Bryan Tilt

The Klamath River, which begins in arid southern Oregon and flows through the heavily forested Klamath Mountains of northern California on its way to the Pacific, is now the site of the largest riv...

This ethnographic study examines the implementation of Chinese engineering standards in a multinational pumped storage hydropower project in Israel. Using an ethnographic approach, the study investigates how Chinese standards are negotiated, accepted or rejected within local engineering practice and how Chinese engineers experience the international adoption of their knowledge. We find that although the adoption of Chinese practice-based standards lags behind Western principle-based knowledge in institutional spheres, the gap between the two has started to narrow on an individual level. We also show how the personal lives of Chinese engineers are affected by, and, in turn, have an impact on the standard practices of Belt and Road Initiative projects. The international adoption of Chinese standards is a multi-layered process of infrastructure experimentation on the ground rather than a top–down slogan. Our research broadens the discussion of engineering standards in energy transition and highlights how knowledge and practice flow, or fail to flow, from the infrastructure periphery to its centre, potentially reshaping global energy construction paradigms.

The grand environmental challenges society faces cannot be solved without knowledge contributions from communities that are touched by the outcomes and impacts of research. Recognizing and valuing these sources, a research method known as co-production of knowledge involves collaboration of interested parties and knowledge owners in activities ranging from identifying research needs to study design, data collection, interpretation, and evaluation. We present a novel approach to the administrative and financial support for knowledge co-production developed by Oregon Sea Grant and provide examples from two funded project teams. We summarize barriers to these approaches, discuss points of symmetry, and propose good practices. One project emphasized equitable alternative strategies for chronic and acute coastal hazard adaptation and mitigation. The other project looked beyond dam removal in the Klamath River Basin to generate place-based and generalizable understanding of, and equitable decisions around, water quality and socio-ecological systems undergoing change. Both projects provide high-level lessons regarding opportunities and challenges encountered in the engaged research process, highlighting flexibility and adaptability as two important considerations.

In recent years scholars have advanced our understanding of the biophysical, socioeconomic, and geopolitical impacts of dams and hydropower infrastructure around the globe. Databases and maps have emerged that allow global comparisons between countries and river basins. However, reliable and freely available data do not exist for many regions. As a result, data limitations and quality issues persist, which limit the quality of analyses based on these datasets. This is particularly true in regions where hydropower infrastructure development is proceeding most rapidly, including South Asia's Third Pole region. We identify and describe serious quantitative and qualitative data dilemmas of existing databases. We divide these into location, size, type, and status. At the most basic level, these dilemmas mean that incorrect location and, more importantly, massive underrepresentation of existing and future projects generates incorrect conclusions. That underrepresentation results largely from uncritically equating absence of data with absence of infrastructure. We also argue that project function should be more reliably recorded (for both dams and hydropower projects), that project status should be clear (many existing projects are still passed off as future), and that smaller projects should be systematically recorded (their cumulative importance is often underestimated). These four dilemmas all have important implications for analyses based on existing datasets. The World Index of Hydropower, Dams, and Reservoirs (WIHDR) described here represents a major advance on all four points. For the first time, 652 existing hydropower plants (277 large and 375 small), 162 under construction, and 720 planned hydropower plants have been georeferenced and systematically recorded for the Indus‐Ganga‐Brahmaputra region.This article is categorized under: Science of Water > Water and Environmental Change Water and Life > Stresses and Pressures on Ecosystems Science of Water > Methods

China 2060 - 1 - Envisioning a Human-Centered Approach to Energy Transition

Energy issues constitute a nexus of technological, political and economic challenges, particularly in light of the global climate crisis. Chinese banks and corporations, guided by a multi-trillion dollar infrastructure investment program called the “Belt and Road Initiative,” now account for one-third of global investment in renewable energy. In this ethnographic study, we explore the professional knowledge and practices of Chinese, Israeli and European engineers working on a pumped-storage hydropower project in Israel with financial and technical backing from Chinese energy firms. We examine how these experts construct and maintain a set of epistemic cultural practices within transnational flows of capital, technology, materials and expertise. Situating our findings within Science and Technology Studies (STS), we use the hydrological engineering concept of “turbulence” as a metaphor for the rapid transnational movements of engineering concepts and personnel in the renewable energy sector.