Policy Is Policy and Science Is Science: Shall the Twain Ever Meet? - Governing the Nexus: Water, Soil and Waste Resources Considering Global Change - page 217

4 Expected Outcomes for Science and Policy

4.1 The Nexus Observatory

The scienti c and policy-oriented activities that advance the nexus approach to

management of environmental resources will constitute important outcomes of the
research project. The UNU-FLORES nexus observatory will play an important role
as an incubator of policy relevant research questions and help identify triggers for
policy and institutional reform in developing and emerging economies (Kurian and
Meyer, forthcoming ). In addition, the classi catory function of the observatory will

serve to generate knowledge that clari es the role of the following factors in

management of environmental resources: (1) trade-offs, (2) synergies, (3) processes
of intersection and interaction covering both biophysical and institutional domains,
(4) trans-disciplinary research methods that capture the outcomes of adopting a
nexus approach to management of environmental resources and (5) regional/pro-
grammatic context of a speci c development intervention. Data visualization

techniques that can effectively address the challenges of data availability and reli-
ability in developing and emerging country contexts can prove useful in advancing
the nexus approach to management of environmental resources as outlined below
(see Table 1 ).

Table 1 The classi catory function of an observatory: an indicative list
Science
concerns

Policy concerns Nexus concerns Governance

concerns

Sustainability
of Water
Sources

Irrigation
services/pro-poor,
life-cycle costs of
infrastructure projects,
drought forecasting,
monitoring and response,
data availability and
reliability

Multiple uses/
boundary
conditions, material
and energy flows
and fluxes

Pricing/subsidies,
poverty/feedback
loops/data
visualization

Contamination
of Water
Sources

Water supply/livestock
services/life-cycle costs of
infrastructure projects,
drought forecasting, mon-
itoring and response, data
availability and reliability

Soil-water nexus,
hydro-geology,
remote sensing

Pricing/subsidies,
poverty/feedback
loops/data
visualization

Wastewater treatment/
life-cycle costs of
infrastructure projects,
drought forecasting, mon-
itoring and response, data
availability and reliability

Recycle and reuse Pricing/subsidies,

human behaviour/
poverty/feedback
loops/data
visualization