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Novel methods for enhancing collaboration and interactions are required to ensure that stakeholders and governments are able to develop a shared vision that supports sustainable watershed governance. Particular attention must be placed on integrating stakeholders who would otherwise have limited decision-making power. By crossing professional, ideological and jurisdictional boundaries, stakeholders' perspectives are more likely to change than when staying within those boundaries. This process, known as boundary crossing, requires boundary objects; either artifacts, people, or institutions that play a bridging role between different boundary spaces. For this study, serious games powered by scientific models are identified as potentially effective boundary objects. A serious game simulation called Aqua Republica was used to organize game simulation events allowing stakeholders to connect in an in-person, informal and novel setting. This exploratory research aims to study the role and impact of serious games as boundary objects to enhancing collaboration and knowledge co-creation. The following research questions are addressed: (1) Do interactions increase over the course of a game simulation event? (2) Does the quality of interactions change over the course of a game simulation event? (3) Are the quantity and quality of interactions affected by pre-existing relationships? And if so, how? (4) How does the relationship between participants change over the course of a game simulation event? As part of this study, four game simulation events were organized that included students, professionals and diverse stakeholder groups working in watershed management contexts across Eastern Canada with 40 participants in total. Participants were divided into teams of 3-5 members and were surveyed and their interactions recorded. An interaction and social network analysis of the audiovisual recordings of each game simulation event indicates that interactions between participants increase in both quantity and quality as the game progresses. The analysis shows that serious game simulations provide an intervention platform not only to facilitate cross-boundary interactions, but also to strengthen relationships between diverse stakeholders, as expressed by an increase in mutual trust and empathy, as well as an improved understanding among the participants of the watershed system and the complex issues at stake.

The Carpathian mountain region is one of the most significant natural refuges on the European continent. It is home to Europe’s most extensive tracts of montane forest, the largest remaining virgin forest and natural mountain beech-fir forest ecosystems. Adding to the biodiversity are semi-natural habitats such as hay meadows, which are the result of centuries of traditional land management. Like other mountain regions areas, the Carpathian mountain region provides important ecosystem goods and services such as water provision, food products, forest products and tourism. But these ecosystem services are feared to be under threat from climate change.This chapter reports on climate trends, impacts and adaptation options. Analysis of climate trends show an increase in annual mean temperature of 1.1–2.0 °C over the last 50 years (1961–2010), further increasing by 3.5–4.0 °C towards the end of the century. Precipitation changes are dispersed with an increase of 300–400 mm in the north and decrease of 100–150 mm in the south regions. Summer precipitation is projected to reduce by 20 %, whereas winter precipitation is projected to increase in most areas by 5–20 % by the year 2100. Both future scenarios and observations show high spatial variability and uncertainty. The same holds for the impacts on the investigated sectors water resources, forests, wetlands, grasslands, agriculture and tourism.The review of climate trends and adaptation options, inspired a strategic agenda on adaptation to be implemented under the regional Carpathian Convention. Planning for climate change adaptation benefits from transnational cooperation because many impacts relate to seasonal and geographical shifts across borders. This is true for the natural system (e.g. shifts in species distribution and snow cover) as well as for socio-economic activities like agriculture, forestry and tourism (e.g. shifting opportunities for growing crops and changes in the tourist season). Examples of adaptation exist, yet need to be communicated for wider adoption. Essential components of adaptation will be capacity building and information sharing, climate-proofing of infrastructure and investments, promotion of eco-system based adaptation measures and making biodiversity management more dynamic.

Although several studies show the vulnerability of human health to climate change, a clear comprehensive quantification of the increased health risks attributable to climate change is lacking. Even more complicated are assessments of adaptation measures for this sector. We discuss the impact of climate change on diarrhoea as a representative of a waterborne infectious disease affecting human health in the Ganges basin of northern India. A conceptual framework is presented for climate exposure response relationships based on studies from different countries, as empirical studies and appropriate epidemiological data sets for India are lacking. Four climate variables are included: temperature, increased/extreme precipitation, decreased precipitation/droughts and relative humidity. Applying the conceptual framework to the latest regional climate projections for northern India shows increases between present and future (2040s), varying spatially from no change to an increase of 21% in diarrhoea incidences, with 13.1% increase on average for the Ganges basin. We discuss three types of measures against diarrhoeal disease: reactive actions, preventive actions and national policy options. Preventive actions have the potential to counterbalance this expected increase. However, given the limited progress in reducing incidences over the past decade consorted actions and effective implementation and integration of existing policies are needed.

The paper builds around the key messages from the recently completed study — The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB). The paper essentially attempts to map the problem encountered in up scaling the findings from site/local scale to national scale. First, the rationale for economic analysis of ecosystem services has been discussed and then the challenges in applying economics to ecosystems and biodiversity have been identified. The paper discusses the role of economic valuation, discounting and necessary indicator for it. Social and cultural context of economic valuation along with the nature of value articulating institutions have been highlighted. Most of these issues typically deal with ecosystem services at site and project level. The paper lays down the need for arriving at national policies from microlevel valuation work. The paper suggests that for national policy formulation and design, valuation and accounting of ecosystem services must be seen in the economy wide context where interdependence of sectors is the key. The paper shows the existing hiatus between this level of analysis of economics of ecosystems and the need for credible national level policies. An attempt has been made to highlight necessary steps to arrive at national level policies on ecosystems management.

The goal of developing ornamental landscapes that are safe, attractive, and functional for urban dwellers is pursued with great interest, and vast amounts of energy and material resources were used in this effort. However, direct and indirect energy consumption, the need for supplemental water, and the concerns about soil and ground water contamination raise serious questions regarding the long-term sustainability of urban landscapes. Sustainability in landscaping can be improved through a number of actions, such as planning and managing landscapes to function more like natural environments through cycling of resources and managing energy costs; integrating efforts to conserve water and energy, reduce green waste, improve soils, increase wildlife and reducing the demand for energy and material resources in other sectors of the urban environment through microclimate mitigation and habitat restoration. The objective of enviroscaping is to provide home gardeners and commercial landscapers with information that can help them to design and develop beautiful healthy, landscapes in an environmental friendly manner. The approach of enviroscaping is to manage landscapes as an interactive system by considering various components such as temperature, water/irrigation, fertilization, plants and trees, insect pest and pathogens control. Enviroscaping sets new dimension to landscape design and maintenance that can help us to conserve energy and water, recycle yard wastes on site and reduce inputs of fertilizers and pesticides into the environment.

Crop models are essential in undertaking large scale estimation of crop production of diverse crop species, especially in assessing food availability and climate change impacts. In this study, an existing model (SSM, Simple Simulation Models) was adapted to simulate a large number of plant species including orchard species and perennial forages. Simplification of some methods employed in the original model was necessary to deal with limited data availability for some of the plant species to be simulated. The model requires limited, readily available input information. The simulations account for plant phenology, leaf area development and senescence, dry matter accumulation, yield formation, and soil water balance in a daily time step. Parameterization of the model for new crops/cultivars is easy and straight-forward. The resultant model (SSM-iCrop2) was parameterized and tested for more than 30 crop species of Iran using numerous field experiments. Tests showed the model was robust in the predictions of crop yield and water use. Root mean square of error as percentage of observed mean for yield was 18% for grain field crops, 14% for non-grain crops 14% for vegetables and 28% for fruit trees.

Interdisciplinary research is understood to be the preferred way for scientific research to deepen understanding about environmental issues and challenges for sustainability. Two well-defined interdisciplinairy research fields, Ecosystems services (ES) and Common-pool resources (CPR), have taken different approaches that integrate the natural and social sciences to address environmental conundrums collaboratively. Several recent studies bring together insight from each, yet little is known about the breadth or directions, of the interdisciplinary conversation between the two fields of research. Moreover, the potential of this interaction to advance theory and practice relevant for sustainability is underexplored. The purpose of this study is to fill this gap by addressing three questions: 1) What are the motives for the interaction between CPR and ES fields?, 2) How are these two fields of research interacting?, and 3) How does the interaction of CPR and ES contribute to research on sustainability? We conducted a systematic map to identify, select, describe and analyse research of our interest. We mapped out motivations for researchers to bring together insights from these two lines of inquiry and examined how they are doing so.

Changes in rainfall patterns and temperatures are likely to affect water resources in India. Also, changes in the extreme events will have direct implications on life and property. Adapting to the adverse effects of climate change becomes critical to avoid huge material and immaterial damages. This paper discusses the use of a multi-level and participatory approach to develop adaptation options to deal with climate related risks in a manner that contributes to stakeholder engagement, understanding of the risks, identification of the adaptation responses as well as its prioritization for risk reduction. It highlights the importance of involving stakeholders from multiple levels as each level corresponds with different priorities in adaptation options.