This report presents the research of IDIN Summer Research Fellow Sera Tolgay, who investigated how small-scale farmers in the Jordan River Valley are adapting and innovating in light of challenge of severe water scarcity in this region. She focused in particular on the adoption of water-saving technologies and how these were impacting the farmers and their livelihoods. 

This report summarizes the work of IDIN Summer Research Fellow Kelly Heber Dunning, who traveled to Malaysia and Indonesia during Summer 2015 to study community-based approaches to managing coastal natural resources such as coral reefs and mangroves. This research, which forms part of Kelly's doctoral dissertation, finds that community-based resource management arrangements afford greater opportunities for innovation in natural resource management and sustainable livilihood development compared to top-down management arrangements.

This report presents the research of IDIN Summer Research Fellow Rida Qadri, who traveled to Lahore, Pakistan during the summer of 2015 to conduct exploratory research on the impact of an innovative agricultural crop residue-to-energy project in rural Punjab. This report present preliminary findings of her analysis of the economic benefits that this project generated throughout its rural supply chain.

This paper highlights some of the difficulties experienced by volunteers and members of the general public when coordinating a response to an emergency in Pakistan, and discusses a participatory approach to investigating the requirements of an online emergency response platform that links volunteers with donors. The approach builds upon the use of a prototype platform in a simulated emergency situation with real users to test assumptions and learn about the design requirements for such a platform. The paper details the design process and the features of the prototype, and the feedback it received from users.