Sustainable Production Consumption Systems brings together a set of designed case studies intended to provide a more in-depth understanding of challenges and opportunities in bringing knowledge and actions closer together for the sustainable management of specific production and consumption systems. The case study approach enabled researchers to engage directly with some of the actors involved in the production, consumption or regulation of specific goods or services and other stakeholders affected by those processes. Such engagement was particularly worthwhile when it helped mobilize actors to pursue linking knowledge with action in ways that improve the prospects for sustainability.

Sustainable Production Consumption Systems brings together a set of designed case studies intended to provide a more in-depth understanding of challenges and opportunities in bringing knowledge and actions closer together for the sustainable management of specific production and consumption systems. The case study approach enabled researchers to engage directly with some of the actors involved in the production, consumption or regulation of specific goods or services and other stakeholders affected by those processes. Such engagement was particularly worthwhile when it helped mobilize actors to pursue linking knowledge with action in ways that improve the prospects for sustainability.

Global environmental change occupies a central niche in the pantheon of modern sciences. There is an urgent need to know and understand the way in which global biogeochemical cycles have changed over different time scales in the past and are likely to do so in the future. Equally important, it is necessary to determine the extent to which natural variability and that induce by anthropogenic activities are bringing about change. A number of international co-operative scientific programmes ad dress these issues. Chief among them are the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the Inter national Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP) for global change. This book is one of a series of IGBP syntheses drawing together findings in global environmental change over the past decade or so. One focus of IGBP activities is the System for Analysis, Research and Training (START). Co-sponsored by the WCRP and IHDP, START establishes regional research networks for global change science in developing countries, stimulates and carries out global change research in developing regions of the world, and builds capacity to undertake such research at personal, institutional and regional levels. Several regional global change networks have been established, and much regional research has been accomplished in the last five years or so. In this book, work relating to four of the older START regions, Southern Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, will be used as case studies to illustrate regional-global linkages in Earth System Science.

Over the last few decades, the Mekong region has been facing complex pressures and challenges in water governance driven by a range of economic integration efforts and relationships motivated by national self-interest. This book, the first in a three-volume series, brings together the work of researchers, scholars, activists, and leaders in the Mekong region to provide a baseline, state-of-knowledge review of the contemporary politics and discourses of water use, sharing, and management, and their implications for local livelihoods.The book critically analyzes contested discourses on such topics as regional hydropower development, floods, and irrigation, along with the broader yet interrelated issues of gender, media, dialogue, and impact assessment. The writers explore the interplay of power relationships between state planners, regional institutions, the private sector, and various water users, in particular, politically marginalized groups including women, urban and rural poor, and ethnic peoples. The diverse array of topics and perspectives provides a sound basis for engaging in policy-related action. Written in straightforward language that elucidates complex issues from hydrological modeling to energy planning and reform, the volume presents the evolving study and knowledge of water governance in the Mekong region.