HESS Opinions "Urgent water challenges are not sufficiently researched"

摘要

In this opinion paper we submit that water experts conduct comparativelylittle research on the more urgent challenges facing the global community.Five specific biases are identified. First, research in the field of waterand sanitation is heavily biased against sanitation. Second, research onfood security is biased in favour of conventional irrigation and fails toaddress the problems and opportunities of rainfed agriculture. Third,insufficient water research is dedicated to developmental compared toenvironmental issues. Fourth, too little research is conducted on adaptationto climate change by developing countries. And finally, research on watergovernance has a fascination for conflict but too little eye for cooperationand meeting basic needs. This paper illustrates these biases withbibliometric indicators extracted from the ISI Web of Science. There is astark mismatch between the global demand for knowledge and the supply of it.This mismatch is identified here as a problem that we water scientists mustconfront and resolve. We still lack a full understanding why this divergencebetween demand and supply occurs and persists; an understanding that isrequired to guide us towards aligning our research priorities to societaldemands. The paper, however, makes some inferences. On the one hand, weshould promote the global South to create its own research biases and allowit to develop alternative solutions. Simultaneously we would benefit fromcritical examination of our own research practice. Although this paperaddresses a critical challenge it does not aim to be exhaustive ordefinitive. We merely identify the persistence of intransigent waterproblems as a valid research object in itself.