Search results for: communal conflicts.

Authors: Dalal Benboutrif

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Religion and Development relation is one of the most arguable phrases amongst politicians, philosophers, clerics, scientists, sociologists and even the public. The main objective of this research is to clarify the relations, contrasts and interactions between religion and the major types of development including social, political, economic and scientific developments, by focusing on Islam religion. A review of the literature was performed concerning religion and development relations and conflicts, by focusing on Islam religion and then the unprocessed tips of the review were characterized. Regarding clarification of the key points of the literature, three main sectors were considered in the research. The first sector of the research mainly focused on the philosophical views on religion, which were analyzed by main evaluation of three famous philosophers’ ideas: ‘Kant’, ‘Hegel’ and ‘Weber’, and then a critical discussion on Weber’s idea about Islam and development was applied. The second sector was specified to ‘Religion and Development’ and mainly discussed the role of religion in development through poverty reduction, the interconnection of religion, spirituality and social development, religious education effects on social development, and the relation of religion with political development. The third sector was specified to ‘Islam and Development’ and mainly discussed the Islamic golden age of science, major reasons of today’s backwardness (non-development) of most Islamic countries, and Quranic instructions regarding adaptability of Islam with development. The findings of the current research approved the research hypothesis as: ‘Religious instructions (included Islam) are not in conflict with development’, rather, it could have positive effects mainly on social development and it can pave the way for society to develop. Turkey was considered as a study model, as a successful developed Islamic country demonstrating the non-conflicting relation of Islam and development.

Keywords: Development, Islam, philosophy, religion.

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Authors: Kumara Jayapathma J. H. M. S. S., Dampegama S. D. P. J.

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Lands are valuable & limited resource which constantly changes with the growth of the population. An efficient and good land management system is essential to avoid conflicts associated with lands. This paper aims to design the prototype model of a Mobile GIS Land use and Land Information System in real-time. Homagama Divisional Secretariat Division situated in the western province of Sri Lanka was selected as the study area. The prototype model was developed after reviewing related literature. The methodology was consisted of designing and modeling the prototype model into an application running on a mobile platform. The system architecture mainly consists of a Google mapping app for real-time updates with firebase support tools. Thereby, the method of implementation consists of front-end and back-end components. Software tools used in designing applications are Android Studio with JAVA based on GeoJSON File structure. Android Studio with JAVA in GeoJSON File Synchronize to Firebase was found to be the perfect mobile solution for continuously updating Land use and Land Information System (LIS) in real-time in the present scenario. The mobile-based land use and LIS developed in this study are multiple user applications catering to different hierarchy levels such as basic users, supervisory managers, and database administrators. The benefits of this mobile mapping application will help public sector field officers with non-GIS expertise to overcome the land use planning challenges with land use updated in real-time.

Keywords: Android, Firebase, GeoJSON, GIS, JAVA, JSON, LIS, mobile GIS, real-time, REST API.

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Authors: Nina Kaufmans

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Traditional treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that rely primarily on oral narratives are partially insufficient to prevent PTSD symptoms from recurrence. As a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic, war conflicts, and economic crises, a rising proportion of users of mental health services express somatically based distress in addition to their existing mental health symptoms. Furthermore, the rapid increase in demand for mental health services has resulted in substantial burnout among mental health professionals, which may further impact the quality of services provided and the sustainability of professional life-work balance. This article examines the implications of current developments and challenges in mental health services demand and subsequent responses, as well as the effects of those responses on mental health professionals. The article examines the neurobiological mechanisms underlying traumatic experiences, then discusses the premises for "bottom-up," or somatically oriented, psychotherapy approaches, and concludes with suggestions for clinical skills and interventions to be used by practitioners who work with clients diagnosed with PTSD. In addition, we examine how somatically based psychotherapy interventions performed in sessions might reduce clinician burnout and improve their well-being. We examine how incorporating somatically based therapies into counseling will boost the efficacy of mental health recovery and maintain remission while providing mental health practitioners with chances for self-care.

Keywords: Somatic psychotherapy interventions, trauma counseling, preventing and treating burnout, adults with PTSD, bottom-up skills, the effectiveness of trauma treatment.

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Authors: Yiorgos Hadjichristou

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The paper will focus on the hybrid living typologies which are brought about due to the Global Crisis. Mixing of the generations and the groups of people, mingling the functions of living with working and socializing, merging the act of living in synergy with the urban realm and its constituent elements will be the springboard of proposing an essential sustainable housing approach and the respective urban development. The thematic will be based on methodologies developed both on the academic, educational environment including participation of students’ research and on the practical aspect of architecture including case studies executed by the author in the island of Cyprus. Both paths of the research will deal with the explorative understanding of the hybrid ways of living, testing the limits of its autonomy. The evolution of the living typologies into substantial hybrid entities, will deal with the understanding of new ways of living which include among others: re-introduction of natural phenomena, accommodation of the activity of work and services in the living realm, interchange of public and private, injections of communal events into the individual living territories. The issues and the binary questions raised by what is natural and artificial, what is private and what public, what is ephemeral and what permanent and all the in-between conditions are eloquently traced in the everyday life in the island. Additionally, given the situation of Cyprus with the eminent scar of the dividing ‘Green line’ and the waiting of the ‘ghost city’ of Famagusta to be resurrected, the conventional way of understanding the limits and the definitions of the properties is irreversibly shaken. The situation is further aggravated by the unprecedented phenomenon of the crisis on the island. All these observations set the premises of reexamining the urban development and the respective sustainable housing in a synergy where their characteristics start exchanging positions, merge into each other, contemporarily emerge and vanish, changing from permanent to ephemeral. This fluidity of conditions will attempt to render a future of the built- and unbuilt realm where the main focusing point will be redirected to the human and the social. Weather and social ritual scenographies together with ‘spontaneous urban landscapes’ of ‘momentary relationships’ will suggest a recipe for emerging urban environments and sustainable living. Thus, the paper will aim at opening a discourse on the future of the sustainable living merged in a sustainable urban development in relation to the imminent solution of the division of island, where the issue of property became the main obstacle to be overcome. At the same time, it will attempt to link this approach to the global need for a sustainable evolution of the urban and living realms.

Keywords: Social ritual scenographies, spontaneous urban landscapes, substantial hybrid entities, re-introduction of natural phenomena.

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Authors: C. Leiber

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International human rights treaties ensure basic rights to all people, regardless of nationality. These treaties have developed in a predominantly Western environment, and their implementation into non-western contexts often raises questions of the transfer-ability of value systems and governance structures. International human rights treaties also postulate the right to the full enjoyment and expression of one’s own culture, known as cultural rights. Many cultural practices and traditions in South Sudan serve as an obstacle to the adaptation of human rights and internationally agreed-upon standards, specifically those pertaining to women’s rights and gender equality. This paper analyzes the specific social, political, and economic conflicts between women’s rights and cultural rights within the context of South Sudan’s evolution into a sovereign nation. It comprehensively evaluates the legal status of South Sudanese women and –based on the empirical evidence- assesses gender equality in four key areas: Marriage, Education, Violence against Women, and Inheritance. This work includes an exploration into how South Sudanese culture influences, and indeed is intertwined with, social, political, and economic spheres, and how it limits gender equality and impedes the full implementation of international human rights treaties. Furthermore, any negative effects which systemic gender inequality and cultural practices that are oppressive to women have on South Sudan as a developing nation are explored. Finally, those areas of conflict between South Sudanese cultural rights and international women’s rights are outlined which can be mitigated or resolved in favor of elevating gender equality without imperializing or destroying South Sudanese culture.

Keywords: Cultural rights, gender equality, international human rights, South Sudan.

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Authors: Ilona Copik

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The aim of this study is to analyze the representation of memories of the forced displacement of Poles and Germans from the eastern territories in 1945 as depicted by Polish and German feature films between the years 1945-1960. The aftermath of World War II and the Allied agreements concluded at Yalta and Potsdam (1945) resulted in changes in national borders in Central and Eastern Europe and the large-scale transfer of civilians. The westward migration became a symbol of the new post-war division of Europe, new spheres of influence separated by the Iron Curtain. For years it was a controversial topic in both Poland and Germany due to the geopolitical alignment (the socialist East and capitalist West of Europe), as well as the unfinished debate between the victims and perpetrators of the war. The research premise is to take a comparative view of the conflicted cultures of Polish and German memory, to reflect on the possibility of an international dialogue about the past recorded in film images, and to discover the potential of film as a narrative warning against totalitarian inclinations. Until now, films made between 1945 and 1960 in Poland and the German occupation zones have been analyzed mainly in the context of artistic strategies subordinated to ideology and historical politics. In this study, the intention is to take a critical approach leading to the recognition of how films work as collective memory media, how they reveal the mechanisms of memory/ forgetting, and what settlement topoi and migration myths they contain. The main hypothesis is that feature films about forced displacement, in addition to the politics of history - separate in each country - reveal comparable transnational individual experiences: the chaos of migration, the trauma of losing one's home, the conflicts accompanying the familiar/foreign, the difficulty of cultural adaptation, the problem of lost identity, etc.

Keywords: Forced displacement, Polish and German cinema, war victims, World War II.

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Authors: Lobat Taghavi, Najaf Hedayat

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Renewable water resources are crucial production variables in arid and semi-arid regions where intensive agriculture is practiced to meet ever-increasing demand for food and fiber. This is crucial for the Dez and Moghan command areas where water delivery problems and adverse environmental issues are widespread. This paper aims to identify major problems areas using on-farm surveys of 200 farmers, agricultural extensionists and water suppliers which was complemented by secondary data and field observations during 2010- 2011 cultivating season. The SPSS package was used to analyze and synthesis data. Results indicated inappropriate canal operations in both schemes, though there was no unanimity about the underlying causes. Inequitable and inflexible distribution was found to be rooted in deficient hydraulic structures particularly in the main and secondary canals. The inadequacy and inflexibility of water scheduling regime was the underlying causes of recurring pest and disease spread which often led to the decline of crop yield and quality, although these were not disputed, the water suppliers were not prepared to link with the deficiencies in the operation of the main and secondary canals. They rather attributed these to the prevailing salinity; alkalinity, water table fluctuations and leaching of the valuable agro-chemical inputs from the plants- route zone with farreaching consequences. Examples of these include the pollution of ground and surface resources due to over-irrigation at the farm level which falls under the growers- own responsibility. Poor irrigation efficiency and adverse environmental problems were attributed to deficient and outdated farming practices that were in turn rooted in poor extension programs and irrational water charges.

Keywords: water delivery, inequity, inflexibility, conflicts, environmental impact, Dez and Moghan

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Authors: Emine Tirali

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This article provides a conceptual framework of the freedom of media and its correlation with democracy. In a democracy, media should serve the publics’ right to know and reflect human rights violations and offer options for meaningful political choices and effective participation in civic affairs. On that point, the 2013 events at Gezi Park in Turkey are a good empirical example to be discussed. During the events, when self-censorship was broadly employed by mainstream Turkish media, social media filled the important role of providing information to the public. New technologies have made information into a fundamental tool for change and growth, and as a consequence, societies worldwide have merged into a single, interdependent, and autonomous organism. For this reason, violations of human rights can no longer be considered domestic issues, but rather global ones. Only global political action is an adequate response. Democracy depends on people shaping the society they live in, and in order to accomplish this, they need to express themselves. Freedom of expression is therefore necessary in order to understand diversity and differing perspectives, which in turn are necessary to resolve conflicts among people. Moreover, freedom of information is integral to freedom of expression. In this context, the international rules and laws regarding freedom of expression and freedom of information – indispensable for a free and independent media – are examined. These were put in place by international institutions such as the United Nations, UNESCO, the Council of Europe, and the European Union, which have aimed to build a free, democratic, and pluralist world committed to human rights and the rule of law. The methods of international human rights institutions depend on effective and frequent employment of mass media to relay human rights violations to the public. Therefore, in this study, the relationship between mass media and democracy, the process of how mass media forms public opinion, the problems of mass media, the neo-liberal theory of mass media, and the use of mass media by NGOs will be evaluated.

Keywords: Freedom of expression, democracy, public opinion, self-censorship.

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Authors: Feyzan Tuzkaya, Nihan S. Soylu, Çağlar Solak, Hilal Peker, Mehmet Peker, Kemal Özeralp, Ceren Mete, Ezgi Mehmetoğlu, Mehmet Karasu, Cihan Elçi, Ece Akca, Melek Göregenli

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Perception, evaluation and representation of the environment have been the subject of many disciplines including psychology, geography and architecture. In environmental and social psychology literature there are several evidences which suggest that cognitive representations about a place consisted of not only geographic items but also social and cultural. Mental representations of residence area or a country are influenced and determined by social-demographics, the physical and social context. Thus, all mental representations of a given place are also social representations. Cognitive maps are the main and common instruments that are used to identify spatial images and the difference between physical and subjective environments. The aim of the current study is investigating the mental and social representations of Turkey in university students’ minds. Data was collected from 249 university students from different departments (i.e. psychology, geography, history, tourism departments) of Ege University. Participants were requested to reflect Turkey in their mind onto the paper drawing sketch maps. According to the results, cognitive maps showed geographic aspects of Turkey as well as the context of symbolic, cultural and political reality of Turkey. That is to say, these maps had many symbolic and verbal items related to critics on social and cultural problems, ongoing ethnic and political conflicts, and actual political agenda of Turkey. Additionally, one of main differentiations in these representations appeared in terms of the East and West side of the Turkey, and the representations of the East and West was varied correspondingly participants’ cultural background, their ethnic values, and where they have born. The results of the study were discussed in environmental and social psychological perspective considering cultural and social values of Turkey and current political circumstances of the country.

Keywords: Cognitive maps, East and West, politics, social representations, Turkey.

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Authors: Ebipatei Victoria Tunyan, T. A. Cao, Cheol Young Ock

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Detecting subjectively biased statements is a vital task. This is because this kind of bias, when present in the text or other forms of information dissemination media such as news, social media, scientific texts, and encyclopedias, can weaken trust in the information and stir conflicts amongst consumers. Subjective bias detection is also critical for many Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks like sentiment analysis, opinion identification, and bias neutralization. Having a system that can adequately detect subjectivity in text will boost research in the above-mentioned areas significantly. It can also come in handy for platforms like Wikipedia, where the use of neutral language is of importance. The goal of this work is to identify the subjectively biased language in text on a sentence level. With machine learning, we can solve complex AI problems, making it a good fit for the problem of subjective bias detection. A key step in this approach is to train a classifier based on BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) as upstream model. BERT by itself can be used as a classifier; however, in this study, we use BERT as data preprocessor as well as an embedding generator for a Bi-LSTM (Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory) network incorporated with attention mechanism. This approach produces a deeper and better classifier. We evaluate the effectiveness of our model using the Wiki Neutrality Corpus (WNC), which was compiled from Wikipedia edits that removed various biased instances from sentences as a benchmark dataset, with which we also compare our model to existing approaches. Experimental analysis indicates an improved performance, as our model achieved state-of-the-art accuracy in detecting subjective bias. This study focuses on the English language, but the model can be fine-tuned to accommodate other languages.

Keywords: Subjective bias detection, machine learning, BERT–BiLSTM–Attention, text classification, natural language processing.

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Authors: Maryam Memarian, Mahmood Naghizadeh

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Deconstruction is an approach that is entirely incompatible with the traditional prevalent architecture. Considering the fact that this approach attempts to put architecture in sharp contrast with its opposite events and transpires with attending to the neglected and missing aspects of architecture and deconstructing its stable structures. It also recklessly proceeds beyond the existing frameworks and intends to create a different and more efficient prospect for space. The aim of deconstruction architecture is to satisfy both the prospective and retrospective visions as well as takes into account all tastes of the present in order to transcend time. Likewise, it ventures to fragment the facts and symbols of the past and extract new concepts from within their heart, which coincide with today’s circumstances. Since this approach is an attempt to surpass the limits of the prevalent architecture, it can be employed to design places in which creative events occur and imagination and ambition flourish. Thought-provoking artistic events can grow and mature in such places and be represented in the best way possible to all people. The concept of event proposed in the plan grows out of the interaction between space and creation. In addition to triggering surprise and high impressions, it is also considered as a bold journey into the suspended realms of the traditional conflicts in architecture such as architecture-landscape, interior-exterior, center-margin, product-process, and stability-instability. In this project, at first, through interpretive-historical research method and examining the inputs and data collection, recognition and organizing takes place. After evaluating the obtained data using deductive reasoning, the data is eventually interpreted. Given the fact that the research topic is in its infancy and there is not a similar case in Iran with limited number of corresponding instances across the world, the selected topic helps to shed lights on the unrevealed and neglected parts in architecture. Similarly, criticizing, investigating and comparing specific and highly prized cases in other countries with the project under study can serve as an introduction into this architecture style.

Keywords: Creativity, deconstruction, event.

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Authors: Marisa Catarina da Conceição Dinis

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The commercial companies’ management has suffered an important material and legal transformation in the last years, mainly related to the changes in the Portuguese legal framework and because of the fact they were recently object of great expansion. In fact, next to the smaller family businesses, whose management is regularly assumed by partners, companies with social investment highly scattered, whose owners are completely out from administration, are now arising. In those particular cases, the business transactions are much more complex and require from the companies’ managers a highly technical knowledge and some specific professionals’ skills and abilities. This kind of administration carries a high-level risk that can both result in great success or in great losses. Knowing that the administration performance can result in important losses to the companies, the Portuguese legislator has created a legal structure to impute them some responsibilities and sanctions. The main goal of this study is to analyze the Portuguese law and some jurisprudence about companies’ management rules and about the conflicts between the directors and the company. In order to achieve these purposes we have to consider, on the one hand, the legal duties directly connected to the directors’ functions and on the other hand the disrespect for those same rules. The Portuguese law in this matter, influenced by the common law, determines that the directors’ attitude should be guided by loyalty and honesty. Consequently, we must reflect in which cases the administrators should respond to losses that they might cause to companies as a result of their duties’ disrespect. In this way is necessary to study the business judgment rule wich is a rule that refers to a liability exclusion rule. We intend, in the same way, to evaluate if the civil liability that results from the directors’ duties disrespect can extend itself to those who have elected them ignoring or even knowing that they don´t have the necessary skills or appropriate knowledge to the position they hold. To charge directors’, without ruining entrepreneurship, charging, in the same way, those who select them reinforces the need for more responsible and cautious attitudes which will lead consequently to more confidence in the markets.

Keywords: Duty of loyalty, duty of care, business judgment rule, civil liability of directors.

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Authors: Hisham Mortada

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Transition in the urban configuration of Arab cities has never been as radical and visible as it has been since the turn of the last century. The emergence of new cities near historical settlements of Arabia has spawned a series of developments in and around the old city precincts. New developments are based on advanced technology and conform to globally prevalent standards of city planning, superseding the vernacular arrangements based on traditional norms that guided so-called ‘city planning’. Evidence to this fact are the extant Arab buildings present at the urban core of modern cities, which inform us about intricate spatial organization. Organization that subscribed to multiple norms such as, satisfying gender segregation and socialization, economic sustainability, and ensuring security and environmental coherence etc., within settlement compounds. Several participating factors achieved harmony in such an inclusive city—an organization that was challenged and apparently replaced by the new planning order in the face of growing needs of globalized, economy-centric and high-tech models of development. Communities found it difficult to acclimatize with the new western planning models that were implemented at a very large scale throughout the Kingdom, which later experienced spatial re-structuring to suit users’ needs. A closer look the ancient city of Yanbu, now flanked with such new developments, allows us to differentiate and track the beginnings of this unprecedented transition in settlement formations. This paper aims to elaborate the Arabian context offered to both the ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ planning approaches, in order to understand challenges and solutions offered by both at different times. In the process it will also establish the inconsistencies and conflicts that arose with the shift in planning paradigm, from traditional-'cultural norms’, to modern-'physical planning', in the Arabian context. Thus, by distinguishing the two divergent planning philosophies, their impact of the Arabian morphology, relevance to lifestyle and suitability to the biophysical environment, it concludes with a perspective on sustainability particularly for in case of Yanbu.

Keywords: Yanbu, traditional architecture, Hijaz, coral building, Saudi Arabia.

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Authors: Marcel Schneider, Nils Nießen

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Microscopic simulation tool kits allow for consideration of the two processes of railway operations and the previous timetable production. Block occupation conflicts on both process levels are often solved by using defined train priorities. These conflict resolutions (dispatching decisions) generate reactionary delays to the involved trains. The sum of reactionary delays is commonly used to evaluate the quality of railway operations, which describes the timetable robustness. It is either compared to an acceptable train performance or the delays are appraised economically by linear monetary functions. It is impossible to adequately evaluate dispatching decisions without a well-founded objective function. This paper presents a new approach for the evaluation of dispatching decisions. The approach uses mode choice models and considers the behaviour of the end-customers. These models evaluate the reactionary delays in more detail and consider other competing modes of transport. The new approach pursues the coupling of a microscopic model of railway operations with the macroscopic choice mode model. At first, it will be implemented for railway operations process but it can also be used for timetable production. The evaluation considers the possibility for the customer to interchange to other transport modes. The new approach starts to look at rail and road, but it can also be extended to air travel. The result of mode choice models is the modal split. The reactions by the end-customers have an impact on the revenue of the train operating companies. Different purposes of travel have different payment reserves and tolerances towards late running. Aside from changes to revenues, longer journey times can also generate additional costs. The costs are either time- or track-specific and arise from required changes to rolling stock or train crew cycles. Only the variable values are summarised in the contribution margin, which is the base for the monetary evaluation of delays. The contribution margin is calculated for different possible solutions to the same conflict. The conflict resolution is optimised until the monetary loss becomes minimal. The iterative process therefore determines an optimum conflict resolution by monitoring the change to the contribution margin. Furthermore, a monetary value of each dispatching decision can also be derived.

Keywords: Choice of mode, monetary evaluation, railway operations, reactionary delays.

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Authors: Malek Makki

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The main purpose of this research study is to assist non-profit organizations (NPOs) to better segment a group of least developing countries and to optimally target the most needier areas, so that the provided aids make positive and lasting differences. We applied international marketing and strategy approaches to segment a sub-group of candidates among a group of 151 countries identified by the UN-G77 list, and furthermore, we point out the areas of priorities. We use reliable and well known criteria on the basis of economics, geography, demography and behavioral. These criteria can be objectively estimated and updated so that a follow-up can be performed to measure the outcomes of any program. We selected 12 socio-economic criteria that complement each other: GDP per capita, GDP growth, industry value added, export per capita, fragile state index, corruption perceived index, environment protection index, ease of doing business index, global competitiveness index, Internet use, public spending on education, and employment rate. A weight was attributed to each variable to highlight the relative importance of each criterion within the country. Care was taken to collect the most recent available data from trusted well-known international organizations (IMF, WB, WEF, and WTO). Construct of equivalence was carried out to compare the same variables across countries. The combination of all these weighted estimated criteria provides us with a global index that represents the level of development per country. An absolute index that combines wars and risks was introduced to exclude or include a country on the basis of conflicts and a collapsing state. The final step applied to the included countries consists of a benchmarking method to select the segment of countries and the percentile of each criterion. The results of this study allowed us to exclude 16 countries for risks and security. We also excluded four countries because they lack reliable and complete data. The other countries were classified per percentile thru their global index, and we identified the needier and the areas where aids are highly required to help any NPO to prioritize the area of implementation. This new concept is based on defined, actionable, accessible and accurate variables by which NPO can implement their program and it can be extended to profit companies to perform their corporate social responsibility acts.

Keywords: Developing countries, International marketing, non-profit organization, segmentation.

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Authors: S. Mahdi Sadatmansouri, Maryam Khalili

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World, nowadays, encounters serious water scarcity problem. During the past few years, by advent of Smart Energy and Water Meter (SEWM) and its installation at the electro-pumps of the water wells, one had believed that it could be the golden key to address the groundwater resources over-pumping issue. In fact, implementation of these Smart Meters managed to control the water table drawdown for short; but it was not a sustainable approach. SEWM has been considered as law enforcement facility at first; however, for solving a complex socioeconomic problem like shared groundwater resources management, more than just enforcement is required: participation to conserve common resources. The well owners or farmers, as water consumers, are the main and direct stakeholders of this system and other stakeholders could be government sectors, investors, technology providers, privet sectors or ordinary people. Designing a socio-technical system not only defines the role of each stakeholder but also can lubricate the communication to reach the system goals while benefits of each are considered and provided. Farmers, as the key participators for solving groundwater problem, do not trust governments but they would trust a fair system in which responsibilities, privileges and benefits are clear. Technology could help this system remained impartial and productive. Social aspects provide rules, regulations, social objects and etc. for the system and help it to be more human-centered. As the design methodology, Design Thinking provides probable solutions for the challenging problems and ongoing conflicts; it could enlighten the way in which the final system could be designed. Using Human Centered Design approach of IDEO helps to keep farmers in the center of the solution and provides a vision by which stakeholders’ requirements and needs are addressed effectively. Farmers would be considered to trust the system and participate in their groundwater resources management if they find the rules and tools of the system fair and effective. Besides, implementation of the socio-technical system could change farmers’ behavior in order that they concern more about their valuable shared water resources as well as their farm profit. This socio-technical system contains nine main subsystems: 1) Measurement and Monitoring system, 2) Legislation and Governmental system, 3) Information Sharing system, 4) Knowledge based NGOs, 5) Integrated Farm Management system (using IoT), 6) Water Market and Water Banking system, 7) Gamification, 8) Agribusiness ecosystem, 9) Investment system.

Keywords: Design Thinking, Human Centered Design, participatory management, Smart Energy and Water Meter (SEWM), socio-technical system, water table drawdown, Internet of Things, Gamification

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Authors: Krishan Lal, Anish Dua

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Gobind Sagar Reservoir has been created in Himachal Pradesh, India (31° 25´ N and 76 ° 25´E) by damming River Sutlej at village Bhakra in 1963. The average water spread area of this reservoir is 10,000 hectares. Fishermen have organized themselves in the form of co-operative societies. 26 fisheries co-operative societies were working in Gobind Sagar Reservoir up till 2012. June and July months were observed as closed season, no fishing was done during this period. Proper record maintaining of fish catch was done at different levels by the state fisheries department. Different measures like minimum harvestable size, mesh size regulation and prohibition of illegal fishing etc. were taken for fish conservation. Fishermen were actively involved in the management. Gill nets were used for catching fishes from this reservoir. State fisheries department is realizing 15% royalty of the sold fish. Data used in this paper is about the fish catch during 2006-2012 and were obtained from the state fisheries department, Himachal Pradesh. Catla catla, Labeo rohita, Cirrhinus mrigala, Sperata seenghala, Cyprinus carpio, Tor putitora, Hypophthalmichthys molitrix, Labeo calbasu, Labeo dero and Ctenopharyngodon idella etc., were the fish species exploited for commercial purposes. Total number of individuals of all species caught was 3141236 weighing 5637108.9 kg during 2006-2012. H. molitrix was introduced accidently in this reservoir and was making a good share of fish catch in this reservoir. The annual catch of this species was varying between 161279.6 kg, caught in 2011 and 788030.8 kg caught in 2009. Total numbers of individuals of C. idella caught were 8966 weighing 64320.2 kg. The catch of Cyprinus carpio was varying between 144826.1 kg caught in 2006 and 214480.1 kg caught in 2010. Total catch of Tor putitora was 180263.2 kg during 2006-2012. Total catch of L. dero, S. seenghala and Catla catla remained 100637.4 kg, 75297.8 kg and 561802.9 kg, respectively, during 2006-2012. Maximum fish catch was observed during the months of August (after observing Closed Season). Maximum catch of exotic carps was from Bhakra area of the reservoir which has fewer fluctuations in water levels. The reservoir has been divided into eight beats for administrative purpose, to avoid conflicts between operating fisheries co-operative societies for area of operation. Fish catch was more by co-operative societies operating in the area of reservoir having fewer fluctuations in water level and catch was less by co-operative societies operating in the area of more fluctuations in water level. Species-wise fish catch by different co-operative societies from their allotted area was studied. This reservoir is one of most scientifically managed reservoirs.

Keywords: Co-operative societies, fish catch, fish species, reservoir.

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