NCCR North-South PhD Reader
The PhD Reader compiles the titles of all PhD theses in progress and the summaries of completed theses within the Framework of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South. >>Download
This thesis addresses the use and management of the Nile waters from a legal/institutional, security, environmental and economic point of view. On the national level the limited institutional and economic capacity to make use of Ethiopia's waters was highlighted as a key factor, slowing development and minimizing Ethiopia's clout to influence international relations to her advantage. On the international level the downstream's (Egypt and Sudan) holding on to the status quo of historical agreements and the principle of "acquired rights" was identified as a major factor blocking cooperative development. The Nile Basin Initiative, since 1999, gives hope for a more cooperative future. The success of the NBI, however, will only be assured if a legal/institutional framework can be agreed on. The PhD ends with various options to increase cooperation, also on non-water issues.
Sustainable water management in the intermediate zone of the Sokuluk river basin, Tien-Shan, Kyrgyzstan – issues and options from an integrative perspective
Bakyt Askaraliev, 2008
In Russian
PhD thesis at the Kyrgyz Agrarian University, Bishkek
"The present study focuses on irrigation disputes and 'conflict transformation' in Central Asia. It analyses three projects by international and bilateral donors who share common approach to transforming irrgation conflicts in the Ferghana Valley. [...] Three major research foci guide this study. First, it addresses the environment-conflict nexus. It explores the relationship between irrigation and the occurence of inter-group conflict. Second, the thesis examines the prescriptive approach of 'conflict transformation'. It focuses on the norms and values that construe conflict and its mitigation. Third, the research addresses the issue of power. It examines both conflicts and interventions studied for their embeddedness in power relations."
For further information, please contact the author
The Social Construction of Biodiversity in Andean Communities
Relevance for Ecosystem Diversity in the Tunari National Park
This thesis has the overall goal of contributing to the development of the emerging approach of “nature-society hybrids” by setting the fundaments for a dialogue between the needs of biodiversity conservation and the needs and claims of indigenous and traditional people. It is based on the assumption that indigenous and traditional people may not be conservationists “by default”, because the concept of biodiversity conservation has emerged from a concern of modern science and global policy in the developed world that they do not share necessarily. Nevertheless, indigenous communities may have traditional land use practices that are at the same time deeply rooted in their traditional knowledge and specific cultural worldview, and highly relevant for the conservation of biodiversity. The main objective of the thesis was to analyze the links between traditional ecological knowledge, land use and the diversity of ecosystems, as a basis for the promotion of sustainable development, understood as results emerging from the dialogue between scientific and traditional ecological knowledge.
The goals of this study were on the one hand to generate knowledge on the status of and dynamics of the different dimensions of sustainability in the Tajik Pamirs. This process not only consisted of the compilation of features in the economic, socio-cultural and ecological spheres, but also included the appraisal and negotiation of development objectives by different stakeholders levels for a development strategy of the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO). On the other hand this study was dedicated to appraise land resources problems, land degradation causes and sustainable land management opportunities from a stakeholder perspective. From a conceptual point of view, the research looked at knowledge at different stakeholder levels and its role for sustainable land management.
The purpose of this study was to contribute to syndrome mitigation related to deficiencies in the management of urban drainage and solid and liquid waste in Abidjan’s informal settlements in order to assist in improving living conditions of these populations. The study focuses on solid and liquid waste management in 6 informal settlements (Doukouré, Yaoséhi, Mami Faitai, Yamoussoukro, Gbinta and Niangon Continu) which are located along a main drainage channel.
Dongo K. 2006. Analysis of Deficiencies in the Management of Urban Drainage and Solid and Liquid Waste in the Slums of Yopougon (Abidjan, Ivory Coast): GIS Mapping, Modelling, and Social Anthropology Approaches [PhD thesis]. Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire: Université de Cocody.
Urban agriculture and operational mosquito larvae control: mitigating malaria risk in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Stefan Dongus, 2009
This study describes how simple participatory mapping, GIS and remote sensing applications can enable successful urban malaria control.
Dongus S. 2009. Urban agriculture and operational mosquito larvae control: mitigating malaria risk in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. PhD thesis. University of Basel.
Metis Knowledge. Analysis of the Traditional Knowledge Policy in Peru:
This research aimed to produce a critical analytical framework to understand the process of international norms creation, transmission into a national context and implementation at the local level. This objective has been addressed by choosing traditional knowledge (TK) issue as a strategy to analyze the multi-level governance process, and by studying especially the Peruvian Law for TK protection. This law voted in 2002 intended regulate the encounter of local supply with international demand. But a number of doubts have appeared: Is this law an efficient way of protecting traditional knowledge? Why is its implementation so slow? What is the potential of TK for nature conservation and sustainable development?
"This study was initiated with the aim of using long term monitoring data collected at two representative semi arid stations to examine the impact of biophysical environment (climate and soil) and cultivation method (with and without water conservation) on crop performance (growth and production). Using the knowledge gained from this analysis, the study evaluated and adapted the Agricultural Production Simulator (APSIM) model to develop a simulation tool for the production system practiced by the smallscale farmers in the study area. The adapted APSIM model was used to examine the impact of water conservation on maize growth and production."
"The present study seeks to generate a comparable information and knowledge base about land cover change on a mesoscale level for the entire Lower Mekong Basin. Such information is crucial to both informed decision making and the transboundary negotiations on the use and protection of the shared natural resources in regional bodies such as the Mekong River Commission. It may form the basis for achieving a common understanding regarding resource management in the Basin despite diverging national interests. [...]"
"One approach of molecular epidemiology of mycobacteria is the genotyping and comparison of DNA of infectious strains in order to monitor the transmission pathways of diseases. It is based on the assumption that patients infected with clustered strains are epidemiologically linked. Such results may help in understanding the modes of transmission and therefore in putting in place an adapted control strategy. [...] Therefore the overall aim of this study was to contribute to the development and refinement of innovative molecular typing tools in order to study Mycobacterium tuberculosis, bovis and ulcerans infections."
PhD Thesis, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Switzerland
In his thesis, Dong-Bin Huang developed an event-based dynamic material flow and life-cycle-inventory modeling method and applied it in the urban area of Kunming (China) for urban water resource planning and pollution control of Dianchi Lake.
PhD Thesis, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Switzerland
The thesis developed tools for sustainable faecal sludge management: stakeholder analysis combined with stakeholder involvement as a planning model, sociopsychological model for understanding the population willingnesss to improve faecal sludge management, sustainable money fluxes based on sanitations taxes and emptying fees.
The thesis contributes to an improved understanding of how the ecological dimension becomes manifest in the negotiation of sustainable regional development, how meanings about an issue under negotiation are constructed, and whose ascribed meanings are decisive in concretising a way forward.
Double-Edged Hydropolitics on the Nile
Linkages between Domestic Water Policy Making and Transboundary Conflict and Cooperation
This thesis focuses on domestic processes of water policy making in Egypt and Ethiopia in the context of transboundary conflict and cooperation in the Nile Basin.
It presents results at two different levels. First, the water sectors of Egypt and Ethiopia are analyzed with regard to their capacity to jointly design and implement effective and sustainable strategy for transboundary river development. Second, the study produces general insights regarding the nature of transboundary river conflicts and the challenges of conflict mitigation.
"In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird untersucht, wie die UNESCO Biosphäre Entlebuch (UBE) und das UNESCO Weltnaturerbe Jungfrau-Aletsch-Bietschhorn (JAB) visuell und verbal kommuniziert wurden. Bei beiden Vorhaben handelt es sich um Modellregionen für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung, denen die jeweiligen Bevölkerungen in Volksbefragungen zustimmten. Die Analyse der Informationen zu den Vorhaben lässt erkennen, welche Vorstellungen die an der Bildproduktion beteiligten Akteure mit nachhaltiger Entwicklung verbinden. Konkret wird dabei aus humangeographischem Blickwinkel analysiert, welche Raumnutzungen oder Raumaneignungen gemäss den Bild gewordenen Vorstellungen unterschiedlicher Bildproduzierender in einer sich nachhaltig entwickelnden Region erwünscht sind. [...]"
The study develops and applies a methodology for quantifying ecosystem services in the water sector in the East African Pangani Basin for the year 2000 and for scenarios for 2025. Special attention is given to the criteria of valuation by stakeholders and accessibility of water resources, which necessitates the use of a high-resolution hydrological process model. Services quantified include domestic water, water for irrigated or rainfed agriculture, hydropower production, and environmental flows.
PhD Thesis at Centre for Development and Environment, University of Bern
[...] With the current research, a Mathematical Material Flow Analysis (MMFA) is applied as an alternative approach to conventional river water quality models. Applied to analyze river water polllution, the MMFA allows to trace the pollution flows and their transformations from their input to the system as resource, through waste production, separation, treatment and finally to their outputs as product or as discharge into receiving water bodies. In this way, the perspective is widened to grasp the river system in an overview and to understand the origins and the main processes involved in the chain of nutrient pollution generation. The key parameters influencing the pollution flows are determined, based on which concrete and effective mitigation measures can be devised and evaluated. [...]
The health of nomadic pastoralists is influenced by factors specific to their way of life. Veterinary services provide vaccination against feared livestock diseases such as anthrax. Agents transmissible between livestock and humans (zoonotic agents) may have an important impact on the health status of pastoralists because they live in close contact to their animals. However, morbidity of nomadic pastoralists in Chad had not been documented and their everyday use of health services was virtually unknown. A research collaboration between veterinary and public health was implemented to evaluate morbidity of nomadic pastoralists and of their animals simultaneously and to test intersectoral pilot-interventions following the concept of “one medicine”.
PhD Thesis, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan
Most of the natural forests of Pakistan are located in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). High rate of deforestation has brought into focus the shortfalls of traditional state controlled top-down systems of forest management. The participatory approach of forest management was started through Asian Development Bank’s funded Forestry Sector Project (FSP). The province's Forest Department was reformed, and village level committee were formed to join the forest department officials in preparing and implementing local resource use plans. The FSP developed and implemented these processes in a number of villages, expecting the reformed forest department to spread the concept throughout NWFP. This thesis analysed the impact of participatory forest management on livelihood assets, vulnerability and livelihood strategies based on a comparison of project villages with non-project villages; and thereby identifying the issues supporting or hindering the effectiveness of forest reforms and decentralisation process.
In the face of economic liberalisation, a reduced role of the state, and the changing institutional setting affecting less developed countries, it has become important to understand the impacts of these processes on the livelihoods of rural households. Empirical studies show that smallholders are facing more and more difficulties in dealing with declining terms of trade and the fluctuating prices of agricultural commodities, which play an important role in the income of smallholder producers in rural areas. There is a hypothesis that, since the beginning of these processes, the opening-up of rural areas to the “global world” has induced a shift from solely agricultural and farm income towards a more diverse income portfolio. A second hypothesis is that the local institutional setting plays a key role in supporting or hindering the diversified livelihood strategies of smallholders. This study takes these as its research hypotheses and seeks to validate them through a crop- and locality-specific case study.
The NCCR North-South is hosted by the University of Bern
and funded jointly by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
