David Benson

• PhD, MEnvSci, MRes, MA-HEP
• Professor (Associate) at University of Exeter

Climate change impacts create survival challenges for people in coastal areas of Bangladesh. Government responses are exercised through top-down adaptation governance, reflecting a neocolonial perspective evident in externally funded water development projects such as the Flood Control, Drainage and Irrigation (FCDI) scheme. Problematically, this f...

The changes in frequency and intensity of rainfall, variation in temperature, increasing extreme weather events, and rising greenhouse gas emissions can together have a varying impact on food grain production, which then leads to significant impacts on food security in the future. The purpose of this study is to quantify how maize productivity migh...

In view of the energy dissipation design of the USBR Type III stilling basin, which is characterized by intense turbulent flow and complex flow patterns, a reliable mathematical model and calculation method is used to track and record the changes of flow parameters during fluid movement. The results of flow movement can be obtained, and the changes...

Climate change impacts create survival challenges for local people in the coastal areas of Bangladesh. Government responses are typically exercised through top-down adaptation governance structures reflecting a neo-colonial perspective, evident in externally funded water development projects such as the Flood Control, Drainage and Irrigation (FCDI)...

The physical foundation and environmental assurance provided by the regional habitat are crucial for the survival and sustainable development of organisms. Land use change, as a significant manifestation of human activity, is a crucial factor in habitat quality. An SD-PLUS coupled model was developed to simulate land use change in the Baiyangdian(B...

This paper assesses the sustainability impacts in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River in China after the Xiaolangdi Dam was constructed. Based on land use data interpreted from Landsat remote sensing images, covering the time period from 2000 to 2020 at 5-year intervals, this research uses a land dynamic attitude index and comprehensiv...

Climate change adaptation is currently an important community concern in developing countries like Bangladesh. The conceptualization of adaptation within the government system matters for the promotion of activities such as employment generation for local communities. The lesser the gap between government policy and the local community’s needs for...

Faced with the challenges posed by enhancing the performance of national waste management policy, sub-national political authorities in China have engaged with the public and non-state actors, particularly NGOs. Across China’s multi-level administrative governance, different levels of government have consequently committed toward working with NGOs...

Climate change, population growth, over-abstraction and industrial pollution are impacting the security of water resources globally, raising policy relevant questions over the optimality of institutional arrangements for their management. This paper seeks to add to this debate by assessing the effectiveness of integrated river basin management for...

The book brings together a range of leading scholars and practitioners to compile an international account of water allocation policies supporting a transition to sustainable water use in regions where agriculture is the dominant water use. In Section 1, the collection canvasses five key crosscutting issues shaping the challenge of sustainable wate...

The book brings together a range of leading scholars and practitioners to compile an international account of water allocation policies supporting a transition to sustainable water use in regions where agriculture is the dominant water use. In Section 1, the collection canvasses five key crosscutting issues shaping the challenge of sustainable wate...

Despite its very strong economic roots, the European Union has nonetheless become an international leader in environmental protection and sustainable development policy. Environmental concerns have consequently shifted from being a marginal aspect of the European integration process to one that routinely grabs news headlines and, unlike many other...

The transportation sector is the largest consumer of fossil fuels; making it a major producer of greenhouse gases. Due to declining fossil fuel reserves and increasingly stringent vehicle emission regulations globally, it is essential to shift to alternative energy sources. Economic and eco‐friendly fuel‐efficient hybrid, electric, and fuel cell ve...

Climate change effects cause major socioeconomic challenges for marginalized groups, particularly women, in Bangladesh. Specifically, drought increases resource scarcity, causing social problems that impact women, which can be described as the gendered sociocultural construction of vulnerabilities. Given this constructed dimension of gender-based v...

The recent global diffusion of circular economy regulatory policy packages (CERPPs) raises questions over their extent, composition and, critically, potential effectiveness. While research into circular economy (CE) regulation is growing, a dearth of analyses of the optimal design of CE policy packages presents a clear gap in the literature. This p...

The idea of building an economy which supports sustainable development without degrading the environment has been widely debated and broadly embraced by politicians, civil servants, the media, academics and the public alike for several decades. This book explores the measures being trialled at various levels of governance in the European region to...

Discursive choices made by policy entrepreneurs are an important factor in the development of climate change acts (CCAs). This article examines the extent to which such choices reflect the strategic need for CCA entrepreneurs to compromise pragmatically and modulate their policy preferences in order to secure the agreement needed for CCA adoption....

The report details the development of a conceptual framework, based upon the doughnut economics model of Kate Raworth (2012), that employs multiple indicators in order to establish an integrated assessment method for monitoring social and ecological conditions in Cornwall towards agreed strategic priorities.

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) not only recast water management practices within the European Union (EU); it also opened a new chapter for the EU’s external ambitions in the field of water. The central vehicle here is the EU Water Initiative (EUWI), a transnational, multi-actor partnership approach that was established in 2002 to support wider...

The European Union (EU) has established a major role in directing policy change both internally and beyond its borders, a phenomenon known as Europeanisation. This article examines the Europeanisation of water policy in Turkey in relation to implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). Although some principles of EU water policy have b...

This study demonstrates the development of flexible graphene oxide coatings (GOCs) by the screen-printed technique and further its implementation as a thermal absorber for buildings' thermal comfort purpose. The basic concept consists the integration of the GOC as a flat absorber on the top of a low iron glass or aluminium-based substrate (5 × 5 cm...

The circular economy (CE) concept is informing the governance of resource use and waste management on a global scale, leading to widespread policy instrument innovation. However, the recent appearance of CE 'policy portfolios' raises questions about whether such policies are genuinely path-breaking or are merely adjustments to existing arrangements...

In the era of the Anthropocene, understanding the dynamic interactions between humans and water is crucial for supporting both human well-being and the sustainable management of resources. The current water management challenges are inherently unpredictable and difficult to control. Social-ecological systems (SESs) approaches explicitly recognize t...

The practice of hair dyeing is a rapidly expanding industry on a global scale; however, it has become a major concern for Asian countries because they have been undergoing rapid transformations of their environment and lifestyles. While the socio-economic benefits and impacts of this globalization trend are widely understood, the environmental effe...

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) has become a global paradigm for the governance of surface, coastal and groundwaters. International bodies such as the European Union, the Global Water Partnership, and the United Nations have taken the lead in promoting IWRM principles, while countries worldwide, both in the Global South and the Global...

Integrated water resources management (IWRM) has become a global paradigm for the governance of surface, coastal and groundwater. International bodies such as the European Union, the Global Water Partnership, and the United Nations have taken the lead to promote IWRM principles, while countries worldwide have undertaken reforms to implement these p...

Tidal River Management (TRM) is a local adaptation strategy for coastal floodplains in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta in Bangladesh. TRM involves the periodic opening and closing of embankments to accelerate land accretion (or reclamation) in a floodplain. Although the approach is considered a promising adaptation strategy, there have been both posit...

While the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted in 2015, establishes an ambitious set of goals, targets and indicators for supporting global sustainability, greater conceptual clarity is required to measure implementation. A key UN Target (6.5) for implementing sustainable development goal (SDG) 6 is to ‘implement integrated water r...

Anthropogenic hybridization is widely perceived as a threat to the conservation of biodiversity. Nevertheless, to date, relevant policy and management interventions are unresolved and highly convoluted. While this is due to the inherent complexity of the issue, we hereby hypothesize that a lack of agreement concerning management goals and approache...

Despite declining EU accession incentives and growing popular ambivalence in perceptions of the EU, Turkey has paradoxically reversed reforms in some sectors (i.e. de-Europeanisation) while continuing to implement EU policy in others (i.e. Europeanisation), most notably the environmental sector. Theoretically, explaining continued Europeanisation o...

The selection and design of renewable electricity support instruments is an important part of European Union (EU) energy policy and central to the governance of the Energy Union. In 2014, the European Commission published updated guidelines for state aid that are driving the EU-wide implementation of auctions for allocating revenue support to comme...

Turkey’s protracted European Union (EU) accession process has resulted in the transfer of environmental policy, primarily the water acquis. Despite a recent reversal in accession negotiations, this process is continuing and has thereby resulted in the active Europeanisation of Turkish water policy. However, the resultant pattern of Europeanisation...

Collective political action among divergent interest groups is not always easy. It requires coordination, compromise and, often, the persuasive action of a policy entrepreneur. Coalition strategies are often shaped by participants' skill in mobilising ideas. Business-environmental coalitions-often considered 'strange bedfellows'-have proved to be i...

Turkey received European Union candidacy status in 1999. Significant progress was then made towards fulfilling the EU’s Copenhagen Criteria for accession in return for anticipated membership as Europeanisation of domestic institutions occurred. Since 2004, however, the credibility of EU incentives has gradually decreased amongst Turkish government...

The circular economy (CE) has become a key normative concept for disrupting unsustainable development patterns through better integrating environmental objectives within business models, raising questions over how its practical application is effectively achieved through governance innovation. A critical aim of the circular economy is supporting th...

Untreated industrial wastewater pollution, primarily from textile production, threatens water resources in central Tamil Nadu, India, where the Noyyal River flows through several densely populated urban centres. The workshop consequently aimed at knowledge transfer on innovative wastewater treatments between UK and Indian collaborators to potential...

In 2014, the European Council set energy and climate targets for 2030 that will have far-reaching implications for the decarbonisation of Europe’s economy as well as the nature and success of the energy integration project, the Energy Union. The targets mark a qualitative shift towards a more technology-neutral EU climate and energy policy than rep...

Attempts to improve the policy environment have led to a growing pressure on governments in Africa to embark on policymaking that is more evidence based and considers a wide spectrum of scientific and indigenous knowledge. Local – or ‘homegrown’ – research networks on the continent can help strengthen the role of scientific knowledge in policymakin...

This chapter explores the EU’s attempts to export its water policy through three main policy tools. The EU Water Initiative, launched in 2002, is implemented through five regional partnerships or networks which bring together stakeholders in water policy reform in individual partner countries alongside EU officials and experts. This creates opportu...

Integrated water resources management (IWRM) assumes coherence between cognate aspects of water governance at the river basin scale, for example water quality, energy production and agriculture objectives. But critics argue that IWRM is often less ‘integrated’ in practice, raising concerns over inter-sectoral coherence between implementing institut...

While research into the nexus has expanded significantly, few studies have sought to theorize its governance. By adopting a policy instruments perspective, this chapter therefore initially examines how the nexus is emerging at different scales and national contexts worldwide. Empirical evidence of policy instrument innovation is then analyzed usin...

This article examines the activities and achievements of the European Union Water Initiative, a transnational, multi-actor partnership established in 2002 by the European Commission to support water governance reforms around the world. Two regional components of the initiative – (a) Africa and (b) Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia – are stu...

Environmental governance denotes the processes through which different actors govern the environment. Geographers have actively researched them from empirical, theoretical, and normative perspectives. From an empirical perspective, environmental governance involves a variety of actors (including governments and also businesses, nongovernmental orga...

Although manifestly not a state, the European Union (EU) has evolved from its origins as a trade-based economic organization to become a supra-national political body that regulates across multiple policy sectors in a state-like manner. Nowhere is this regulatory influence more pronounced than in relation to the environment, where the EU now effect...

The photovoltaic (PV) industry is a fast growing industry with annual growth rate of 44%. The PV module production has also increased to meet the current market. China and Taiwan have increased their PV installation compared to European countries. Si-wafer based PV technology accounted for about 92% of the total production in 2014. This chapter is...

This chapter summarizes the book's other chapters and discusses brief recommendations.

This chapter explores the potential for more effective global governance of solar PV (photovoltaic) impacts. Due to the rapidly globalizing nature of this industrial sector and the limited international institutional framework for coherently governing such impacts, it argues that existing industry-led, voluntary approaches are more appropriate for...

Regardless of the specific photovoltaic (PV) technologies, PV can generate 89% of potential harmful air emission per kilowatt-hour, when compared to conventional fossil fuel. The production of PV cells involves chemical hazards related to the materials' toxicity, corrosivity, flammability, and explosiveness. This chapter discusses the materials pro...

The solar photovoltaics (PV) industry has expanded rapidly on a global scale in the last decade, but differing governance approaches have emerged in national contexts supporting its development and countering environmental impacts. By adopting a policy instruments perspective, this chapter compares solar PV governance in five leading states, namely...

This chapter deals with the overview and current status of the PV industry and summary of the book.

Presentation to UN-ESCAP, Bangkok, 10-11 November 2016

An overview of potential impacts and existing governance frameworks in order to facilitate the development of the photovoltaic (PV) industry • Fills the need for a coherent source of information on the potential impacts of varying PV technologies • Comprehensive coverage of life cycle analysis (LCA) of PV technologies in a single reference • Analys...

In England, the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 provides specific roles for Lead Local Flood Authorities in flood and coastal erosion risk management. Under Section 9 of the Act, authorities are responsible for preparing, applying and monitoring a local flood risk management strategy that balances community input into flood management with nati...

The adoption of bioregionalism by institutions that are instrumental in river basin management has significant potential to resolve complex water resource management problems. The Westcountry Rivers Trust (WRT) in England provides an example of how localized bioregional institutionalization of adaptive comanagement, consensus decision making, local...

The governance of water management is undergoing significant changes worldwide, with an ongoing reallocation of tasks occurring from traditional state-led centralised agency approaches towards more collaborative forms of governance. This chapter first provides an historical overview of flood management in England since the Middle Ages, to show how...

The European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires EU member states to produce and implement river basin management plans, which are to be designed and updated via participatory processes that inform, consult with, and actively involve all interested stakeholders. The assumption of the European Commission is that stakeholder participa...

Supplementary Materials: Transforming European Water Governance? Participation and River Basin Management under the EU Water Framework Directive in 13 Member States. The supporting information provides the variable descriptions and a detailed account of the data aggregation procedures employed during the analysis, as well as a list of literature so...

Environmental policy is primarily concerned with how to govern the relationship between humans and the natural environment in a mutually beneficial manner. Traditionally, it has been defined in terms of the problems it addressed, such as controlling pollution and waste flows and limiting habitat loss. However, policy makers have begun to appreciate...

This dataset illustrates the expansion of European-level transport policy* between 1958 and 2004, covering policy outputs from the European Economic Community and European Union. A policy instruments perspective was employed to collect data on adopted regulations, directives, decisions and recommendations for each year during this period. A transpo...

The UK has been regarded as an international leader in innovative approaches for embedding sustainable development across government departments. While the Coalition Government followed this pioneering path through for example the publishing of the National Ecosystem Assessment (and its Follow-on project) and the founding of the Green Investment Ba...

This paper provides a review of the emerging literature on the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus and then analyses the nexus in the context of Bangladesh. Results suggest that the WEF nexus is not yet recognized in the policy documents of Bangladesh, while conflicts over these resources are growing. In order to reduce this contestation, policy integrat...

The data set shows European energy policy instruments collected for the period between 1968 and 2010. Because energy policy was introduced by three ‘communities’ (the EEC/EU, Euratom and European Coal and steel Community), data is shown for each one over this time span. The first columns show policy instruments adopted by the EEC (up to 1993) and t...

Stakeholder participation in environmental management has become widespread globally while the normative benefits of multi-stakeholder processes in governing natural resources are promoted by academics and policy makers. As projections indicate more frequent and intense flood events with future climate change, this article examines one stakeholder...

The central focus of this volume is a critical comparative analysis of the key drivers for water resource management and the provision of clean water – governance systems and institutional and legal arrangements. The authors present a systematic analysis of case study river systems drawn from Australia, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, UK and USA...

This report summarises the key findings of research carried out by the University of Exeter and the University of East Anglia during 2014. The research aimed to assess the degree to which the Regional Flood and Coastal Committees (RFCC) provide a collaborative approach to flood management at local level through the involvement of local actors. It a...

Research was carried out in 2014 by the universities of Exeter and East Anglia to identify the degree to which the Regional Flood and Coastal Committees provide a collaborative approach to flood and coastal management at local level through the involvement of local actors. Findings of the research show that generally, actors were supportive of the...

Policy networks can help to coordinate different objectives. The vast literature on network governance often implies that the mere existence of networks will automatically lead to improved coordination. However, much empirical analysis so far has focused on networks within particular policy sectors, which may actually inhibit horizontal coordinatio...

Nexus thinking, in the form of integrating water security with agriculture, energy and climate concerns, is normatively argued to help better transition societies towards greener economies and the wider goal of sustainable development. Yet several issues emerge from the current debate surrounding this concept, namely the extent to which such concep...