Browsing by Author "Rey Vicario, Dolores"
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Item Open Access The contribution of a catchment-scale advice network to successful agricultural drought adaptation in Northern Thailand(The Royal Society, 2022-10-24) Goodwin, Daniel; Holman, Ian P.; Sutcliffe, Chloe; Salmoral, Gloria; Pardthaisong, Liwa; Visessri, Supattra; Ekkawatpanit, Chaiwat; Rey Vicario, DoloresThe intensification of drought affects agricultural production, leading to economic losses, environmental degradation and social impacts. To move toward more resilient system configurations requires understanding the processes that shape farmers' adaptation amidst complex institutional contexts. Social networks are an important part of collective action for supporting adaptive capacity and there are continuing calls to strengthen network connectivity for agricultural governance under the impacts of climate change. Through a survey of 176 farmers in northern Thailand, we explore the extent to which the characteristics of information shared in a catchment advice network are associated with adaptations. Statistical analyses reveal the perceived efficacy of communications as well as farmers’ relative closeness in the advice network to be positively associated with adaptation to drought. We identify a capacity for local actors to bridge information bottlenecks in the network and opportunities for institutions to enhance their dissemination of information to reach less networked farmers. We find that not all adaptations are perceived as effective against future drought and infer opportunities to support engagement with extension services, encourage the sharing of local knowledge and experience and devise policy and interventions to strengthen advice networks for more resilient agricultural systems.Item Open Access Coping with drought and water scarcity: lessons for the agricultural sector(Cranfield University, 2021-10-15 09:33) Holman, Ian; Knox, Jerry; Hess, Tim; McEwen, Lindsey; Salmoral Portillo, Gloria; Rey Vicario, Dolores; Hannaford, Jamie; grove, ivan; Thompson, Jill; Quinn, NevilThis report, an output from the UKRI-funded Drought and Water Scarcity Programme, synthesis the insights for the agricultural sector. It considers how drought and water scarcity affect different types of agriculture; whether we can forecast drought and its impacts and how drought and water scarcity impacts on agriculture be reduced?Item Open Access Evaluating the circular economy for sanitation: findings from a multi-case approach(Elsevier, 2020-07-15) Mallory, Adrian; Akrofi, Daniel; Dizon, Jenica; Mohanty, Sourav; Parker, Alison; Rey Vicario, Dolores; Prasad, Sharada S.; Welvita, Indunee; Brewer, Timothy R.; Mekala, Sneha; Bundhoo, Dilshaad; Lynch, Kenny; Mishra, Prajna; Willcock, Simon; Hutchings, PaulAddressing the lack of sanitation globally is a major global challenge with 700 million people still practicing open defecation. Circular Economy (CE) in the context of sanitation focuses on the whole sanitation chain which includes the provision of toilets, the collection of waste, treatment and transformation into sanitation-derived products including fertiliser, fuel and clean water. After a qualitative study from five case studies across India, covering different treatment technologies, waste-derived products, markets and contexts; this research identifies the main barriers and enablers for circular sanitation business models to succeed. A framework assessing the technical and social system changes required to enable circular sanitation models was derived from the case studies. Some of these changes can be achieved with increased enforcement, policies and subsidies for fertilisers, and integration of sanitation with other waste streams to increase its viability. Major changes such as the cultural norms around re-use, demographic shifts and soil depletion would be outside the scope of a single project, policy or planning initiative. The move to CE sanitation may still be desirable from a policy perspective but we argue that shifting to CE models should not be seen as a panacea that can solve the global sanitation crisis. Delivering the public good of safe sanitation services for all, whether circular or not, will continue to be a difficult taskItem Open Access Evaluation of changing surface water abstraction reliability for supplemental irrigation under climate change(Cranfield University, 2018-05-29 16:58) Rio, Marlène; Rey Vicario, Dolores; Prudhomme, Christel; Holman, IanThis dataset contains the data associated with the paper "Evaluation of changing surface water abstraction reliability for supplemental irrigation under climate change", published in Agricultural Water ManagementItem 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 Embargo Global exports draining local water resources: land concentration, food exports and water grabbing in the Ica Valley (Peru)(Elsevier, 2024-02-07) Pronti, A.; Zegarra, E.; Rey Vicario, Dolores; Graves, AnilThe agro-export boom is threatening the sustainability of water resources in many regions around the world. This is the case of the Ica valley in Peru, where in the last decades traditional agriculture has been replaced by big agricultural businesses to meet the growing international food demand. This has led to increasing land concentration by large exporting farms jointly with an increase in groundwater exploitation for irrigation. In this paper, we analyze the effect of land concentration, exporting crop specialization and irrigation intensity on groundwater sustainability using an econometric approach. Our findings highlighted an inverse relation between groundwater sustainability in terms of water withdrawal in the Ica Valley and the intensity of irrigation (drip technology), commodity specialization and concentration of large farms. More research is needed to fully understand the impacts of this very important economic activity on Peru’s natural resources, to ensure its sustainability in the long term.Item Open Access Historic droughts and irrigated agriculture - Interviews with growers in the Anglian region (UK)(Cranfield University, 2018-07-31 14:08) Rey Vicario, Dolores; Holman, Ian; Knox, JerryThis dataset contains the transcripts of interviews with irrigators in the Anglian region (UK) carried out between February 2015 and March 2016. A total of 15 growers participated in this study (nine face-to-face and six by phone). The interviews were recorded, transcribed and carefully anonymised. Each file contains the transcripts of one interview with a grower. On the front page there is information regarding the name of the interviewers, the date and the region (NUTS3) where the farm is located. Then, the whole interview transcript is available. Only those details that could lead to the identification of the participant or any confidential comment (as stated by the participant during the interview) have been removed.Item Open Access Indicator-to-impact links to help improve agricultural drought preparedness in Thailand(EGU: European Geophysical Union, 2023-07-06) Tanguy, Maliko; Eastman, Michael; Magee, Eugene; Barker, Lucy J.; Chitson, Thomas; Ekkawatpanit, Chaiwat; Goodwin, Daniel; Hannaford, Jamie; Holman, Ian P.; Pardthaisong, Liwa; Parry, Simon; Rey Vicario, Dolores; Visessri, SupattraDroughts in Thailand are becoming more severe due to climate change. Developing a reliable drought monitoring and early warning system (DMEWS) is essential to strengthen a country's resilience to droughts. However, for a DMEWS to be valuable, the drought indicators provided to stakeholders must have relevance to tangible impacts on the ground. Here, we analyse drought indicator-to-impact relationships in Thailand, using a combination of correlation analysis and machine learning techniques (random forest). In the correlation analysis, we study the link between meteorological drought indicators and high-resolution remote sensing vegetation indices used as proxies for crop yield and forest growth impacts. Our analysis shows that this link varies depending on land use, season and region. The random forest models built to estimate regional crop productivity allow a more in-depth analysis of the crop- and region-specific importance of different drought indicators. The results highlight seasonal patterns of drought vulnerability for individual crops, usually linked to their growing season, although the effects are somewhat attenuated in irrigated regions. Integration of the approaches provides new, detailed knowledge of crop- and region-specific indicator-to-impact links, which can form the basis of targeted mitigation actions in an improved DMEWS in Thailand and could be applied to other parts of Southeast Asia and beyond.Item Open Access A multi-level framework for adaptation to drought within temperate agriculture(Frontiers, 2021-01-20) Holman, Ian P.; Hess, Tim; Rey Vicario, Dolores; Knox, Jerry W.Droughts affect a range of economically important sectors but their impacts are usually most evident within agriculture. Agricultural impacts are not confined to arid and semi-arid regions, but are increasingly experienced in more temperate and humid regions. A transferable drought management framework is needed to transition from coping to adapting to drought through supporting improved planning and policy decision-making through the supply chain from primary producers to consumers. A combination methodology using a Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) approach, an analysis of weekly agricultural trade publications and semi-structured interviews were used to explore drought impacts and responses, using the 2018 UK drought as a case study. Whilst most reported responses were on-farm, a diverse range of measures were implemented across institutional scales and through the supply chain, reflecting complex interactions within the food system. However, drought responses were dominated by reactive and crisis-driven actions to cope with, or enhance the recovery from, drought; but which contributed little to increased resilience to future droughts. Our transferable drought management framework shows how improved collaboration and multi-sector engagement across spatial, governance and supply-chain scales to develop human and social capital can enable the transition from coping (short-term and reactive) to adapting (long-term and anticipatory) strategies to increase agricultural resilience to future droughtsItem Open Access A novel modelling toolkit for unpacking the Water-Energy-Food-Environment (WEFE) nexus of agricultural development(Elsevier, 2022-02-09) Correa-Cano, M. E.; Salmoral, Gloria; Rey Vicario, Dolores; Knox, Jerry W.; Graves, Anil; Melo, O.; Foster, W.; Naranjo, L.; Zegarra, E.; Johnson, C.; Viteri-Salazar, O.; Yan, X.Increasing food demand has led to significant agricultural expansion globally with negative impacts on resources and the environment, a perfect manifestation of the Water-Energy-Food-Environment nexus. Whilst many tools have been developed to understand the complexity of the Water-Energy-Food-Environment nexus most have failed to explicitly consider biophysical and socio-economic aspects simultaneously. A novel Water-Energy-Food-Environment modelling toolkit is developed that integrates both these components by combining different modelling approaches including irrigation simulation, economic modelling and life cycle environmental assessment. The toolkit is demonstrated using two major agro-export crops (asparagus and table grapes) in the Ica Valley, Peru, a severely water-stressed region. The toolkit was able to provide novel insights into the implications of different farming practices on resource efficiency at the field level in relation to water and energy, under contrasting future scenarios reflecting socio-economic outcomes at the local to regional levels (e.g., food prices, employment, and income) as well as environmental impacts at local to global scales. This information enables different stakeholders to better understand the interlinkages and inter-dependences between the Water-Energy-Food-Environment nexus elements and the complex impacts of agricultural expansion beyond the immediate sector and its geographical extent, helping decision makers design more coordinated agricultural policies and support sustainable agricultural transformation.Item Open Access A probabilistic risk assessment of the national economic impacts of regulatory drought management on irrigated agriculture(Wiley, 2019-02-03) Salmoral, Gloria; Rey Vicario, Dolores; Rudd, A.; de Margon, P.; Holman, Ian P.Drought frequency and intensity is expected to increase in many regions worldwide, and water shortages could become more extreme, even in humid temperate climates. To protect the environment and secure water supplies, water abstraction for irrigation can be mandatorily reduced by environmental regulators. Such abstraction restrictions can result in economic impacts on irrigated agriculture. This study provides a novel approach for the probabilistic risk assessment of potential future economic losses in irrigated agriculture arising from the interaction of climate change and regulatory drought management, with an application to England and Wales. Hydro‐meteorological variability is considered within a synthetic dataset of daily rainfall and river flows for a baseline period (1977‐2004), and for projections for near (2022‐2049) and far (2072‐2099) futures. The probability, magnitude and timing of abstraction restrictions are derived by applying rainfall and river flow triggers in 129 catchments. The risk of economic losses at the catchment level is then obtained from the occurrences of abstraction restrictions combined with spatially distributed crop‐specific economic losses. Results show that restrictions will become more severe, frequent and longer in the future. The highest economic risks are projected where drought‐sensitive crops with a high financial value are concentrated in catchments with increasingly uncertain water supply. This research highlights the significant economic losses associated with mandatory drought restrictions experienced by the agricultural sector and supports the need for environmental regulators and irrigators to collaboratively manage scarce water resources to balance environmental and economic considerations.Item Open Access Strengthening Thailand's Agricultural drought Resilience -Questionnaire and Dataset(Cranfield University, 2021-09-01 13:43) Goodwin, Daniel; Holman, Ian; Sutcliffe, Chloe; Rey Vicario, DoloresRecords of interviews with farmers in the Ping Catchment, Thailand as part of the STAR project. Interviews were undertaken in January 2020. A copy of the questionnaire is also provided.Item Open Access Synergies and trade-offs in drought resilience within a multi-level UK food supply chain(Springer, 2023-04-04) Rey Vicario, Dolores; Holman, Ian P.; Sutcliffe, Chloe; Hess, TimWeather extremes are the biggest challenge for supply chains worldwide, with food supply chains particularly exposed due to agriculture’s sensitivity to weather conditions. Whilst attention has been paid to farm-level impacts from, and adaptation to, weather extremes, there remains a need to better understand how different actors along the supply chain suffer, react and adapt to these natural hazards and how their resilience-building strategies affect other actors’ and the whole system’s resilience. Taking the UK potato supply chain as a case study, this paper analyses the synergies and trade-offs in drought resilience in a multi-level food supply chain. Data from an online survey (87) and interviews with key informants (27) representing potato supply-chain actors (growers, packers, processors, retailers) were used to analyse drought risk perceptions, impacts and coping strategies, long-term resilience measures and further actions to build system resilience. Results suggest that the potato supply chain has increased its resilience to weather extremes due to retailers and packers having a wider geographical spread of supply, an increasing reliance on forward contracts and favouring growers with water security. However, a conceptual framework of resilience-building strategies adopted by supply chain actors shows that these measures are largely designed to reduce their own risk without considering implications for other parts of the chain and the system as a whole. A more integrated approach to promote drought resilience in complex food supply chains that enables improved vertical collaboration and trust between actors is therefore needed.Item Open Access Towards the operationalization of water sharing for irrigation in England(2021-07) Rey Vicario, Dolores; Holman, Ian P.; Knox, Jerry W.INTRODUCTION: Many catchments in England are over-abstracted and/or over-licensed and have no spare summer water that can be allocated to support business expansion, meaning that access to water is increasingly becoming a constraint on economic growth. This situation is particularly acute in eastern England. The legislation for managing water abstraction was introduced in the 1960s and is currently under review. A key limitation is its inflexible approach which limits the capacity to cope with the changing environmental pressures of increasing demand for water, or to allow abstractors access to additional water when available (e.g. peak flows). To address these and other water regulatory limitations, the government is implementing a raft of reforms to the abstraction licensing regime in England. While water trading can support more efficient water allocation, high transaction costs and delays in approvals have often limited abstractor uptake. Water sharing is an alternative approach to formal water trading that is gaining more attention in the so-called Priority Catchments2, where the development and testing of innovative abstraction management approaches is underway. However, there remains a widespread lack of understanding of what water sharing means from hydrological and regulatory perspectives - what are the available sharing options along the spectrum from informal to formal arrangements? What are the different scales at which sharing might be feasible (neighbouring businesses to catchment scale) and how might the approval process for authorising and monitoring sharing be operationalized by the Environment Agency (EA)? The aim of this short study was to explore these unresolved issues through the development of a range of realistic water sharing ‘scenarios’ between agricultural abstractors coupled with a mock evaluation process led by the Environment Agency.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 abstraction restrictions and related economic losses in irrigated agriculture in England and Wales(Cranfield University, 2019-02-20 14:28) Salmoral Portillo, Gloria; Rey Vicario, Dolores; de Margon, Paul; Holman, IanThis data sets includes the inputs and raw outputs from the paper "A probabilistic risk assessment of the national economic impacts of regulatory drought management on irrigated agriculture" available at https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EF001092 The inputs and raw outputs are included as follows: 1) Irrigated crops area used from Rey et al. (2016) http://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2016.04.017 2) Yield and quality losses per grid cell and crop type from Rey et al. (2016) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2016.04.017 3) Ratios per type of source of irrigation: surface water, groundwater, tidal water 4) The daily water abstraction restrictions at catchment level for each 100 ensemble member in the baseline (BS), near future (NF) and far future (FF). These files are too large (each file contains 65,016,000 observations) so to open them it will be needed to use a data management software such us R, Matlab, STATA. 5) The monthly economic losses (£) related to the implemented water abstraction restrictions per crop and at catchment level for each 100 ensemble member in the BS, NF and FF.Item Open Access Water-related challenges in nexus governance for sustainable development: Insights from the city of Arequipa, Peru(Elsevier, 2020-07-25) Salmoral, Gloria; Zegarra, Eduardo; Vázquez-Rowe, Ian; González, Fernando G.; Castillo, Laureano del; Saravia, Giuliana Rondón; Graves, Anil R.; Rey Vicario, Dolores; Knox, Jerry W.Peru has one of the fastest-growing economies in Latin America, but there are concerns regarding how long this can be sustained. Negative environmental impacts are increasing due to the pressures of a growing urban population and competition for natural resources. This study explores stakeholder perceptions linked to nexus governance in the context of integrated management of natural resources, particularly water, and the environmental, socio-economic and governance challenges constraining the achievement of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our analysis focused on the urban and rural areas associated with the city of Arequipa, an economically dynamic region subject to extreme levels of water stress. Face-to-face interviews with key informants were conducted to identify mechanisms that have enhanced successful multi-sectoral collaboration, and to assess challenges in promoting sustainable economic development. A workshop prioritised the identified challenges and an online survey was then used to assess stakeholder interest in and influence over nexus governance of water with other natural resources. Stakeholder mapping revealed a complex network of actors involved in nexus governance, where successful collaboration could be promoted through formal and informal mechanisms, including exemplar policies and initiatives across sectors and actors. Shared visions between stakeholders were identified as well as contradictory priorities relating to the sustainable management of natural resources. A key finding that emerged was the need to promote adaptation in water and land management (SDG 6) due to perceived impacts of extreme climate events (SDG 13), urban population growth (SDG 11), and increased sectoral water demands. This situation in combination with poor governance and lack of planning has exposed the vulnerability of Arequipa water supply system to future shocks. Urgent action will be needed to raise stakeholder awareness, strengthen governance and enforcement, and agree on a collective vision for integrated land and water planning if the SDGs are to be achievedItem Open Access What is the evidence linking financial assistance for drought-affected agriculture and resilience in tropical Asia? a systematic review(Springer, 2022-01-17) Goodwin, Daniel; Holman, Ian P.; Pardthaisong, Liwa; Visessri, Supattra; Ekkawatpanit, Chaiwat; Rey Vicario, DoloresAgriculture is sensitive to drought and associated social, environmental and economic impacts. Finance-based interventions aim to support farmers affected by drought; however, the extent to which such tools encourage resilience to this natural hazard is unclear. This paper systematically reviews evidence on links between financial interventions to mitigate drought-related impacts and adaptation towards longer-term resilience. We focus on tropical Asia where agriculture contributes significantly to national economies and is a primary source of livelihood in a region subject to high climate variability and episodic drought. Guided by Population, Intervention, Comparator and Outcome criteria, we identify and review 43 regionally specific articles that describe a range of financial interventions. Through thematic synthesis, we document the interventions’ associations with micro-level and macro-level outcomes. The results reveal how some interventions helped sustain household incomes and crop yield (e.g. through farm investments that increased productivity) through drought, whilst others encouraged adaptive behaviours. At a macro-level, there were challenges associated with government budgets and scheme administration, with the longevity of many schemes difficult to sustain. From fragmented evidence, this review reasons that there can be challenging policy trade-offs for institutions between supporting livelihoods and economic growth whilst also protecting the environment—highlighting the interdependence of systems’ resilience and variability in actors’ capacity to adapt. Low-regret interventions that integrate existing community adaptive practices, engage with farmers’ needs and prioritise extension support may encourage more desirable counteractions to drought; however, further research is needed to establish the role of such interventions.