Given the recent attention to dams in developing countries as a means to efficiently utilize water resources, mitigating the negative environmental and social impacts they have on riparian states is of utmost importance. This thesis presents a global review of how basin countries, through international water treaties (IWT), ensure that...
Global surface water quality has been degrading with predictions of negative trends in meeting the Sustainable Development Goal ambient water quality targets (Mead, 2019; WWAP & UN Water, 2019). These water quality impacts can cross borders and impact populations in world’s 204 transboundary lake and reservoir basins (ILEC & UNEP,...
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most contested and complicated conflicts in the world. As one of the occupied Palestinian Territories recognized by the United Nations, the social and environmental conditions in Gaza are impossible to understand without reference to the occupation of Gaza by its neighbor Israel. Hostilities...
Basin-wide approach in managing water resources is believed to be the most effective way in addressing upstream and downstream flows. However, this poses certain challenges as water basins tend to be transboundary and include a plethora of stakeholders and their interests. In order to avoid conflictive and rival behavior riparian...
Reconciling working landscapes with Endangered Species Act (ESA) requirements is a vexing challenge playing out in watersheds across the western United States. Beaver-related watershed restoration (BRR) methodologies have the potential to reconcile competing demands for resource extraction and recovery of ESA-listed species by restoring ecosystem functionality more effectively and at...
This study addresses the questions: 1) What kind of transboundary water management institution is needed for Afghanistan; and 2) what expertise is required for the institution and which stakeholders should be involved?
The establishment of a transboundary water resources management institution/unit is an essential step for Afghanistan in order to...
This ethnographic research examines socioeconomic vulnerabilities to resettlement from a large hydropower dam and agricultural commodification in a Tibetan village in Yunnan Province, Southwest China. After providing an initial background on the dynamics of the research region and hydrodevelopment on its rivers, the research framework of examining vulnerability through a...
Social-ecological resilience theory is part of a new paradigm for understanding and managing complex coupled human-ecological systems. The theory aims to inform explorations of a system’s ability to withstand disturbance while maintaining its critical functions. Adaptive co-management has been proposed as a governance mechanism that can enhance resiliency by combining...
Management of small dams may have profound implications for the health and integrity of small rivers and freshwater diversity. Global indicators suggest future growth in the small hydropower sector, particularly in developing countries. As a renewable energy source, it is often presumed that small hydropower entails fewer and less severe...
The Klamath River Basin (KRB) is one of the most contested basins of the Western U.S. with respect to water. Multiple stakeholders, including Tribes, farmers, state and federal agencies, and environmental advocates, are in frequent conflict over water rights and water use. Removal of the four hydroelectric dams is one...
This research provides details of water resource conflict and cooperation in Oregon between 1990 and 2004 by using an event database methodology. Events were concentrated in four of 18 basins. No basin accounted for more that 25% of the total water rights events, the most evenly distributed issue type. Overall...
This study examined the Water Footprint Computer Assisted Board Game (WFCABG) as a tool for enhancing the social learning of water resources issues surrounding commodities trade. The study engaged 73 students from various countries and professional backgrounds, in two academic settings in two different countries: Oregon State University (United States)...
Although newly independent Central Asian states in 1991, including Kyrgyzstan, started developing their own foreign water policies, Kyrgyzstan’s independence period demonstrated the challenges of determining foreign water policy independently. The conceptual framework of a two-level game was applied in the study to understand and answer the question about how domestic...
The conservation community has long recognized the critical role that agricultural landowners play in efforts to improve fish and wildlife habitat in order to recover threatened and endangered species. In many rural areas dominated by agricultural working landscapes, government agencies like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) struggle to...
“International river basin is defined as an area extending over two or more states determined by the watershed limits of the system of waters, including surface and underground waters, flowing into a common terminus” (Shapiro-Libai, 1969, p. 22). There are 276 international river basins providing almost 60% of global freshwater...
Protected natural areas are important reserves for biodiversity, and in the tropics, often play a role in deterring deforestation. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of a protected-area with a
two-tiered management regime in Bolivia, Amboró National Park and Integrated Management Natural Area (IMNA), in deterring clearance of forest. Four satellite...
The language of water policy both suggests and enforces the relationship that the public should have with water. Differences in language use between policy institutions and the public suggest that the understanding of water promoted through policy may be incongruent with the understanding of water held by the public. Semi-structured...
One of the most pressing concerns in the Geographic Information Science community is the distribution of spatial datasets over the Internet. Two projects of the Department of Geosciences at Oregon State University are in the process of distributing data. The Oregon Coast Geospatial Clearinghouse was implemented with the goal of...
Adaptive collaborative (co-) management has received increased recognition as a novel approach to environmental governance that combines the dynamic learning features of adaptive management with the linking and network features of collaborative management. This approach is concerned with fostering sustainable livelihoods and ecological sustainability in the face of uncertainty and...
Ensuring long term water security is the essential pathway towards development, prosperity, and stability in Afghanistan. However, the country is faced with water challenges that can be ascribed to governance failure at multiple levels of governance rather than to the resource base itself. Hence, studying the water governance system in...
Shifting climate patterns in the Columbia River basin are affecting snow pack, and, as a result, stream flow throughout the region. In the Oregon Cascades, ever growing populations, and their associated activities, place increasing stress on an already over allocated hydrologic system. Political pressures, including the possibility of renegotiation or...
Development in China over the last thirty years has emphasized infrastructural and economic advancement. Despite enormous gains in living standards in the industrialized eastern provinces, much of China's interior and western provinces remain relatively underdeveloped. Populated mostly by ethnic minorities, the southwest province of Yunnan (meaning south of the clouds)...
Earthquakes a . tsunamis pose significant threats to port and harbor
communities in the Pacific Northwest. Developing effective mitigation and
preparedness plans requires a comprehensive understanding of community
vulnerability. Research presented here focuses on the vulnerability of ports and
harbors to earthquake and tsunami hazards and includes a regional study...
Diking and channelizing in the Toppenish Creek basin, associated with irrigated agricultural development, has altered its natural ecosystem function and hydraulic processes. We seek to answer two research questions: if surface waters are diverted for aquifer recharge in the winter, will this water be available for ecosystem function in the...
In this research, the paradiplomacy concept is analyzed in terms of transboundary water cooperation and called "Blue Paradiplomacy", where two case studies: 1) the Great Lakes region and 2) the Central Asian region, are presented and compared. The concept of paradiplomacy is applied within the context of multi-level governance, and...
Climate change has the potential to accelerate many forms of human migration and mobility, yet almost all of the key migration outcomes of interest are determined predominantly by governance, or the norms, laws, and institutions involved in the coordination of human society. These outcomes include the decision whether or not...
Over the last several decades, there has been a marked increase in the amount of science outreach to the public with little attention paid to how scientists who conduct outreach perceive learning and how that applies to their outreach activities. This increase in outreach efforts is linked to the National...
This research is conducted to identify factors that contribute to understanding the relations between states and increasing the cooperation between countries which share transboundary watercourses, and enable countries to continue, also in difficult periods, cooperation in mutually beneficial relationships in a sustainable manner. This is an important issue especially in...
Three research questions are addressed in this study: (1) To what degree do residents
support/oppose various aspects of water resources protection? (2) What factors explain
residents' attitudes? and, (3) How do attitudes vary between participants and nonparticipants
of place-based groups (watershed councils and neighborhood
associations)? The population of interest is...
Common resources are those for which rights to use, access and management have not been assigned. Common resources are frequently subject to over-exploitation, a phenomenon frequently referred to as the "tragedy of the commons," and solutions to commons problems are often sought through the establishment of rights regimes. An examination...
The Willamette River and its floodplain in northwest Oregon have changed dramatically since European settlement. At one time, the river was a vast complex system of braided channels with a broad floodplain forest; it has now been simplified by channelization and dams, and the forest has been removed to support...
The human intervertebral disc is a deceptively simple structure which plays an essential role in human movement. Even slight changes to the disc microenvironment can have far reaching consequences, particularly when these changes result in disc degeneration and herniation. Degeneration is increasingly tied to lower back pain; better understanding this...
Buddleja davidii (butterfly bush) is a highly adaptable landscape plant known for pollinator attraction. Unfortunately, it is also regarded as an invasive plant in highly disturbed environments across the globe. It is an invasive species in Oregon, officially classified as a class B noxious weed in 2004. Currently the state...