Recognising the rights of nature is seen by many as the paradigm shift needed to truly embed ecology and the environment into nature-based policy and management solutions to address biodiversity loss, climate change, and sustainable development. However, despite its potential, research across and beyond disciplinary boundaries remains very limited, with most located in the humanities and social sciences and often lacking connection with environmental sciences. Based on a multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary project, we identify some critical common themes among the humanities, social sciences, and environmental sciences to support future research on the potential of the rights of nature to address contemporary social-environmental challenges. We argue that future research needs to be not only interdisciplinary but also transdisciplinary since the movement of rights of nature is often driven by and based on knowledge emerging outside of academic disciplines.

The importance of water security has gained prominence on the international water agenda, but the focus seems to be directed towards water demand. An essential element of water security is the functioning of public organizations responsible for water supply through direct and indirect security approaches. Despite this, there has been a tendency to overlook the water security strategies of these organizations as well as constraints on their operation. This paper discusses the critical role of water supply in achieving sustainable water security and presents two case studies from Central Asia on the management of water supply for irrigated agriculture. The analysis concludes that existing water supply bureaucracies need to be revitalized to effectively address key challenges in water security.

Ongoing discussions on water-energy-food nexus generally lack a historical perspective and more rigorous institutional analysis. Scrutinizing a relatively mature benefit sharing approach in the context of transboundary water management, the study shows how such analysis can be implemented to facilitate understanding in an environment of high institutional and resource complexity. Similar to system perspective within nexus, benefit sharing is viewed as a positive sum approach capable of facilitating cooperation among riparian parties by shifting the focus from the quantities of water to benefits derivable from its use and allocation. While shared benefits from use and allocation are logical corollary of the most fundamental principles of international water law, there are still many controversies as to the conditions under which benefit sharing could serve best as an approach. Recently, the approach has been receiving wider attention in the literature and is increasingly applied in various basins to enhance negotiations. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the costs associated with benefit sharing, particularly in the long run. The study provides a number of concerns that have been likely overlooked in the literature and examines the approach in the case of the Ferghana Valley shared by Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan utilizing data for the period from 1917 to 2013. Institutional analysis traces back the origins of property rights of the transboundary infrastructure, shows cooperative activities and fierce negotiations on various governance levels. The research discusses implications of the findings for the nexus debate and unveils at least four types of costs associated with benefit sharing: (1) Costs related to equity of sharing (horizontal and vertical); (2) Costs to the environment; (3) Transaction costs and risks of losing water control; and (4) Costs as a result of likely misuse of issue linkages.

Transboundary water governance often represents challenges specific to the commons dilemma. Use of water in one country affects use in another country, yet dynamic and diverse political and socioeconomic factors coupled with relatively large size of a resource system that links not only other sectors such as land and energy but also crosses national jurisdictions make it particularly challenging for interested and affected actors to self-organize. Central Asia represents a typical case of this commons dilemma, where more than 60 million people depend on transboundary waters shared by five independent republics that suffer from vicious cycle of historical rivalry and complexity. We explore whether and how benefit sharing, where the focus is on benefits and not quantities of water, can help solve the transboundary commons dilemma. Further, we suggest distinguishing three priorities in benefit-sharing solutions: economicdevelopment; egalitarian-social; and environmental. Investigating various configurations of prioritization, we discuss selected expressions of it available in the literature in general and from our transboundary waters case study in Central Asia in particular. Based on our findings we stress the importance of setting environmental preservation (restoration) and equitability of sharing as the joint top priority for benefit sharing to be sustainable in the long run, in contrast to a short-term perspective with prevailing economic-development emphasis. In the context of historical distrust conditions and interdependencies, we highlight the mutually important causal relationship between benefit sharing and trust building. For making the new arrangements resilient, particularly in case of large-scale commons, benefit sharing also requires a strong civil society.