Resource Efficiency Complexity and the Commons: The Paracommons and Paradoxes of Natural Resource Losses, Wastes and Wastages

Lankford, Bruce

ISBN 10: 1138574740 / ISBN 13: 9781138574748

Published by Routledge, 2017

About this Item

This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has soft covers. In good all round condition. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,500grams, ISBN:9781138574748.

Seller Inventory # 5954595

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Resource Efficiency Complexity and the Commons: The Paracommons and Paradoxes of Natural Resource Losses, Wastes and Wastages
• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1138574740
• ISBN 13: 9781138574748
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Good
• Weight: 500 grams
• Seller catalogs:
  • Education

About this title

Synopsis

The efficient use of natural resources is key to a sustainable economy, and yet the complexities of the physical aspects of resource efficiency are poorly understood. In this challenging book, the author proposes a major advance in our understanding of this topic by analysing resource efficiency and efficiency gains from the perspective of common pool resources, applying this idea particularly to water resources and its use in irrigated agriculture.

The author proposes a novel concept of "the paracommons", through which the savings of increased resource efficiency can be viewed. In effect he asks; "who gets the gain of an efficiency gain?" By reusing, economising and avoiding losses, wastes and wastages, freed up resources are available for further use by four ‘destinations’; the same user, parties directly connected to that user, the wider economy or returned to the common pool. The paracommons is thus a commons of – and competition for – resources salvaged by changes to the efficiency of natural resource systems. The idea can be applied to a range of resources such as water, energy, forests and high-seas fisheries.

Five issues are explored: the complexity of resource use efficiency; the uncertainty of efficiency interventions and outcomes; destinations of freed up losses, wastes and wastages; implications for resource conservation; and the interconnectedness of users and systems brought about by efficiency changes. The book shows how these ideas put efficiency on a par with other dimensions of resource governance and sustainability such as equity, justice, resilience and access.

About the Author

Bruce Lankford is Professor of Water and Irrigation Policy at the School of International Development, University of East Anglia, UK. He has 30 years’ experience in the field of land and water development, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, and is a co-founder of the UEA Water Security Research Centre.