A theoretical model able to predict the main geometrical characteristics (crest orientation, wavelength, ...) of sand waves is applied at different locations of the North Sea, where large scale morphological patterns are observed. The predictions of the model are compared with data provided by field surveys and the obtained results show that the model provides a reliable description of the bottom forms generated by tidal currents in shallow seas

Since the turn of the millennium, the major development agencies have been promoting “knowledge for development,” “ICT for development,” or the “knowledge economy” as new paradigms to prompt development in less-developed countries. These paradigms display an unconditional trust in the power of Western technology and scientific knowledge to trigger development—they taste of epistemic and technological determinism. This article probes, by means of a genealogy, how and when development cooperation began adhering to epistemic and technological determinism, and which forms this adhesion has taken over time. The genealogy shows, first, that knowledge and technology have always been integrally part of the very “development” idea since this idea was shaped during enlightenment. Second, while the genealogy reveals that epistemic and technological determinism were embedded in the development idea from the very beginning, it also illustrates that the determinism has always been challenged by critical voices.

Ownership of development processes has been high on the international agenda since the Paris Declaration of 2005. There is, however, much discussion about whether highly aid-dependent governments can really 'own' policy reforms in their countries. In this paper, we argue that the ownership of policy reforms is the outcome of an interaction between individual agency and structural conditions. Taking the implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in Burkina Faso (since 1996) and Mali (since 2004) as an entry point, the paper describes the interplay between national policy makers, international organizations and dominant development discourses in the shaping of water policy reforms in both countries over the past 15 years. Despite the apparent uniformity of the global IWRM paradigm, a qualitative comparison of water policy changes in the two countries shows that policy reforms, as well as the extent to which they are 'owned' by national policy makers, are significantly distinct. This can be explained by different forms of individual agency and diverse structural conditions at a national level.