Elena López Gunn - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Elena López Gunn

The International Journal of the Commons, Dec 31, 2022

In recent years, co-management has been highlighted in the scientific literature as fundamental s... more In recent years, co-management has been highlighted in the scientific literature as fundamental strategy for groundwater governance. However, the development of such an institutional architecture is complex and presents important pitfalls and challenges. Based on participatory action research, in this article we analyse the recent experience of co-management in the Requena-Utiel aquifer (Spain). We used a cognitive framing approach, developed through interviews with local stakeholders, to analyse the conflicting visions on the aquifer management. Then we developed an interactive framing approach, through workshops, to achieve a shared understanding of aquifer co-management. This was done with the aim to facilitate a consensus building process among users, as a basis on which to support future self-governance measures. The research demonstrates the usefulness of these approaches to promote collective action and co-management in groundwater. It shows the key role that information and transparency play in gaining shared understanding and improving co-management; but also the difficulties of users in establishing agreements that question the current status quo on the aquifer.

AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, Dec 1, 2019

Fourth Botin Foundation Water Workshop, 2010

Water security in a new world, 2023

Highlights Main lessons learned include the new knowledge acquired, its integration and applicati... more Highlights Main lessons learned include the new knowledge acquired, its integration and application in real environments presenting different geographical conditions and scales, with very diverse socioeconomic arenas and very different institutional and regulatory settings.

Presupuesto y gasto público, 2020

Water security in a new world, 2023

Key issues to improve enabling conditions to support the uptake of NBS and NAS range from connect... more Key issues to improve enabling conditions to support the uptake of NBS and NAS range from connecting an evidence-base to an experience gap through to creating an enabling regulatory environment. • Opportunity areas to promote the uptake of NBS and NAS arise by facilitating their financing and implementation, which include finding solutions to de-risk private sector investment in NBS. • Further opportunity areas to effectively engage the insurance sector include increased scope for scientific exchange and cooperation, awareness raising on climate risks and policy dialogue on risk reduction and environmental regulation.

Water security in a new world, 2023

Highlights • Natural assurance schemes emerge from a structured methodological approach with a nu... more Highlights • Natural assurance schemes emerge from a structured methodological approach with a number of sequential steps. • The main aim of a natural assurance scheme is to mitigate the impact from water related risks (avoided costs and damages) and additional co-benefits. • Natural assurance schemes can be implemented at any scale (micro, meso and large) to cover water related risks like floods and droughts.

Water security in a new world, 2023

Highlights This chapter illustrates how nature-based solutions, operationalized in natural assura... more Highlights This chapter illustrates how nature-based solutions, operationalized in natural assurance schemes can increase water security using the readiness level concept to address barriers to implementation • The concept of water security strategies in the context of water related hazards and mitigated by Nature-based Solutions is analyzed and conceptualized in Natural Assurance Schemes • Operationalization of Natural Assurance Schemes are tailored to the specific regulatory context of the insurance sector and its stakeholders • Readiness levels with respect to technology, institutions and investment are developed to address and overcome barriers to implement Nature-based Solutions and Natural Assurance Schemes.

Water security in a new world, 2023

Highlights • The NAS canvas enabled to elicit together with the stakeholders the value propositio... more Highlights • The NAS canvas enabled to elicit together with the stakeholders the value proposition of NAS and the components required to build a business model. • The NAS canvas is flexible and replicable to any NAS or NBS strategy regardless of the stage or the context. • One of the main difficulties in building business models is to engage indirect beneficiaries within the pool of payers and funders. • Legislation can become either a critical enabler or a barrier for the development and implementation of business models for NAS.

Water security in a new world, 2023

Highlights • The (re)insurance sector is found to play five roles in natural disasters loss preve... more Highlights • The (re)insurance sector is found to play five roles in natural disasters loss prevention. • The five roles lead to one objective: reducing exposure to risks using preventive measures. • The impact of such roles could be fostered through partnerships. • Further research is needed on the effectiveness of NBS on hazard reduction. • Using challenging climate change to improve knowledge on natural disasters and NBS to ensure insurability of risks.

Water security in a new world, Nov 1, 2019

This book focuses on the legal, regulatory and policy issues surrounding unconventional oil and g... more This book focuses on the legal, regulatory and policy issues surrounding unconventional oil and gas (UOG) extraction and water. The book comes at a time when the US is rolling back environmental protection regulations to boost industry (Buchta & Jorgensen, 2019), while the effects of climate change on water resources, including extreme flooding and exacerbated droughts, are increasingly observed (Betts et al., 2018). This timely book underscores the importance of sound energy development policy and having an effective legal and regulatory framework to protect water resources during UOG development. The main objectives of the book are to offer different perspectives on the regulation of UOG development for water security and to assist in the development of better law and policy moving forward. The book is divided into five parts. Part 1 (Chapters 1-4) offers broad overviews of social issues linked to UOG development in the US. Part 2 (Chapters 5-10) focuses on managing issues around water supply for fracking in Argentina, China, Russia, the UK and the US. Part 3 (Chapters 11-14) focuses on managing wastewater emanating from fracking in Australia, Canada, Europe and the US. Part 4 (Chapters 15-19) examines regulatory challenges in specific jurisdictions, including Canada, Poland, South Africa and Brazil. The book is concluded in Part 5 (Chapter 20). In Chapter 2, Mroue and co-authors explain the critical point of tension that fracking represents in the water-energy nexus due to its water-intensive nature and associated pollution risks. Collins and Rosen underscore the localized high water requirements of fracking in Chapter 5. Palmer and co-authors in Chapter 3 link fracking's intensive water use to poor water supply price signalling. The consistent under-valuation of water resources could lead to poor price signalling. If price signalling is corrected, it could prompt a stabilization or even a reduction in water demand by the UOG industry. In Chapter 4, Bradbury and Smith examine fracking controversies such as disclosure issues, baseline water resource monitoring, fracking contamination risks, and UOG water use in arid areas. In Chapter 6, Zhang et al. explore water acquisition for fracking in China. Water shortages complicate UOG development because of a geographic mismatch between water availability and fracking water needs in China. This mismatch could increase tension and disputes over fracking and water supply. According to Brown in Chapter 7, although water requirements for UOG development in the UK may be modest, the cumulative impact of water sourcing for UOG development is of concern, especially when considering climate change. Brown therefore stresses the importance of wastewater recycling as a sustainable water supply source for fracking. In Chapter 8, Bernáldez and Herrera analyze UOG extraction in the Neuquén basin in Argentina. Even though the Argentinian government seeks to legitimize water use for fracking, more than 50 Argentinian cities and districts have banned it outright. The authors argue that UOG development should be considered within the hydrosocial context, and not just viewed as resources that must be tapped. In Chapter 9, King argues that the risks posed by the hydrological implications of climate change and the expansion of UOG extraction in Western Siberia warrant greater attention. The Russian regulatory regime does not effectively protect natural resources during UOG WATER INTERNATIONAL

Water security in a new world, 2023

Highlights • We demonstrate that most case studies achieved high levels of technology readiness, ... more Highlights • We demonstrate that most case studies achieved high levels of technology readiness, given the large amount of data-driven and physical modelling driven approaches combining engineering and natural sciences expertise. • A transdisciplinary approach to NBS planning and design further increased technology readiness, by generating understanding of NBS performance across stakeholders. • Most multifaceted tailoring was needed to assess and generate institutional readiness and investment readiness. • To cope with the inherent uncertainty of NBS and their implementation, we propose an adaptive planning and management approach to provide sufficient flexibility on the risk-benefit transfers while providing needed investment security.

Análisis del Real Instituto Elcano ( ARI ), 2014

This report documents the activities and progress of the five local Communities of Practice (CoP)... more This report documents the activities and progress of the five local Communities of Practice (CoP) and the project CoP in DWC.<br> The first section describes the different CoPs operating in DWC including their key aims and goals. The second section reports the activities carried out and the progress achieved in the five local CoPs (i.e. DWC Berlin, DWC Copenhagen, DWC Milan, DWC Paris and DWC Sofia). Then, the two events organized for the Intra-Project CoP in the initial 18 months are documented. Finally, four annexes provide support information, which has been shared with the CoP leaders to facilitate the setting up and operation of the CoPs.

Groundwater overexploitation is a worldwide phenomenon with important consequences and as yet few... more Groundwater overexploitation is a worldwide phenomenon with important consequences and as yet few effective solutions. Work on groundwater governance often emphasises the roles of both formal statecentred policies and tools on the one hand, and self-governance and collective action on the other. Yet, empirically grounded work is limited and scattered, making it difficult to identify and characterise key emerging trends. Groundwater policy making is frequently premised on an overestimation of the power of the state, which is often seen as incapable or unwilling to act and constrained by a myriad of logistical, political and legal issues. Actors on the ground either find many ways to circumvent regulations or develop their own bricolage of patched, often uncoordinated, solutions; whereas in other cases corruption and capture occur, for example in water right trading rules, sometimes with the complicity – even bribing – of officials. Failed regulation has a continued impact on the envi...

Journal of Extreme Events, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic and anthropogenic climate change are global crises. We show how strongly th... more The COVID-19 pandemic and anthropogenic climate change are global crises. We show how strongly these crises are connected, including the underlying societal inequities and problems of poverty, substandard housing, and infrastructure including clean water supplies. The origins of all these crises are related to modern consumptive industrialisation, including burning of fossil fuels, increasing human population density, and replacement of natural with human dominated ecosystems. Because business as usual is unsustainable on all three fronts, transformative responses are needed. We review the literature on risk management interventions, implications for COVID-19, for climate change risk and for equity associated with biodiversity, water and WaSH, health systems, food systems, urbanization and governance. This paper details the considerable evidence base of observed synergies between actions to reduce pandemic and climate change risks while enhancing social justice and biodiversity cons...

Nature-based Solutions and Water Security, 2021

Ecological Economics, 2021

Abstract Nature based solutions are proposed as integrated solutions to transform the current wat... more Abstract Nature based solutions are proposed as integrated solutions to transform the current water intensive economic model to a more balanced model, where water is considered as an eco-social asset. We analyse the logic of action and underpinning belief systems, values, and norms of these evolving economic (and underpinning value) systems, through a conceptual frame based on a three layered institutional framework, considering new institutional economics and old institutionalism. This is applied to the case study of an intensively used aquifer of Medina del Campo in Spain, in relation to drought and water scarcity. We examine how water scarcity and drought are framed, and the implicit underpinning economic development models and values that help to legitimise decisions. It offers an application of the potential for natural assurance schemes as a specific type of nature based solutions to create safe landscapes and help transform the system through deep territorial transformation, based on a wider and deeper range of eco-social values. Systems which are more adaptable under climate change. The analysis of the definition of the problem (through individual stakeholder interviews) and the co-design of preferred choices through a series of participatory workshops led to the consideration of a wider range of options by stakeholders. We conclude that in Medina del Campo, the de-construction of the values and beliefs underpinning the concept of water scarcity as a problem, helps to re-construct adaptation to water scarcity as an opportunity for a more diversified and resilient economic model for long-term development. This is reflected in the selection of hybrid nature-based strategies (as compared to sole grey infrastructure strategies) that incorporate a broader range of values shifting from the single prioritisation of provision services to understanding water as a eco-social asset, encompassing the full range of ecosystem services, thus opening the decision-making space for additional long term climate resilient development.

The International Journal of the Commons, Dec 31, 2022

In recent years, co-management has been highlighted in the scientific literature as fundamental s... more In recent years, co-management has been highlighted in the scientific literature as fundamental strategy for groundwater governance. However, the development of such an institutional architecture is complex and presents important pitfalls and challenges. Based on participatory action research, in this article we analyse the recent experience of co-management in the Requena-Utiel aquifer (Spain). We used a cognitive framing approach, developed through interviews with local stakeholders, to analyse the conflicting visions on the aquifer management. Then we developed an interactive framing approach, through workshops, to achieve a shared understanding of aquifer co-management. This was done with the aim to facilitate a consensus building process among users, as a basis on which to support future self-governance measures. The research demonstrates the usefulness of these approaches to promote collective action and co-management in groundwater. It shows the key role that information and transparency play in gaining shared understanding and improving co-management; but also the difficulties of users in establishing agreements that question the current status quo on the aquifer.

AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, Dec 1, 2019

Fourth Botin Foundation Water Workshop, 2010

Water security in a new world, 2023

Highlights Main lessons learned include the new knowledge acquired, its integration and applicati... more Highlights Main lessons learned include the new knowledge acquired, its integration and application in real environments presenting different geographical conditions and scales, with very diverse socioeconomic arenas and very different institutional and regulatory settings.

Presupuesto y gasto público, 2020

Water security in a new world, 2023

Key issues to improve enabling conditions to support the uptake of NBS and NAS range from connect... more Key issues to improve enabling conditions to support the uptake of NBS and NAS range from connecting an evidence-base to an experience gap through to creating an enabling regulatory environment. • Opportunity areas to promote the uptake of NBS and NAS arise by facilitating their financing and implementation, which include finding solutions to de-risk private sector investment in NBS. • Further opportunity areas to effectively engage the insurance sector include increased scope for scientific exchange and cooperation, awareness raising on climate risks and policy dialogue on risk reduction and environmental regulation.

Water security in a new world, 2023

Highlights • Natural assurance schemes emerge from a structured methodological approach with a nu... more Highlights • Natural assurance schemes emerge from a structured methodological approach with a number of sequential steps. • The main aim of a natural assurance scheme is to mitigate the impact from water related risks (avoided costs and damages) and additional co-benefits. • Natural assurance schemes can be implemented at any scale (micro, meso and large) to cover water related risks like floods and droughts.

Water security in a new world, 2023

Highlights This chapter illustrates how nature-based solutions, operationalized in natural assura... more Highlights This chapter illustrates how nature-based solutions, operationalized in natural assurance schemes can increase water security using the readiness level concept to address barriers to implementation • The concept of water security strategies in the context of water related hazards and mitigated by Nature-based Solutions is analyzed and conceptualized in Natural Assurance Schemes • Operationalization of Natural Assurance Schemes are tailored to the specific regulatory context of the insurance sector and its stakeholders • Readiness levels with respect to technology, institutions and investment are developed to address and overcome barriers to implement Nature-based Solutions and Natural Assurance Schemes.

Water security in a new world, 2023

Highlights • The NAS canvas enabled to elicit together with the stakeholders the value propositio... more Highlights • The NAS canvas enabled to elicit together with the stakeholders the value proposition of NAS and the components required to build a business model. • The NAS canvas is flexible and replicable to any NAS or NBS strategy regardless of the stage or the context. • One of the main difficulties in building business models is to engage indirect beneficiaries within the pool of payers and funders. • Legislation can become either a critical enabler or a barrier for the development and implementation of business models for NAS.

Water security in a new world, 2023

Highlights • The (re)insurance sector is found to play five roles in natural disasters loss preve... more Highlights • The (re)insurance sector is found to play five roles in natural disasters loss prevention. • The five roles lead to one objective: reducing exposure to risks using preventive measures. • The impact of such roles could be fostered through partnerships. • Further research is needed on the effectiveness of NBS on hazard reduction. • Using challenging climate change to improve knowledge on natural disasters and NBS to ensure insurability of risks.

Water security in a new world, Nov 1, 2019

This book focuses on the legal, regulatory and policy issues surrounding unconventional oil and g... more This book focuses on the legal, regulatory and policy issues surrounding unconventional oil and gas (UOG) extraction and water. The book comes at a time when the US is rolling back environmental protection regulations to boost industry (Buchta & Jorgensen, 2019), while the effects of climate change on water resources, including extreme flooding and exacerbated droughts, are increasingly observed (Betts et al., 2018). This timely book underscores the importance of sound energy development policy and having an effective legal and regulatory framework to protect water resources during UOG development. The main objectives of the book are to offer different perspectives on the regulation of UOG development for water security and to assist in the development of better law and policy moving forward. The book is divided into five parts. Part 1 (Chapters 1-4) offers broad overviews of social issues linked to UOG development in the US. Part 2 (Chapters 5-10) focuses on managing issues around water supply for fracking in Argentina, China, Russia, the UK and the US. Part 3 (Chapters 11-14) focuses on managing wastewater emanating from fracking in Australia, Canada, Europe and the US. Part 4 (Chapters 15-19) examines regulatory challenges in specific jurisdictions, including Canada, Poland, South Africa and Brazil. The book is concluded in Part 5 (Chapter 20). In Chapter 2, Mroue and co-authors explain the critical point of tension that fracking represents in the water-energy nexus due to its water-intensive nature and associated pollution risks. Collins and Rosen underscore the localized high water requirements of fracking in Chapter 5. Palmer and co-authors in Chapter 3 link fracking's intensive water use to poor water supply price signalling. The consistent under-valuation of water resources could lead to poor price signalling. If price signalling is corrected, it could prompt a stabilization or even a reduction in water demand by the UOG industry. In Chapter 4, Bradbury and Smith examine fracking controversies such as disclosure issues, baseline water resource monitoring, fracking contamination risks, and UOG water use in arid areas. In Chapter 6, Zhang et al. explore water acquisition for fracking in China. Water shortages complicate UOG development because of a geographic mismatch between water availability and fracking water needs in China. This mismatch could increase tension and disputes over fracking and water supply. According to Brown in Chapter 7, although water requirements for UOG development in the UK may be modest, the cumulative impact of water sourcing for UOG development is of concern, especially when considering climate change. Brown therefore stresses the importance of wastewater recycling as a sustainable water supply source for fracking. In Chapter 8, Bernáldez and Herrera analyze UOG extraction in the Neuquén basin in Argentina. Even though the Argentinian government seeks to legitimize water use for fracking, more than 50 Argentinian cities and districts have banned it outright. The authors argue that UOG development should be considered within the hydrosocial context, and not just viewed as resources that must be tapped. In Chapter 9, King argues that the risks posed by the hydrological implications of climate change and the expansion of UOG extraction in Western Siberia warrant greater attention. The Russian regulatory regime does not effectively protect natural resources during UOG WATER INTERNATIONAL

Water security in a new world, 2023

Highlights • We demonstrate that most case studies achieved high levels of technology readiness, ... more Highlights • We demonstrate that most case studies achieved high levels of technology readiness, given the large amount of data-driven and physical modelling driven approaches combining engineering and natural sciences expertise. • A transdisciplinary approach to NBS planning and design further increased technology readiness, by generating understanding of NBS performance across stakeholders. • Most multifaceted tailoring was needed to assess and generate institutional readiness and investment readiness. • To cope with the inherent uncertainty of NBS and their implementation, we propose an adaptive planning and management approach to provide sufficient flexibility on the risk-benefit transfers while providing needed investment security.

Análisis del Real Instituto Elcano ( ARI ), 2014

This report documents the activities and progress of the five local Communities of Practice (CoP)... more This report documents the activities and progress of the five local Communities of Practice (CoP) and the project CoP in DWC.<br> The first section describes the different CoPs operating in DWC including their key aims and goals. The second section reports the activities carried out and the progress achieved in the five local CoPs (i.e. DWC Berlin, DWC Copenhagen, DWC Milan, DWC Paris and DWC Sofia). Then, the two events organized for the Intra-Project CoP in the initial 18 months are documented. Finally, four annexes provide support information, which has been shared with the CoP leaders to facilitate the setting up and operation of the CoPs.

Groundwater overexploitation is a worldwide phenomenon with important consequences and as yet few... more Groundwater overexploitation is a worldwide phenomenon with important consequences and as yet few effective solutions. Work on groundwater governance often emphasises the roles of both formal statecentred policies and tools on the one hand, and self-governance and collective action on the other. Yet, empirically grounded work is limited and scattered, making it difficult to identify and characterise key emerging trends. Groundwater policy making is frequently premised on an overestimation of the power of the state, which is often seen as incapable or unwilling to act and constrained by a myriad of logistical, political and legal issues. Actors on the ground either find many ways to circumvent regulations or develop their own bricolage of patched, often uncoordinated, solutions; whereas in other cases corruption and capture occur, for example in water right trading rules, sometimes with the complicity – even bribing – of officials. Failed regulation has a continued impact on the envi...

Journal of Extreme Events, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic and anthropogenic climate change are global crises. We show how strongly th... more The COVID-19 pandemic and anthropogenic climate change are global crises. We show how strongly these crises are connected, including the underlying societal inequities and problems of poverty, substandard housing, and infrastructure including clean water supplies. The origins of all these crises are related to modern consumptive industrialisation, including burning of fossil fuels, increasing human population density, and replacement of natural with human dominated ecosystems. Because business as usual is unsustainable on all three fronts, transformative responses are needed. We review the literature on risk management interventions, implications for COVID-19, for climate change risk and for equity associated with biodiversity, water and WaSH, health systems, food systems, urbanization and governance. This paper details the considerable evidence base of observed synergies between actions to reduce pandemic and climate change risks while enhancing social justice and biodiversity cons...

Nature-based Solutions and Water Security, 2021

Ecological Economics, 2021

Abstract Nature based solutions are proposed as integrated solutions to transform the current wat... more Abstract Nature based solutions are proposed as integrated solutions to transform the current water intensive economic model to a more balanced model, where water is considered as an eco-social asset. We analyse the logic of action and underpinning belief systems, values, and norms of these evolving economic (and underpinning value) systems, through a conceptual frame based on a three layered institutional framework, considering new institutional economics and old institutionalism. This is applied to the case study of an intensively used aquifer of Medina del Campo in Spain, in relation to drought and water scarcity. We examine how water scarcity and drought are framed, and the implicit underpinning economic development models and values that help to legitimise decisions. It offers an application of the potential for natural assurance schemes as a specific type of nature based solutions to create safe landscapes and help transform the system through deep territorial transformation, based on a wider and deeper range of eco-social values. Systems which are more adaptable under climate change. The analysis of the definition of the problem (through individual stakeholder interviews) and the co-design of preferred choices through a series of participatory workshops led to the consideration of a wider range of options by stakeholders. We conclude that in Medina del Campo, the de-construction of the values and beliefs underpinning the concept of water scarcity as a problem, helps to re-construct adaptation to water scarcity as an opportunity for a more diversified and resilient economic model for long-term development. This is reflected in the selection of hybrid nature-based strategies (as compared to sole grey infrastructure strategies) that incorporate a broader range of values shifting from the single prioritisation of provision services to understanding water as a eco-social asset, encompassing the full range of ecosystem services, thus opening the decision-making space for additional long term climate resilient development.