Wetlands are often vital physical and social components of a country’s natural capital, as well as providers of ecosystem services to local and national communities. We performed a network analysis to prioritize Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets for sustainable development in iconic wetlands and wetlandscapes around the world. The analysis was based on the information and perceptions on 45 wetlandscapes worldwide by 49 wetland researchers of the Global Wetland Ecohydrological Network (GWEN). We identified three 2030 Agenda targets of high priority across the wetlandscapes needed to achieve sustainable development: Target 6.3—“Improve water quality”; 2.4—“Sustainable food production”; and 12.2—“Sustainable management of resources”. Moreover, we found specific feedback mechanisms and synergies between SDG targets in the context of wetlands. The most consistent reinforcing interactions were the influence of Target 12.2 on 8.4—“Efficient resource consumption”; and that of Target 6.3 on 12.2. The wetlandscapes could be differentiated in four bundles of distinctive priority SDG-targets: “Basic human needs”, “Sustainable tourism”, “Environmental impact in urban wetlands”, and “Improving and conserving environment”. In general, we find that the SDG groups, targets, and interactions stress that maintaining good water quality and a “wise use” of wetlandscapes are vital to attaining sustainable development within these sensitive ecosystems.

Extreme droughts are affecting millions of livestock farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, causing water shortages, famines, migration and fatalities. The construction of new small water infrastructures (SWIs), such as deep wells and boreholes, is increasingly supported by climate resilience programmes of non-governmental organizations and national governments to improve water availability for agro-pastoralists, especially as an emergency response to extreme droughts. Although the short-term benefits of SWI are clear, their potential cumulative impact and their long-term effects on the resilience of dryland communities remain unclear. Here, building on in-depth anthropological literature from five key African drylands, we model post-drought pastoralists’ dynamics related to SWI. We show that while developing new SWI releases water shortages in the short term, it can erode traditional adaptation practices without adequate governance. We further illustrate how our model captures early quantitative signals of resilience loss in dryland Angola. This indicates that poorly governed water development in African drylands can be a limiting factor for the long-term resilience of pastoral communities facing a range of social, demographic, economic and climate challenges.

Archetype analysis is a promising approach in sustainability science to identify patterns and explain mechanisms shaping the sustainability of social-ecological systems. Although considerable efforts have been devoted to developing quality standards and methodological advances for archetype analysis, archetype validation remains a major challenge. Drawing on the insights from two international workshops on archetype analysis and on broader literature on validity, we propose a framework that identifies and describes six dimensions of validity: conceptual; construct; internal; external; empirical; and application validity. We first discuss the six dimensions in relation to different methodological approaches and purposes of archetype analysis. We then present an operational use of the framework for researchers to assess the validity of archetype analysis and to support sound archetype identification and policy-relevant applications. Finally, we apply our assessment to 18 published archetype analyses, which we use to describe the challenges and insights in validating the different dimensions and suggest ways to holistically improve the validity of identified archetypes. With this, we contribute to more rigorous archetype analyses, helping to develop the potential of the approach for guiding sustainability solutions.

Projections of global warming in Africa are generally associated with increasing aridity and decreasing water availability. However, most freshwater assessments focus on single hydroclimatic indicators (e.g., runoff, precipitation, or aridity), lacking analysis on combined changes in evaporative demand, and water availability on land. There remains a high degree of uncertainty over water implications at the basin scale, in particular for the most water‐consuming sector—food production. Using the Budyko framework, we perform an assessment of future hydroclimatic change for the 50 largest African basins, finding a consistent pattern of change in four distinct regions across the two main emission scenarios corresponding to the Paris Agreement, and the business as usual. Although the Paris Agreement is likely to lead to less intense changes when compared to the business as usual, both scenarios show the same pattern of hydroclimatic shifts, suggesting a potential roadmap for hydroclimatic adaptation. We discuss the social‐ecological implications of the projected hydroclimatic shifts in the four regions and argue that climate policies need to be complemented by soil and water conservation practices to make the best use of future water resources.

Piemontese, L., R. N. Kamugisha, J. M. B. Tukahirwa, A. Tengberg, S. Pedde, and F. Jaramillo. 2021. Barriers to scaling sustainable land and water management in Uganda: a cross-scale archetype approach. Ecology and Society 26(3):6. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-12531-260306