development...
The goal of dissertation research was to use geochemical, statistical and geological methods to constrain and understand climate variability over several different time scales. Specifically, I have addressed three questions regarding past climate change: (1) how does the record of Irish cirque glaciers constrain the dimensions of the Irish Ice...
In Oregon, commercial fishing is estimated to contribute $544 million in income and 10,000 jobs per year to coastal communities. However not all fisheries are reaching their allocated quotas for catch. In 2017, 187.6 million pounds of non-whiting groundfish trawl quota worth $67 million was not attained, nearly three times...