Dictionary

problemshed en · NOUN

Etymology

From problem + shed, modelled after watershed (“a drainage basin”).

Meanings

1. (qualifier:environmental management) A region particularly relevant to certain ecological and socio-economic problems, especially when viewed as a unit of management and policymaking.
   • Issues of livestock survival lie at the heart of the Karamoja–Turkana Complex (KTC) – the problemshed at the centre of water management challenges in the region. 2022, A. Nicol, L. Debevec, S. O. Ayaru, “Water and complex problemsheds in Karamoja, Uganda”, in Water International, volume 47, number 6, pages 952–968:
   • What can we learn from the World Bank and other third parties working to increase transboundary water cooperation in the Ganges-Brahmaputra problemshed? 2017, P. Hanasz, “Muddy waters: International actors and transboundary water cooperation in the Ganges-Brahmaputra problemshed”, in Water Alternatives, volume 10, number 2, pages 459–474:
   • These different patterns of livestock movement imply problemsheds encompassing an extent anywhere from two neighbouring conservancies all the way up to all of northern Kenya. 2015, E. Ontiri, L. W. Robinson, North lowland Ewaso Ngiro rangelands: Initial system analysis: International Livestock Research Institute report to the LGACC project, page 1:
   • Moreover, because environmental problems themselves have indistinct boundaries, the problemshed itself is necessarily an artificial, indistinct, and impermanent entity. 2009, H. Doremus, “CALFED and the quest for optimal institutional fragmentation”, in Environmental Science & Policy, volume 12, number 6, pages 729–732:

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