Vulnerable human populations are exposed to social and biophysical stressors, but have limited capacity to mitigate them. To mitigate stressors, vulnerable populations may access ecosystem services in unconventional ways. As a result of this access, they may also experience disservices (i.e. functions of ecosystems harmful to human wellbeing) in ways that are not well understood. We use a mixed-method socio-ecological approach to examine how persons experiencing homelessness in Phoenix, Arizona access ecosystem services and encounter disservices in urban waterways. We find that urban waterways provide users with drinking and bathing water, and cooler, shaded areas, but potentially expose them to pathogens and legal persecution. The wetlands provide cultural services by affording a sense of place and safety; however, these locations can also be associated with restrictive ordinances and aggressive law enforcement. This study explores the role of ecosystem services and disservices in bridging the gap between biophysical and social vulnerability.

For decades, the main goal of Singapore in terms of water resources has been to become water-secure. As a result, water availability, accessibility, and affordability have traditionally been decided at the highest political level. Singapore’s overall development is linked to a great extent to ‘blue development’, the amount of water available in sufficient quantity and quality and at affordable prices for the growing number of uses and users in every sector. The city–state aims to be water-secure, self-sufficient, and resilient by 2060, when water consumption will be twice today’s level. An important global city, Singapore will continue improving its economic and social conditions to match both local expectations and global prospects. Trends indicate that it will become more urban, more industrialised, and more competitive, which will result in higher water demand. Known for its key policies and innovations, Singapore will have to continue planning within a long-term framework to become water-secure and achieve its overall development goals.

In Lima, Peru 159,189 homes (7.3%) have inadequate public network water supply and are supplied by a tanker trucks, rivers, wells, water from neighbors or other sources (INEI 2018: 101). This policy brief highlights how the current urban water policies do not include, monitor or support significant sections of urban community or neighborhood water management in Lima-thereby affecting the quantity and quality of water consumed by poor people in peri-urban areas.

Full manuscript: Mendoza, M. (2015) En la periferia de la ciudad y la gobernanza, MSc thesis Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.

Although water is the main piece of natural life and vital functions, the de cit of balance between supply and demand of water is increasing be- cause of the negative effects of globalization to ecological life. Nowadays the insuf ciency of water sources, which is considered in the framework of human security, became one of the main problems of states. TRNC (Turk- ish Republic of Northern Cyprus), which is located in Mediterranean basis, is one of the countries, which experience water problem because of the reasons, such as being an island country, population explosion, and ecolog- ical degradations. In order to solve water problem of TRNC, some projects like desalination and water transport by balloons and tankers have been tried, however, the desired success couldn’t be achieved. The decision of The Council of Ministers in 1998 forms the basis of Turkey - TRNC Wa- ter Supply Project, which is designed for solving water problem of TRNC long-term. The construction of the project has been  nished in 2015 and activated with the plan to carry annually 75 million cubic meters’ water. The article aims at analyzing importance of TRNC Water Supply Project for the Mediterranean and threats to the project. The concept of hydro-pol- itics, which is the starting point of the project and emphasizes the political importance of water, became the main factor that determines the policies of the states. In this context, TRNC Water Supply Project is going to play an important role in the cooperation, peace, and security of the states, which are located in Mediterranean basis. The mission of Turkey and TRNC is analyzing the potential risks and threats to the project and take the nec- essary precautions to exemplify this project for regional policies. In this work, TRNC Water Supply Project, which is a good example of regional cooperation in Mediterranean Basis, is going to be analyzed and be evalu- ated in the context of hydro-politics. As for the methodology of this work, case study and literature review are the main ways of analyzing sources.

This policy brief summarizes the findings and analysis of a study on water governance in Bangalore, India and offers recommendations to curb the negative impact of urban expansion on the city's water distribution networks. Today, the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) pumps around 1,500 million litres of water per day from the Cauvery river (Rajashekhar, 2015). This is distributed unevenly across the city and fails to meet current water demand. Rampant groundwater extraction, a private market of water vendors, and the destruction of Bangalore's many water bodies, characterizes the precarious water infrastructure of the city. A lack of sufficient water supply is a key reason agriculture has become untenable for many small farmers on the city's fringe, enabling the government and developers to acquire and convert peripheral rural land into the expanding urban real estate market. Urban expansion onto the agrarian landscape-fields, forest and pasture commons, complex water-catchment system-has undermined water-intensive agrarian livelihoods as well as important avenues of recharge. This intensifies the prevailing insufficiencies surrounding water supply and access.

Pakistan, a semiarid region and a primarily agricultural economy, is facing declining water
availability and quality, growing water pollution, and overall environmental insecurity. Th is
situation, coupled with institutional, operational, and governance failures, is fostering
domestic discord.
■ Th e water confl ict has both historical roots and emerging dynamics.
■ Water scarcity, fl oods, droughts, and domestic mismanagement can embitter interethnic
relations and prompt political tension, which can in turn lead to violence.
■ Understanding water availability, allocation mechanisms, and demand is critical to understanding national management challenges and security threats.
■ A common response to the data on water supply and demand is to put it in the context of
population growth. However, the greater issue concerns the politics of distribution, allocation, and access.
■ Rapid urbanization, intersectoral competition, and a growing industrial infrastructure will
increase the need both for water and for development of new water infrastructures.
■ Climate change forecasts may seem like an antidote to water scarcity but may not have the
same implications for water security—that is, human and socioeconomic security.
■ Varying perceptions of water and security among stakeholders and decision makers are
preventing viable solutions for eff ective water resource management.
■ Th e current policy approach is oriented in supply-side interventions, and the overall ethos
favors engineering megaprojects, a bias refl ected in policy and in donor appeals. Th is
approach only veils the problem of water use ineffi ciencies.
■ Water stress should not be the tipping point but rather a means to promote social harmony,
environmental sustainability, and national unity. Eff ective management can only come
from domestic reform, and dependence on foreign aid will not render lasting solutions.
■ It is crucial that the government invest greater political capital to regulate water competition and provide quality water services to all communities. Conservation will prove key

The planet's natural systems are increasingly affected by human activities including overexploitation of natural resources, pollution, habitat fragmentation, and introduction of invasive species. It is estimated that 60% of Earth's ecosystem services suffer degradation and are being overexploited.

In Chihuahua, in the Conchos River Basin, the presence of springs is essential for the preservation of environmental flows and riparian ecosystems; especially during the dry season and drought periods, when springs become the sole source of in-stream base flows through the system. The above requires a thorough understanding of hydrologic systems and their links with the surrounding vegetation and soil, which together generate the occurrence of springs, in order to develop viable conservation arrangements, including legal strategies and policies that promote spring recovery, restoration, and conservation. Depletion of permanent springs leads to drying of rivers, reduction of biodiversity, desertification, and in some cases extinction of endemic species.

In the Middle Conchos River Basin, there are two thermal spring systems with very special characteristics that have governed the evolution and adaptation of unique biological communities and associations. Both sites make up two remarkably similar, convergent ecosystems, which are fascinating for both its physical/chemical environments, as well as its macro-faunal components. Both systems harbor microendemic sphaeromatid isopods, cochliopid snails, mosquitofishes and pupfish, of which the latter show an exaggerated cephalic morphology, possibly an adaptation to the low levels of dissolved oxygen that prevail in both aquatic systems.

This exercise began on May 12 and 13, 2011. The Civil Association Amigos del Pandeño, together with its partners, called for an initial "Vital Signs" planning workshop with the participation of scientists, experts, natural resource managers and specialists from universities, NGOs and the private sector; in order to begin to determine baselines to implement monitoring strategies, and to define a preliminary list of "Vital Signs" that could potentially be appropriate for the springs of San Diego de Alcala and El Pandeño, in the Chihuahuan Desert. This was the first step toward developing this "Vital Signs Monitoring Program" that will allow management of these sites to safeguard its ecosystems, and the permanence of their threatened microendemisms, biodiversity, and the environmental services they provide to society, before the threats posed by climate change.

"Vital Signs" are biophysical indicators that are selected for their high degree of susceptibility to changes in the environment, allowing early detection of changes and alterations in the ecosystem. Vital Signs provide the technical / scientific elements, necessary for efficient management and to carry out restoration and mitigation works.

During the workshop, it was agreed that the purpose of a Vital Signs Monitoring Program would be the early detection of environmental changes, providing an overview of the ecological consequences thereof and hence, to determine whether these observations dictate the need for changes in ecosystems and natural resources management practices. To this end, throughout the exercise, we identified a set of environmental indicators or "Vital Signs", which were prioritized, and some of them were selected for the development of a Monitoring Program.

Additionally, in May 2011, a first bi-national "Vital Signs" workshop took place in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The workshop allowed specialists representing AMIGOS DEL PANDEÑO, A.C., PRONATURA NORESTE, A.C., WWF and CONANP a first contact with the U.S. National Park Service, in order to exchange experiences and knowledge that could be applied to ecosystems management within official and private protected areas and spring systems within the biological corridor encompassing Conchos River - Santa Elena Canyon - Maderas del Carmen in the Chihuahuan Desert; and to begin planning for the implementation and dissemination of a standardized regional monitoring system that could enable and enhance management decision making by taking adaptation and mitigation measures before climate change.

Based on the protocols for the "United States National Park Service Chihuahuan Desert Network Monitoring Program” and for the purposes of this Program, Vital Signs are defined as a set of physical-chemical, biological and ecosystem attributes and processes, inherent to the sites of interest, which are indicative of their overall state of health and the condition of their natural resources, or of those items that from an economic, social or cultural perspective are valued by the stakeholders and society as a whole; they can measure the effects caused by various stress factors, whether known or assumed, based on modeling.

Thus, Vital Signs correspond to any estimable or measurable environmental feature or attribute that reflects, and may allow diagnosing the state of health of the ecosystem. These can be "read and interpreted" at any level of ecosystem organization including landscape, biological communities, populations or genetic; and may be of the order of composition if they relate to the diversity of elements that make up the ecosystem, structural if they relate to the order and distribution kept within the ecosystem, or functional if they refer to successive stages, or natural or anthropogenic processes.

The current inadequate drinking water services and sanitation problems have incited the need for a better management strategy by the country's water and sanitation organizations. In this study, a logical review of the water supply and sanitation origin and management structures was done to suggest a plausible management option in Nigeria. The paper also revealed that the overall management practices of these organizations at the three tiers of governments (federal, states and local) is very poor and uncoordinated which have resulted in low level of water and sanitation coverage. Thus, in order to ameliorate these problems, the study recommends sector wide reforms with the aim of radical improvement in the management processes of these organizations. Other
proposed improvement strategies include: private sector participation, effective and reasonable tariff regime for effective cost recovery, increment in political support and leadership commitment, introduction of benchmarking amongst the utilities to encourage healthy competition, strengthening of the legislative and institutional framework- that will enhance the autonomy of these organizations, improvement in the issues of accountability, transparency and stakeholders involvement in the activities of these organizations. It is hoped that the adoption and implementation of these strategies will lead to attainment of improved and sustainable water supply and sanitation coverage that will meet current and future demands.

Water crises are spreading across the length of South Asia at an alarming rate, and some of the pockets of stress include unexpected locations such as Darjeeling, West Bengal, India where rainfall is plentiful. Darjeeling Himalaya receive a high amount of rainfall, primarily during the monsoon months and range from annual averages of 4000-5000 mm in the southern slopes to 2000-2500 mm in the leeward side. This rainfall pattern coupled with a high forest cover 38.23% of the total district land area (State of Forest report 2010-11) makes water stress right across the landscape an ironical phenomenon. To make explicit the stress, the per day urban water deficits are 13,32,500 gallons in Darjeeling; 5,02,750 gallons in Kurseong town and 3,00,000 gallons in Kalimpong.(Municipality Reports).

This paper attempts to critically analyse water stress citing rural and urban cases as means of unravelling the complexity of the issue.

Upper Lanku, rural Darjeeling depend on three main springs for their water. Anecdotal narratives express that all three springs have shown a declining trend in its discharge over the past 10 – 15 years. WWF-India conducted a study in 2013-14 and found that the major recharge zone lies under the jurisdiction of the Forest Department and has yet to grant permission for recharge interventions.

Darjeeling Municipality established in 1850 has a centralised water management infrastructure laid down between1910–30. The system originates in Senchel Wildlife Sanctuary, located 15 kilometres upstream of Darjeeling with two lakes and a storage of 33 million gallons of water that is recharged by 26 springs. This centralised system fails to acknowledge the vibrant 90 odd natural springs in the town that people are dependent upon. These urban springs have diverse community based management systems that have evolved over time and are now facing challenges of rapid urbanisation, market forces, upstream concretisation and contamination and reducing discharges.

Kalimpong Municipality in 2016 woke up to drilling of groundwater dividing the town sharply between for and against groups. The drilling brought about a host of issues of policy gaps, downstream and intergenerational equity, ownership and access as well as what is sustainable water management in an urban mountainscape.

These cases will be used to critically analyse gaps in National Water Policy 2012, Wetland Conservation Rules 2010, Groundwater extraction rules with a mountain lens and propose recommendations.

In 2015-2016, CNA studied water resource competition between India, China, and Bangladesh in the Brahmaputra River basin. The Brahmaputra River, which originates in China and runs through India and Bangladesh, raises serious concerns for regional stability. China and India have fought a war over contested territory through which the Brahmaputra flows, while Bangladesh faces human security pressures in this basin that will be magnified by upstream river practices. Despite potential threats to regional stability from dam-building activities and water diversion plans on shared resources, no bilateral or multilateral water management accord exists in the Brahmaputra River basin.

This project, sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation, provides greater understanding of the equities and drivers fueling water insecurity in the Brahmaputra River basin. After conducting research in the three countries, CNA offers recommendations for key stakeholders to consider at the subnational, bilateral, and basin-wide levels. CNA’s findings lay the foundation for policymakers in China, India, and Bangladesh to discuss steps that manage water resource competition to help shift the discussion toward cooperative solutions that address underlying long-term water needs and development of the Brahmaputra basin.

This article investigates water security in Nepal from the perspective of the water-energy-agriculture (food) nexus, focusing on pathways to water security that originate in actions and policies related to other sectors. It identifies promoting development of Nepal’s hydropower potential to provide energy for pumping as way to improve water security in agriculture. Renewable groundwater reserves of 1.4 billion cubic meters (BCM), from an estimated available balance of 6.9 BCM, could be pumped to irrigate 613,000 ha of rainfed agricultural land in the Terai plains, with a potential direct economic gain of USD 1.1 billion annually and associated benefits including promotion of energy-based industry, food security and local employment. Governance also plays an important role in addressing water security. We conclude that a nexus-based approach is required for effective water management and governance.