Browsing by Author "Cooper, Sarah"
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Item Open Access Environmental associated emotional distress and the dangers of climate change for pastoralist mental health(Elsevier, 2019-11-02) Cooper, Sarah; Hutchings, Paul; Butterworth, John A.; Joseph, Solome; Kebede, Abinet; Parker, Alison H.; Terefe, Bethel; Van Koppen, BarbaraPastoralists in the Horn of Africa are among the most vulnerable populations to climate change yet little is known about how environmental change shapes their wellbeing and mental health. This paper presents a formative study into the relations between emotion, wellbeing and water security among pastoralist communities in Afar, Ethiopia. It uses focus group and interview data to demonstrate the close relationship between environmental conditions and emotional wellbeing, and shows how current water insecurity leads to extreme worry and fatigue among the studied population, especially in the dry season. In the context of difficulties of translating mental health clinical classifications and diagnostic tools in cross-cultural settings, the paper argues the inductive study of emotion may be a useful approach for studying environmental determined wellbeing outcomes among marginal populations in the light of understanding climate change impacts.Item Open Access Evidence of similarities in ecosystem service flow across the rural–urban spectrum(MDPI, 2021-04-17) Welivita, Indunee; Willcock, Simon; Lewis, Amy; Bundhoo, Dilshaad; Brewer, Timothy R.; Cooper, Sarah; Lynch, Kenneth; Mekala, Sneha; Mishra, Prajna Paramita; Venkatesh, Kongala; Rey Vicario, Dolores; Hutchings, PaulIn 2006, the world’s population passed the threshold of being equally split between rural and urban areas. Since this point, urbanisation has continued, and the majority of the global population are now urban inhabitants. With this ongoing change, it is likely that the way people receive benefits from nature (ecosystem services; ES) has also evolved. Environmental theory suggests that rural residents depend directly on their local environment (conceptualised as green-loop systems), whereas urban residents have relatively indirect relationships with distant ecosystems (conceptualised as red-loop systems). Here, we evaluate this theory using survey data from >3000 households in and around Hyderabad, India. Controlling for other confounding socioeconomic variables, we investigate how flows of 10 ES vary across rural, peri-urban and urban areas. For most of the ES we investigated, we found no statistical differences in the levels of direct or indirect use of an ecosystem, the distance to the ecosystem, nor the quantities of ES used between rural and urban residents (p > 0.05). However, our results do show that urban people themselves often travel shorter distances than rural people to access most ES, likely because improved infrastructure in urban areas allows for the transport of ES from wider ecosystems to the locality of the beneficiaries’ place of residence. Thus, while we find some evidence to support red-loop–green-loop theory, we conclude that ES flows across the rural-urban spectrum may show more similarities than might be expected. As such, the impact of future urbanisation on ES flows may be limited, because many flows in both rural and urban areas have already undergone globalisationItem Open Access A framework for targeting water, sanitation and hygiene interventions in pastoralist populations in the Afar region of Ethiopia(Elsevier, 2019-08-20) Whitley, Lucy; Hutchings, Paul; Cooper, Sarah; Parker, Alison; Kebede, Abinet; Joseph, Solome; Butterworth, John A.; van Kopp, Barbara M.C.; Mulejaa, AdolphGlobally, many populations face structural and environmental barriers to access safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. Among these populations are many of the 200 million pastoralists whose livelihood patterns and extreme environmental settings challenge conventional WASH programming approaches. In this paper, we studied the Afar pastoralists in Ethiopia to identify WASH interventions that can mostly alleviate public health risks, within the population's structural and environmental living constraints. Surveys were carried out with 148 individuals and observational assessments made in 12 households as part of a Pastoralist Community WASH Risk Assessment. The results show that low levels of access to infrastructure are further compounded by risky behaviours related to water containment, storage and transportation. Additional behavioural risk factors were identified related to sanitation, hygiene and animal husbandry. The Pastoralist Community WASH Risk Assessment visually interprets the seriousness of the risks against the difficulty of addressing the problem. The assessment recommends interventions on household behaviours, environmental cleanliness, water storage, treatment and hand hygiene via small-scale educational interventions. The framework provides an approach for assessing risks in other marginal populations that are poorly understood and served through conventional approaches.Item Open Access Nature provides valuable sanitation services(Elsevier, 2021-02-19) Willcock, Simon; Parker, Alison; Wilson, Charlotte; Brewer, Timothy R.; Bundhoo, Dilshaad; Cooper, Sarah; Lynch, Kenneth; Mekala, Sneha; Mishra, Prajna Paramita; Rey, Dolores; Welivita, Indunee; Venkatesh, Kongala; Hutchings, PaulMuch previous research shows that safe disposal of human waste has a positive impact on human wellbeing, while preventing the degradation of ecosystems. However, to date, the role that ecosystems themselves play in treating human waste has been largely neglected. We conceptualize the role nature plays in treating human waste—acting as a pipeline and/or treatment plant. We estimate that nature is treating ~41.7 million tons of human waste per year worldwide, a service worth at least 4.4 ± 3.0 billion USD year−1. We demonstrate the opportunities and challenges of quantifying these “sanitation ecosystem services,” using 48 cities across the globe as a worked example. In highlighting this, we are not marginalizing the vital role of engineered infrastructure, but instead are promoting better understanding of how engineered and natural infrastructure interact within a circular economy. This is a promising route for further research and may allow adaptive design and management, reducing costs, and improving effectiveness and sustainability.Item Open Access Understanding rural-urban transitions in the Global South through peri-urban turbulence(Springer, 2022-08-04) Hutchings, Paul; Willcock, Simon; Lynch, Kenneth; Bundhoo, Dilshaad; Brewer, Timothy R.; Cooper, Sarah; Keech, Daniel; Mekala, Sneha; Mishra, Prajna Paramita; Parker, Alison; Shackleton, Charlie M.; Venkatesh, Kongala; Rey Vicario, Dolores; Welivita, InduneeMuch previous research has problematized the use of a binary urban–rural distinction to describe human settlement patterns in and around cities. Peri-urban zones, on the edge of urban settlements, are important both in the sheer magnitude of human population and in terms of being home to vulnerable populations with high rates of poverty. This Perspective presents a framework that conceptualizes rural–urban transition through the prism of shifts in natural, engineered and institutional infrastructure to explain the processes of rapid change and the dip in service provision often found in peri-urban areas in the Global South. We draw on examples related to the provision of water and sanitation to illustrate the theory and discuss its implications for future research on the peri-urban. A research agenda is set out that emphasizes the importance of studying early warning signs of service dips using systems theory concepts such as flickering and critical slowing down. Through such approaches, research can better predict and explain what we call peri-urban turbulence and inform the development of mitigation strategies to reduce the vulnerabilities that peri-urban residents too often face during periods of rural–urban transition.Item Open Access Water and emotion: testing a new approach for monitoring water security among Afar pastoralists in Ethiopia(Frontiers, 2022-01-03) Hutchings, Paul; Cooper, Sarah; Butterworth, John; Joseph, Solome; Kebede, Abinet; Parker, Alison; Terefe, Bethel; Van Koppen, BarbaraEthiopia has over 12 million pastoralists that raise livestock and move their herds in search of fresh pasture and water. This way of life is especially vulnerable to climate change as drought and shifts in seasonal rainfall patterns are changing the distribution and availability of these resources in pastoralist regions. The dynamic use of water within these settings is also not well-understood or captured by conventional water sector monitoring systems, which prevents appropriate supportive interventions and policies to be delivered. This paper presents results from a study into a new approach to measuring water security that focuses on assessing the emotional response of pastoralist populations to their water security situation. Formative research involving focus groups and interviews was followed by a survey of 148 pastoralists to assess their emotional response to different water security dimensions. The results indicate that emotional response can be used to elicit valuable insights into water security and provide a powerful complement to conventional water security monitoring techniques. Using the approach, we show a strong relationship between variation in seasonal water access and reported emotional response. Negative emotions also strongly associate with the most laborious methods of collecting water such as scoop holes and hand dug wells, whereas positive emotions were associated with access to higher quantities of water. Access to equines for carrying water was associated with more positive emotional well-being indicating a route to water security improvement in this context could be through the provision of donkeys and mules for water carrying. The paper discusses the value of using an emotion-based approach to capture experiences of water security alongside more conventional objective measures, especially among populations with water use patterns that continue to be poorly understood.Item Open Access Water-security in Ethiopia and the Emotional response of Pastoralists (WEEP) data(Cranfield University, 2020-01-23 09:45) Hutchings, Paul; Cooper, SarahAnonymised dataset from survey study of pastoralists in Afar, Ethiopia (June 2018). Survey collected data on sociodemographics, water, sanitation and hygiene access as well as emotional response to water security issues. It was part of an ESRC project titled: Water-security in Ethiopia and the Emotional response of Pastoralists (WEEP). (ES/R001049/1). 2017-2019.