sharing in governance of extractive industries
CIRDI's Program Manager Andre Xavier and colleagues from the University of British Columbia prepared a paper on Participatory Water Monitoring.
The paper is also being published in the MDPI journal entitled “Water” and it is part of a special issue on “Water Stewardship in Mining Regions” which is co-edited by Prof Neil McIntyre and Dr. Nadja Kunz. https://www.mdpi.com/journal/water/special_issues/Water_Stewardship...
Link to CIRDI’s website: http://cirdi.ca/?research=what-participation-distinguishing-water-m...
Abstract: Water issues are a major concern for the mining sector and for communities living near
mining operations. Water-related conflicts can damage a firm’s social license to operate while violent
conflicts pose devastating impacts on community well-being. Collaborative approaches to water
management are gaining attention as a proactive solution to prevent conflict. One manifestation of
these efforts is participatory water monitoring (PWM). PWM programs have the potential to generate
new scientific information on water quantity and quality, improve scientific literacy, generate trust
among stakeholders, improve water resource management and ultimately mitigate conflict. The
emergence of PWM programs signals a shift toward greater stakeholder collaboration and more
inclusive water governance within mining regions. In this article, we propose a new framework
to evaluate the degree and extent of community involvement in PWM programs. This framework
builds on citizen science literature. When applied to 20 cases in Latin America, notable differences
in the degree of community and company participation between PWM programs are found. These
differences suggest that companies and communities approach these programs from very different
points of view. It is concluded that more attentive collaboration between firms and communities
in the design of the program, the collection of data and interpretation of the results is needed to
effectively build trust through PWM.
Keywords: water monitoring; mining; participation;
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The publication of this paper was possible because of the dedication and hard work of my colleagues co-authors Claudio Pareja, Jordi Honey-Roses, Nadja Kunz and Jocelyn Fraser.
© 2019 Created by Kobina Aidoo.
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