Tropical Asian mega‐delta ponds: Important and threatened socio‐ecological systems

Moorhouse, Heather; Roberts, Lucy R.; McGowan, Suzanne; Panizzo, Virginia N.; Barker, Philip A.; Salehin, Mashfiqus; Nga, Thu; Thanh, Phong Nguyen; Rahman, Mokhlesur; Ghosh, Tuhin; Das, Sourav; Hackney, Christopher; Salgado, Jorge; Roy, Manoj; Opel, Aftab; Henderson, A.; Large, Andrew

doi:10.1002/geo2.103

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 140 publications

(192 reference statements)

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“…Restoring riparian vegetation along the banks of the Ganges is one way of potentially restoring the pristine ecological nature of the river (Mariya et al, 2019). Natural ponds located within the watershed may also need to be comprehensively evaluated for biodiversity and their exchange with other systems to improve environmental conditions within the basin (Moorhouse et al, 2021).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resolving the Ganges pollution paradox: A policy‐centric systematic review

Sigdel

Carlton

Gautam³

2023

River

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Despite the fact that it is one of the most sacred and holy rivers in the world, the Ganges River is paradoxically among the most polluted. Over the past decade, researchers have described various mechanisms and actions for improving the pollution problem within the Ganges watershed. The aim of this policy-centric systematic review is to summarize these recommendations to make them more accessible for concerned citizen groups and planners while also critically appraising their findings. Using the Reporting standards for Systematic Evidence Syntheses (ROSES) framework, our findings indicate that there are a wide range of potential solutions for mitigating pollution in the river system that originate from 37 peer-reviewed sources that encompass field studies, modeling analyses, and review articles. While we find that there are many actionable and thoughtprovoking recommendations for improving water quality and pollution mitigation given by authors studying the Ganges, there are also areas for improvement. Notably, there is a heavy focus on state-centric planning in the basin with only a few examples of policies that have been tailored toward encouraging communitybased solutions. This lack of community-based planning may relate to the fact that there is also a missing social dimension to policy recommendations in the Ganges watershed, where most of the articles that we reviewed were published in natural science journals and were not interdisciplinary in nature. Better reporting standards for recommendations arising from reviews and a greater focus on the interrelations between different components of the Ganges system may also yield novel and more trustworthy policy findings for practitioners.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resolving the Ganges pollution paradox: A policy‐centric systematic review

Sigdel

Carlton

Gautam³

2023

River

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“…This is possible through the active engagement of all actors within local communities enhanced by participatory co-management practices (7, 29, 38, 54, 77). Community-level information and citizen observation collected with approaches such as citizen science (examples from Moorhouse et al 2021 ) or other participatory methods can be meaningfully incorporated into each delta state (Reyes-García et al 2020 ; Syvitski et al 2022 ). Capacity-building can enhance smallholders socio-economic resilience.…”

Section: Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Causes and consequences of tipping points in river delta social–ecological systems

Cremin,

Ladd,

Balke

et al. 2024

Ambio

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The sustainability of social–ecological systems within river deltas globally is in question as rapid development and environmental change trigger “negative” or “positive” tipping points depending on actors’ perspectives, e.g. regime shift from abundant sediment deposition to sediment shortage, agricultural sustainability to agricultural collapse or shift from rural to urban land use. Using a systematic review of the literature, we show how cascading effects across anthropogenic, ecological, and geophysical processes have triggered numerous tipping points in the governance, hydrological, and land-use management of the world’s river deltas. Crossing tipping points had both positive and negative effects that generally enhanced economic development to the detriment of the environment. Assessment of deltas that featured prominently in the review revealed how outcomes of tipping points can inform the long-term trajectory of deltas towards sustainability or collapse. Management of key drivers at the delta scale can trigger positive tipping points to place social–ecological systems on a pathway towards sustainable development.

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“…Globally, riverine deltas comprise barely 1% of land area, but they support the livelihoods of more than 500 million people (Moorhouse et al, 2021). The Asian megadeltas (e.g., Indus, Bengal, Mekong, Red River, and Yangtze) and their riverine floodplains are the most dynamic economic and environmental systems in the world.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%