Expanding Infrastructures
Sustainability through Synergistic Development: Conserving Asian Rice Terraces in Modernization
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ching-Ping Tang
Many indigenous peoples suffer from underdevelopment because of the inferior geographical conditions and their low value-add economy. A cure-all solution, eco-ethno-agro-tourism, emerges to be a synergic prescription. Tourism is expected not only to improve the economic wellbeing of the indigenous peoples but also to encourage them to conserve natural resources and cultural heritage by practicing traditional agriculture. Nevertheless, the introduction of tourism leads to a transition from an agricultural economy to a commercial one, and such transition involves drastic adjustment of different governing systems and changing dynamics among systems. Take rice terraces in many East and Southeastern Asian countries for example. The irrigation system was the core system that determined the distribution of wealth and the stability of these societies. To govern this core resource, the society would build up a set of socio-cultural (such as religion, family and clan, property right, etc.) systems and kept them coordinated. The introduction of new technologies, capitalism, and democratic power structures would tilt the original balance to impair the governing functions. How could public policies be designed to effectively facilitate such transitions? This research takes the Rice Terraces in Hunghe (China) and Bali (Indonesia) as the cases to demonstrate the resilience of indigenous irrigation system in evolution and how social institutions built up for water governance could be transformed to help govern the tourist and cultural common goods.
While We Were Sleeping: A Review of the Potential Effects of the One Belt, One Road Initiative on Sustainability in the Aviation Industry
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kelly George, Patti Clark
China instigated One Belt, One Road (OBOR) to connect China on a global scale not envisioned since the original Silk Road. The scope of this project includes development of trade routes, communications, cultural exchanges, and transportation infrastructure. Twenty-six percent of the megaproject transportation initiatives are in aviation. Several experts forecast the Chinese to surpass the US as the world’s biggest aviation market by 2022. Has the world been asleep at the wheel while this expansion was taking place? Or is the project overly aggressive and will aviation infrastructure constraints will thwart the prediction? Does China have the power to bring aviation market share forecast to fruition? This exploratory research scrutinized the plan, progress, and projections in relation to capacity limitations to provide insight into these questions. The promise of the OBOR initiative is immense, as are the opportunities and risks to sustainable development in the aviation and aerospace industry.
