The governance of Digital Sequence Information (DSI) has become one of the most contested issues under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). While genetic resources have traditionally been governed through access and benefit-sharing (ABS) rules under the Nagoya Protocol, the rise of DSI has disrupted this framework. Disagreements persist over whether DSI should be treated as a global commons, openly accessible for research, or as a sovereign resource subject to national control. The 2024 Cali Fund represents a partial compromise, yet unresolved questions over contributions, allocation, and enforcement leave governance fragmented and fragile.

This thesis addresses these challenges by developing a hypergame model of DSI negotiations. Classical game theory explains stability under a shared strategic reality, but international negotiations often unfold under asymmetric perceptions: actors disagree not only on payoffs but also on the very game being played. The hypergame model formalises this divergence, enabling analysis of misperceptions, belief revision, and strategic surprise. Applied to DSI governance, the model evaluates how providers and users interact when they adopt different framings (DSI as commons or sovereign resource) and different international relations paradigms (liberalism or realism). ... Read more

The capacity map of NetbeheerNL highlights widespread grid congestion in the Netherlands, with nearly all regions lacking available electricity transport capacity for new connections. This imbalance between supply and demand prevents companies—and soon households in Gelderland—from accessing the grid. At the same time, the energy transition is shifting the system from a centralized model to a hybrid one, incorporating decentralized technologies like solar panels, wind turbines, and battery storage. This shift increases the need for space and places greater demands on the energy infrastructure. These developments underscore the need to integrate energy and spatial planning. However, the two domains currently operate independently. Energy infrastructure is typically installed after spatial developments, often resulting in delays due to unavailable grid capacity. The integration is further complicated by a fragmented stakeholder landscape with diverse interests, distributed responsibilities, and communication barriers. Improving collaboration is essential for effective integration. This research explores stakeholder perspectives on how to better align energy and spatial planning in the province of Gelderland. The central research question is: What are the perspectives on how to improve the integration of spatial planning and energy in Gelderland, the Netherlands? To define these perspectives, Q-methodology was used, in combination with literature review, desk research, and interviews. 

The first perspective (“Directive Design”) advocates for a proactive, top-down governance approach in which higher governmental bodies. It emphasizes the importance of governance process and structure, and transparency in sharing information. The second perspective (“Relational Pragmatism”) underscores the importance of informal collaboration between key actors—such as grid operators and spatial planners—in achieving effective integration. In addition, a balance between short-term and long-term goals is essential. The third perspective (“Adaptive Alignment”) advocates for a long-term, goal-oriented approach with a focus on stakeholder involvement—such as relevant stakeholders related to the specific issue. Effective communication, understanding, and trust is essential. In this perspective, the province and the grid operator are considered more influential. 

The results of the research also determined some areas for further research. These recommendations consider expanding the scope of the research, analyzing a more in-depth cross-sector analysis including the interdependencies, and focusing more in-depth on what energy integrated into spatial planning may look like. Beyond the defined perspectives, the research confirms that the integration of energy in spatial planning is not solely a technical or procedural challenge, but a political issue, making the integration largely dictated by political considerations. Therefore, further research regarding political decision-making in energy and spatial planning would be interesting. Furthermore, further research may be interesting to determine the roles of key stakeholders without formal authorities, such as grid operators and RES regions, in a political issue. Finally, further research is interesting regarding the influence of professional background on the view of stakeholders.  ... Read more

Historically, Central Asia and agriculture have had a tempestuous relationship. The collapse of the USSR in 1999 put agriculture fully in crisis. Greenhouses, a flourishing sector in the latter days of the USSR, almost fully disappeared. In attempt to gain self-sufficiency in fruit and vegetable production, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan reconsider greenhouses to stabilize horticulture in the region’s desertifying climate. Current water governance, formed by USSR political and technological path dependencies, has not been able to bolster this transnational infrastructure transition, in which water and energy systems are interrelated and shared across borders. That bears the question: how does path dependency influence infrastructure transitions in centralist and authoritarian regimes? A multiple-case study design gathered data about water governance in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan through a literature review and semi-structured interviews. Planned transitions in those regimes did not evolve as intended due to pushback from actors and USSR induced institutions, not being ready for change. An institutional structure to support transitions in those regimes is lacking due to institutional reproduction of USSR conception, reflecting little pluralism of actors, restricted actor interaction, and top-down governance. High sunk costs make it expensive and physically challenging to change or abandon existing (water) infrastructure, particularly without clear ownership and roles. Accordingly, the USSR conception of governance and past technological decisions lead to path dependencies and impede change in this transnational infrastructure. ... Read more

Water and development projects are development cooperation’s specifically focused on the water sector such as sanitation, drinking water, and water management. In these type of development programmes, governmental or public organizations that manage the water sector in a country are usually involved. These organizations use their financial resources to support development in low and middle income countries in the Global South, with the aim to achieve societal impact, often by contributing to the water focussed Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. As the financial resources often come from governmental agencies, it is public money. For the reason that achieving societal impact comes with its challenges, it is important that the recipients can provide accountability of what is done with the financial resources. This is done with the use of a monitoring and evaluation system, which is often required by donor agencies as a mean to provide accountability. Monitoring and evaluation systems involve a variety of actors. The system can have a variety of uses. In development cooperation they are mainly used to provide accountability towards donors and to learn how the cooperation can be improved. However, there is not always a good balance between those two uses, as the focus often lies more on accountability, which could cause missed opportunities to improve the effectiveness of the cooperation and therefore the societal impact. Therefore, this research focuses on the actor interactions in water and development cooperation and how the monitoring and evaluation systems influences the societal impact. This research is scoped as a case study of the IHE Delft Partnership Programme for Water and Development (DUPC2)... ... Read more

Sanitation should be made accessible to everyone. It is fundamental for our dignity and privacy. As centralized government has been observed to be limited in addressing complex problems, many developing countries resorted to decentralization. In theory, decentralization can improve the provision of public goods and services, including sanitation. Social and political factors are believed to be the leading cause of limiting the progress in the sanitation sector. Multiple studies have demonstrated the importance of social networks in sanitation governance. We propose to further explore interaction between actors based on key activities in sanitation sectors. We choose Jakarta, Indonesia, as our case study. Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, is inhabited by 10.56 million people (measured in September 2020). It is estimated that 86% of the population have not received access to properly managed domestic wastewater. The main research question to be answered is “How do the interactions among various actors influence sanitation service provision in Jakarta?”. This thesis explores the influence of multiple key activities to contextualize the current provision of sanitation services in Jakarta, Indonesia. We use the Network of Adjacent Action Situations (NAAS) framework proposed by McGinnis (2011). To identify the action situations, we use the sanitation service delivery function categories used by Mason et al. (2020). The sanitation service systems encompass the provision of related infrastructure, namely sewer network, septic tank, vacuum truck, sewage treatment plant, and fecal sludge treatment plants. Constitutionally, the provision of sanitation services in Indonesia are carried out by provincial and district governments. The provision started to be mandated by minimum public good and service standards in 2014. There is no sanitation law, nor it is integrated with the latest water resource law. Sanitation policies are mainly initiated on the national level. They largely came from four actors: (1) Ministry of Public Works and Housing, (2) Ministry of Health, (3) Ministry of Environment and Forestry, and (4) National Sanitation Working Group which comprise aforementioned ministries and other ministries. These three aforementioned ministries are the most active for sanitation service provision in the national stakeholders. In the subnational government, Jakarta Province, PD PAL Jaya is the technical operator of major sanitation infrastructures in Jakarta. The DKIJ Water Resource Agency is the counterpart of PD PAL Jaya in terms of sanitation service development. The development is additionally influenced by the DKIJ Regional Development Planning Agency, the governor, and the Governor Advisory Team. The DKIJ Environmental Agency is the enforcer of the wastewater standard. This thesis presents seven action situations (AS) constituting the NAAS of Jakarta’s sanitation service intended to describe the current sanitation governance: the National Policy AS, the Jakarta Policy AS, the National Regulation AS, the Jakarta Regulation AS, the National Financing AS, the Jakarta Financing AS, and the Jakarta Production & Provision AS. We found two leverage points where the outcome could cascade over to most other action situations. These are Jakarta Policy AS, which is mostly about planning, and the Jakarta Production & Provision AS which is concerned with implementation. ... Read more

The Global South is facing severe water and delta management challenges. Strong institutions are necessary to find solutions to these water challenges. To improve the understanding on institutions, development of knowledge and skills on institutions could be strengthened among local stakeholders. This process can be referred to as institutional focussed capacity development. In this study, it is explored how institutional focussed capacity development activities among local professionals in the water sector can be evaluated. An analytical evaluation framework for assessing capacity development initiatives from an institutional perspective is proposed. The framework is complemented by a step-by-step approach in which different elements necessary to identify change such as input of an intervention, the output, outcome and impact are specified. These elements are nested on an individual, organizational, and environmental level. The framework allows one to capture the relations between the elements and the interaction with the context through causal relations. To evaluate the development of institutional capacity, the framework is applied to a participatory institutional analysis project in Khulna through an illustrative case study. Moreover, the framework was validated with help of four experts. The study demonstrates that the framework and the step-by-step approach serve as an explorative analysis tool which supports in identifying the crucial elements and the relations of institutional capacity development. The framework allows us to identify different mechanisms of change caused by the process of capacity development and influenced by the contextual factors. The framework contributes to existing work by using causal relations and feedback loops to capture emergent behavior that underlies the process of capacity development. Based on the case study and expert sessions, the study proposes several recommendation to further develop the framework into a second version and to generalize the findings by application to additional cases both within and outside the water sector. ... Read more

The city of Kolkata in India is undergoing rapid urbanization and expansion. As the city expands and engulfs its neighboring areas, it threatens the sustainability of natural resources in peri-urban areas – spaces that are gradually transitioning from rural to urban areas. One such natural resource, groundwater, forms the lifeline of peri-urban communities near Kolkata, supporting their drinking, domestic, and livelihood needs. However, under conditions of rapid urbanization, industrialization and population growth, peri-urban areas witness over-exploitation of the groundwater resource. Limited capacity of formal government bodies to manage the resource coupled with ongoing trends of decentralization in India provide the basis for exploring new ways of managing groundwater in peri-urban areas. One such approach is community-based management (CBM) where local communities can craft rules and norms to sustainably manage a resource. This research studies two peri-urban areas near Kolkata to understand the groundwater problems faced by peri-urban communities, how they respond to these problems, and what challenges they face in resolving their problems. First, the Socio-Ecological Systems (SES) framework developed by Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues is used to structure and highlight the factors critical for managing groundwater in peri-urban areas. Next, the overall performance of CBM is evaluated using Ostrom’s design principles and 10 second-tier SES variables proposed by Ostrom (2009). The research shows that peri-urban communities at best cope with problems of groundwater scarcity or seek short-term solutions to delay periods of scarcity. The results from this evaluation show that although community-based management is a good strategy in theory, its realization in peri-urban areas will need to overcome barriers such as low predictability of the groundwater resource, lack of community-wide leadership, low autonomy to craft rules for groundwater management, and varied mental models. ... Read more

Research context

Open government data (OGD) publication and use is an important feature of an open government. However, In Dutch municipalities, the presumed created value from municipal OGD fails to live up to its potential, despite various OGD initiatives. Furthermore, there is a lack of knowledge about how value creating mechanisms work and how they can be stimulated in municipal contexts.
The objective of this study is therefore to identify value drivers and inhibitors in municipal open government data ecosystems. In order to do so, an in-depth analysis is conducted into the stakeholder perceptions regarding values, barriers and success factors related to these systems.

Research approach

In order to find an answer to the central research question how can the creation of value in municipal open government data ecosystems be facilitated? the ecosystem is approached using actor and strategy models (ASM). This methodology allows in-depth analyses of the stakeholder perceptions throughout the entire ecosystem, and in doing so opens up what is known in ASM as ”the actor dimension” in policy making. By applying the ASM method to open government data ecosystems, this thesis argues for a re-evaluation of the actor dimension in policy making decisions. Furthermore, this thesis seeks to contribute to current OGD theorizations by showing how an in-depth analysis of stakeholder perceptions throughout open data ecosystems not only strengthens policy making decisions down the line, but also expands various forms of value creation through OGD publication and usage.

Findings

The research question is divided into four sub-questions. The first question is: what does the municipal OGD ecosystem look like? Using a systematic literature review a conceptual model is developed of a municipal open government data ecosystem, portrayed as an actor arena, which is central in an ASM-approach. The ASM- approach allows an assessment of social/political, operational/tactical, and economic value creation. The actors in this model are municipalities, infomediaries, and citizens, who interact by performing tasks, which leads to value creation. Value creation is thus not inherent in specific groups of actors, but created in interactions and dispersed outside the OGD ecosystem itself throughout society. Furthermore, a distinction is made between active and passive interaction executed by citizens. This allows identification of four ecosystem categories: in the administrative domain (1) citizen informing and (2) citizen sourcing; and in the political domain (3) transparency/accountability and (4) collaborative democracy. Lastly, an overview of seven categories of barriers and success factors is presented.
This conceptual model was evaluated in an expert review, which led to the second sub-question: to what extent is the conceptual model of the municipal OGD ecosystem accurate, insightful and useful?. The conceptual model was perceived as too data-central, which led to the addition of a societal incentive in the ecosystem as a starting point. Secondly, the distinction between active and passive citizens tasks was perceived as novel insight, which underscored the importance of this viewpoint. Thirdly, the policy context was lacking in the experts’ view, hence it was taken into account by the identified success factors, which included policies.
Subsequently, the conceptual model was examined empirically in two case studies concerning a citizen inform- ing OGD initiative and a citizen sourcing OGD initiative. Stakeholder perceptions of infomediaries, municipalities and citizens were measured in order to answer the third sub-question: what are stakeholder perceptions on values, barriers and success factors of data initiatives in municipal OGD ecosystems? This led to several insights.
1.Stakeholders tend to perceive social/political and operational/tactical value of municipalities partaking in OGD initiatives more than economic value. In open government data initiatives for administrative purposes that consist of active citizen interaction mechanisms, additional value is created. This is the case because this research has shown that in such initiatives citizen sourcing benefits account for additional operational/tactical value and responsive governance benefits account for additional social/political value.
2. Infomediaries that were categorized as typical technical initiators of OGD initiatives tend to seek institu- tional support from municipalities or supra-municipal governmental organizations to implement OGD initiatives. Infomediary initiation is effective to ensure a societal incentive for these initiatives.
3. Municipal motives for participating in initiatives were assessed. Whereas some municipalities enthusias- tically participate, others are less willing to do so when OGD initiatives do not fit their perceived institutional contexts. This is especially the case if cross-municipal data-standards are embedded in municipal procedures that do not add value for that municipality. Sometimes municipalities expect infomediaries to generate data technically and are therefore, sometimes municipalities are less dedicated to perform their ecosystem tasks.
4. This research has shown that citizens need to be made aware of their interests in open government data initiatives, and actively encouraged in order for value to be created.
The results of the three analyses (literature, expert review, and case studies) insist on a revision of the conceptual model of the municipal ecosystem and generate answers to a fourth sub-question: what factors need to be incorporated in the model in order to increase the creation of value? Four value drivers have therefore been added: (1) institutional support for infomediary initiation, (2) technical support for implementation, (3) reaching out to citizens by engaging re-use platforms, and (4) mobilization of citizens by user-friendliness in OGD applications. Policy recommendations have been formulated to infomediaries, municipalities, and supra-municipal governmental organizations related to coordination and encouragement of value creation in OGD initiatives.

Scientific contributions

This study contributes to the open government data literature by identifying factors that stimulate value creation in the municipal OGD ecosystem (value drivers) and factors that reduce value generation in this ecosystem (value inhibitors). In contrast to many studies throughout open data literature, this study obtained in-depth insight into the actor dimension underlying municipal OGD ecosystem interactions and revealed some of the structuring mechanisms that influence OGD value creation. Moreover, tasks related to value creation in citizen centered open government data initiatives have not only been made explicit but are specifically attributed to various stakeholders. This study is among the first to apply an ASM approach to open data research, and its findings suggest ASM can be a fruitful method for analyzing open data ecosystems.

Societal contributions

Value creation in municipal OGD ecosystems should be encouraged by considering the suggested policy recom- mendations for infomediaries, municipalities and supra-municipal governmental organizations. Additionally, the conceptual model of municipal OGD ecosystems developed in this thesis can potentially be used in order to design more valuable OGD initiatives.

Future research

In future research, additional case studies of OGD initiatives are advised to use an ASM-approach in order to better take stakeholder perceptions into account. Future research should also consider examining OGD initiatives with a more economic focus, as well as those initiated by other categories of infomediaries such as media organizations or academic institutions. Lastly, citizen perspectives could be further evaluated using surveys and this aggregated citizen perspective could then be integrated into the ASM-model. ... Read more

Tackling climate change effects worldwide brings the interest of many donor countries with expertise to (co)develop solutions into beneficiary countries through international cooperation. The solutions proposed can be either too solution-driven, understood as a donor country selling its knowledge / products, or on the other hand, too locally problem-driven, which is desirable in theory, but facing practical limitations such as time or scale constraints when closing to outside influences. A methodology that tries to join both (apparently opposing) sides, with their advantages and disadvantages of problem and solution driven hasn’t been explored yet.
For exploring how this can be done, in this research 2 case studies are analyzed: the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 (BDP2100), a nation-wide long term holistic plan on the Bangladeshi Delta, and a group of Coastal Water Management initiatives, a set of continuous efforts to adopt livelihoods to the dynamic situation in the coastal regions of Bangladesh. These cases are analyzed through interviews and desk research to determine to what extent are they problem and solution driven compared to proposed frameworks, and pointing how can they be improved. From these analyses, a combined framework is proposed where problem and solution driven approaches are joined taking the best from each perspective. The result is meant to be a first guiding tool for decision-makers in donor and beneficiary countries that face the dilemma between taking local and foreign elements for developing solutions.
... Read more

The natural river deltas around the world are expeeriencing changes due to the relative sea level rise and the large number of people settled around these fertile areas are experiencing threat to the livelihoods. Various research intiatives stem from the warning signals in these regions and governments attempt to re-align their strategic vision to support the long-term development of these regions. However, once the strategic plans are formalized, the implmentation does not always go as intended, due to the lack of local context, institutional arrangements, and availability of resources.
In this research, an attempt is made to structure the process of implementation by proposing a frmaework to keep track of the implementation process, as the project moves forward. The framework is then operationalized for a province in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, where the developments are studied and compared with the strategic objectives of the region. ... Read more

This research emerged from the need to improve the Netherlands’ contribution to international water and sanitation service delivery. Over the previous two decades these serviced were not found to be sufficient sustainable according to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2013). This thesis researches how development aid organisations can contribute to sustainable WASH services by looking to the strategic planning process.
In this research an adaptive planning approach is designed to contribute to long-term sustainable WASH services. It is a systematic step-wise pro-active approach where planners need to think beforehand of ways a plan might fail and design adaptation actions to guard against such failure. An adaptive planning approach has been adapted for sustainable WASH services and consist of three systematic steps:(1) defining the impact and critical assumptions of the WASH programme, (2) defining relevant uncertainties by using contextual scenarios, and (3) defining adaptation actions and the timing of the actions.
The content and the applicability of the adaptive planning approach for long-term sustainable WASH has been examined during this research in the context of Bangladesh. To examine the approach a single case study is used. In this research multiple research methods have been applied to improve the reliability and validity of the findings, but also to capture different perspectives on this topic. First by means of an adaptive planning workshop in the Netherlands with WASH experts from the Dutch NGO Simavi and sequential by means of a field-research in Bangladesh, including interviews with local project stakeholders and field-trips.
It can be concluded that WASH experts in the Netherlands and the project stakeholders in Bangladesh reacted differently on the three systematic steps of the adaptive planning approach for sustainable WASH. The indirectly involved project stakeholders - WASH experts - found it easy to question project assumptions and to identify critical assumptions for the project failure but could not propose specific adaptation actions. The directly involved project stakeholder - local project stakeholders in Bangladesh - found it more difficult to criticize and reassess project assumptions, but they defined feasible adaptation actions.
It can be argued that ‘misrepresentation’ of critical assumptions of the project created hazard to all sequential steps of the adaptive planning approach for long-term sustainable WASH services.
Purposely defining scenarios of success and gloss over the potential for failure, conflicts with the pro-active adaptive planning approach to define adaptation actions at the begin of the project. Therefore, it is questionable whether all systematic steps of the approach serve the interest of all project stakeholders. This makes that the adaptive planning approach, as it is designed now, does not contribute to long-term sustainable WASH services in environments where project incentives are on benefits and not on robustness.
Based on the findings of this research, it can be recommended that different components of the adaptive planning approach for long-term sustainable WASH services should be practices by different involved parties.

... Read more

A water crisis is looming for Lebanon. Economic growth, natural population growth and the inflow of refugees from Syria cause an increased water demand in Lebanon. In the meanwhile, the precipitation rates of Lebanon are decreasing. An important water source of Lebanon is the Litani river, which is totally located within the borders of Lebanon. The water of this river is used for agricultural purposes, production of hydropower and supply of domestic water. At the moment, domestic water supply is only a small user of the water of the Litani river. However, water supply from the Litani river to the capital of Lebanon, Beirut is proposed. The Litani already nearly dries up each year and therefore the water allocation of the Litani river has to be optimised. This research aims to optimise the water allocation of Lebanon, in order to protect the country against the looming water crisis. Since the Litani is the most important river of Lebanon, the research focuses only on this basin: the Litani River Basin (LRB).
Optimal water allocation is achieved when the social benefits gained from the deviation of water are at a maximum. The social benefits are described by three principles: economic efficiency, social equity and sustainability. Since the Litani river is an important source for the Lebanese economy, the economic efficiency principle is assumed to be the most important principle in optimising the water allocation.This means that the optimal water allocation is achieved when the profits from the deviation of water are maximised. In order to optimise the water allocation in the LRB, the current water allocation is needed. In this research project, first the current water allocation will be described. Afterwards,
scenarios will be applied to see what the effect is on the current water allocation. The research ends with the implementation of measures in order to see their effect on the water allocation.
The current water allocation is based on hydrological data of the area and the assumption that in the current water allocation everyone tries to maximise the total income of the LRB.

The water of the Litani river is used by three different sectors: agriculture, energy and supply of domestic water. In most of these sectors, water does not directly generate a profit. For example the agricultural sector: yields are increased by the availability of water and these yields will be sold. Formulas of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) are used in order to determine the actual yields. The actual yield depends on reference evapotranspiration, actual evapotranspiration and crop characteristics. 훼 is added to the equation in order
to model the current situation. 훼 describes the current power of the agricultural sector. This value is based on the current amount of water flowing to this sector and the profits that are generated within this sector. The value of this objective function is limited by the hydrological conditions of the area. The current power of the agricultural sector is 0.445. Therefore, the power of the hydropower sector is 0.555. When water is used for the production of hydropower, it can be used for other purposes afterwards. A part of the water that is used for the production of hydropower is used for the supply of domestic water afterwards, therefore the domestic water sector is not included in the objective function.

In the current water allocation 71.7% of the water is used in the agricultural sector. The other 28.3% is used to produce hydropower. Of this water 23.4% is afterwards supplied as domestic water to the inhabitants of the LRB. The agricultural water use is mainly high in the subbasins with a high marginal
value. If one extra unit of water is flowing to these subbasins, the increase in the profits will be significant. The model is based on the assumption that all individuals try to maximise the total income of the Litani River Basin and therefore the water will be used in the subbasins with the highest marginal
value.

Two scenarios are applied to see the effect on the current water allocation: a water supply to Beirut and a flow to the downstream subbasins. Water supply to Beirut is a proposed solution in order to provide the inhabitants of Beirut with enough domestic water. The water that will be supplied to Beirut, first will be used to produce hydropower. Therefore, the minimum flow to the hydropower stations will be 93 million 푚3/year. In order to reach this amount of water, less water will be used for agriculture. This causes a decrease in the profits generated within the area. Furthermore, the Qaraoun Lake is over-exploited. In the end of the season in which hydropower is produced, the Qaraoun Lake is almost empty. In the first years, 93 million 푚3/year can be delivered to Beirut. However, the Lake has to be over-exploited to reach this amount and therefore the water could not be supplied in the last years.The demand of Beirut is too high to be supplied by the LRB.
The supply of water to the downstream basins will only take place during the dry months. In the current water allocation the water level is high during these months, since the water is not used for the production of hydropower in these months. During the dry period, the demand of the agriculture in the downstream subbasins is high. During these months 10% of the water stored in the Qaraoun Lake will flow downstream. The profit will remain more or less constant, however the flow to the hydropower stations will decrease. The amount flowing from the Qaraoun Lake to the downstream subbasins is small compared to the area of the downstream subbasins and therefore the effect will not be significant.

Measures are proposed to see how the water allocation could be optimised. Replacing water sensitive crops by water insensitive crops is the best way to optimise the water allocation within the LRB. There are two reasons why this measure is the most effective one. The first reason has to do with the yield
response factor. Water insensitive crops have a lower yield response factor and therefore the decrease in yield will be less significant when a water-deficit occurs. Furthermore, the water insensitive seasonal crops are groundnut and tobacco. These crops are profitable crops and this will positively affect the water allocation within the LRB as well. The other principles of optimising the water allocation are social equity and sustainability. It is difficult to give a conclusion about the sustainability, since the exact water levels in the Litani are unknown. However, the system is not sustainable when it has to supply water to Beirut. In order to reachthis demand, the water of the lake has to be over-exploited. A conclusion can be drawn about thesocial equity principle, agricultural water is available within the entire LRB and the agricultural profits generated per hectare are equally divided over the area. Since there is enough water available for the inhabitants of the LRB and agricultural water is available over the entire basin, the water allocation is optimal according to the social equity principle. However, when Beirut is included in this social equity principle, the water allocation will be optimal when water is supplied to Beirut as well. ... Read more

In the effort to address flood problems in Jakarta, the Indonesian and Dutch Government finalized a study called Jakarta Coastal Defence Strategy (JCDS) in 2011. In the study, it is concluded that an offshore solution is crucial to protect Jakarta from the threat of sea level rise in the coastal area. The collaboration between these two countries was later continued by realizing the Master Plan for the National Capital Integrated Coastal Development (NCICD). The main purpose of this master plan is to provide a long-term solution for flooding problems. In addition to the main purpose, this plan also addresses other urban problems, proposes a solution to improve the coastal zone area and facilitates socio-economic development in the area. This project encounters high resistance from public and is deemed to be controversial in the public domain as the plan includes the construction of a large protection wall enclosing the sea and land reclamation. The public perceives that this project would have fatal environmental and social impacts, including the disappearance of mangrove forest, undesirable effect on the livelihoods of vulnerable communities, etc. Hitherto the plan has remained controversial, despite formal assessment conducted by the Indonesian government and Dutch consultants, in which the plan is considered as a measure to save Jakarta from being a sinking city caused by an alarming rate of land subsidence. Noting this constant debate of the project, identifying values of stakeholders is, therefore, important to understand the underlying reasons of persistent oppositions. Hence the objective of this research is to develop an approach for mitigating conflicting values in a public project in Indonesia as the supporting tool for decision making process.

To be able to understand the decision-making process and identify the values at stake, an analysis was performed based on 243 newspaper articles which were selected using the keywords: ‘giant sea wall’ and ‘NCICD’ within a time period of 57 months; from January 2011 to September 2016. From these articles, the decision-making process was constructed to analyze how the decision-making process was conducted in the past and what important aspects have been missed in the implementation of decision-making process. In addition, values of the stakeholders were also identified by analyzing the arguments set forth by diverse stakeholders.

From the previous literature and analysis in this research, it has been observed that there are certain stakeholders who are necessary to be involved but are still underrepresented in the plan. Furthermore, the values which are fundamental to certain stakeholders have not been covered in the previous assessments. Therefore, in this research, the values of stakeholders are adopted as the basis of using expert methods in decision-making process in combination with the stakeholder participation method. To conclude this research, the following list is the summary of the developed approaches in which an adapted version of existing methods are used to address specific value conflict: EIA and MCA as the method to mitigate the value conflict of safety, economic development vs environmental protection (i), CBA as a method to mitigate safety, economic development, cost-recovery vs economic and welfare (general), utilities (ii), VSD as the method to mitigate value conflict between safety, economic development vs economic and welfare (affected communities), culture/ Identity (iii), and VSD as a method to mitigate value conflicts between safety, economic development vs port development (economic interest) (iv).
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On a daily basis we (in) directly make use of functions of various infrastructures: we drive on roads and bridges or we live without worries behind the safety of a dike. Only when there are cracks in the dike or a particular bridge is not accessible due to for example a broken pillar, we realize how critical these infrastructures are for our society and economy. These infrastructures are not build to last forever and they are susceptible to breakdowns, especially as some are reaching the end of their technical lifespan. Building new infrastructures is simply not an option, as this is often financially and logistically not feasible. Getting as much as possible out of the remaining technical lifespan of such critical infrastructures is then down to employing innovative maintenance strategies, such as risk and opportunity based asset management, as is being done in the ROBAMCI project, initiated by Deltares. Management and maintenance of infrastructures already takes place in a multi-actor environment. Adding systematic approaches on top of this multi-actor environment requires maintenance managers to further integrate their decision making processes. However, analysis have shown that there is a clear lack of this integrated decision making. Literature has further shown that this could be as a result of a lack of information sharing between organizations. Improving inter-organizational information sharing, however first requires further understandings. This research project is done with the goal to achieve that understanding. A case-study in the context of ROBAMCI was used to study this concpt in a practical environment. The asset in this case was a sea-lock complex located in Delfzijl, which not only performs functions for shipping, but also has various other direct and indirect functions, influencing for example local nature, economy and regional water management. Theoretical knowledge, gained from literature studies, was then used to interpret the data from in-depth interviews with employees of identified organizations. The empirical findings, interpreted through various sources of literature showed that there is a wide array of factors influencing inter-organizational information sharing in the case-study. Among the most mentioned and expected were trust, competing interests/self-interests and legislations & policies. Organizations also add value to the importance of personal physical interactions and even though the information sharing takes place between actors of one national government, concern for information misuse is also seen as a potential barrier for information sharing. The data has also led to the formation of some factor-relations, we see e.g. that trust forms a positive causal relation with not only information sharing itself, but also has a negative causal relation with concerns of the quality of the information. Data also makes it clear that there is an interrelation between the 3 levels of information sharing. These findings, backed by theory have led to the identification of 2 general fundamentals that can be taken into account when trying to further understand information sharing. The first one focuses on trust and legislations, whereas the second one addresses on the embeddedness of the information sharing levels. Conclusively it can be said that inter-organizational information sharing helps to make more efficient and effective decisions for the management and maintenance of assets. There are many factors that can either positively or negatively influence information sharing. It is recommended that through further studying factor relations their importance can be determined. This can also help to reduce the high number of factors and frameworks. For ROBAMCI it is recommended to use the results of this research as input for a maturity analysis focusing on the inter-organizational information management of organizations in the sector. ... Read more