**2. Program design**

The students and faculty who conducted the field research were participants in a semester long Dickinson Global Mosaic Program [1], "Climate Change and Human Security in Nepal [2]." The program was 2 years in the making. As part of the building process, the Dickinson professor who initiated the program traveled to Nepal on two occasions and established a relationship with the Institute for Crisis Management Studies (ICMS), a master's program affiliated with Kathmandu-based Tribhuvan University. The director of the ICMS designated a project coordinator for the initiative.

The professor and the project coordinator negotiated the activities, locations, and logistics. The Coordinator suggested four wards as the research sites: Hokse, Kharelthok, Koshidekha, and Sathighar Bhagawati. The wards, located to the east of Kathmandu, were part of Panchkhal Municipality of Kavrepalanchok District, located in Province 3 of Nepal. As well, the Coordinator agreed to recruit ICMS graduate students who would provide general assistance to the Dickinson students and serve as guides and translators during the field-research.

Fourteen students enrolled in the program. It consisted of three phases. Phase one included 9 weeks of study in Carlisle that incorporated three courses each taught by a different professor1 plus one team-taught qualitative research methods course.2 Furthermore, in phase one, the students were assigned to one of four teams.

Phase two consisted of 3 weeks of field research in Nepal that lasted from late October to mid-November. The advantage of the four-course structure was that there were no scheduling issues when faculty and students traveled to Nepal.3

During phase three, which lasted for 4 weeks, each team generated a 50-page research report that summarized their findings. Those four written reports provided the qualitative data for this chapter.

### **3. Important concepts incorporated in the on-campus courses**

#### **3.1 Human security**

The United Nations Development Programme [3] offered the first generally accepted description of the term human security. Many alternatives have since been proposed. One schema, designed with Nepal in mind, illustrates interconnections among ecosystems and climate security; water and energy security; food and health security; environmental security; and nuclear and biological security ([4], p. 3).

#### **3.2 Resilience**

Many definitions have also been proposed for resilience. Nevertheless, a description offered by Twigg [5] is helpful. Community resilience includes the capacities to: "anticipate, minimize and absorb potential stresses or destructive forces through adaptation or resistance"; "manage or maintain certain basic functions and structures during disastrous events"; and "recover or 'bounce back' after an event ([5], pp. 8-9)." A caveat he offers ([5], p. 10) is relevant to this chapter.

**5**

*Collaboration to Counter Fresh Water Scarcity and Promote Human Security*

Individuals can be members of several communities at the same time, linked to each by different factors such as location, occupation, economic status, gender, religion or recreational interests. Communities are dynamic: people may join together for common goals and separate again once these have been achieved.

In recent decades, the environments confronting citizens and professionals in all domestic and global settings have exhibited rapid change and increasing complexity [6]. Those developments have made collaboration among organizations an increasingly relevant way to achieve objectives beyond the reach of any single entity. For example, Goal 17 of *Sustainable Development Goals* [7] views multi-stakeholder partnerships as an "important vehicle" for making progress toward "the achievement of the sustainable development goals in all countries, particularly developing

In 2010, Nepal's Ministry of Environment released the *National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) to Climate Change* [8]. The report reflected the results of a 2-year, multi-stakeholder effort. After the Dickinson Mosaic Program had concluded, a Ministry of Forests and Environment report [9] also pointed to the need for collaboration. At the outset, the latter described the NAPA as an ongoing process that "will leave no one behind"; included numerous functionally based working groups; and recognized the need for engagement by multiple types of stakeholders

Meadows [10] explains that a human system has three essential components: elements; interconnections; and a purpose. Elements may be either physical items or intangible items. Interconnections are the relationships that hold the elements together: for human systems, they include customs, rules, or laws. The purpose of the system reflects intended outcomes. Since systems can be nested within systems,

She also explains that systems have three important attributes: self-organization,

hierarchy, and resilience. Self-organization is the "capacity of a system to make its own structure more complex" ([10], p. 79). Hierarchy is the arrangement of systems and subsystems that tends to arise when self-organizing systems engage in the "process of creating new structures and increasing complexity" ([10], p. 82). In a manner consistent with Twigg [5], Meadows says resilience arises from the rich structure of many feedback loops that can work in different ways to restore a system even after a large disturbance. Resilient systems can be dynamic in nature and

A few weeks into the semester, the three Dickinson professors assigned the students to one of four research teams. The teams were asked to develop questions for three different types of semi-structured interviews. Each type was intended for one of three different groups of interviewees: individual household members; key informants; and focus group participants. The teams shared proposed interview questions with the professors, took their comments, and engaged in fine-tuning.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93693*

**3.3 Collaboration**

countries."

**3.4 Approaches to adaptation**

ranging from local to national levels.

purposes can be nested inside other purposes.

**3.5 Basic system concepts**

evolve over time.

**3.6 Qualitative research methods**

<sup>1</sup> "Global Environmental Change and Human Security"; "Climate Risks and Resilience in Nepal"; "Collaboration as a Vehicle for Creating Value."

<sup>2</sup> "Climate Change and Human Security in Nepal."

<sup>3</sup> Due to personal reasons, Professor Fratantuono and one student were unable to travel to Nepal.

Individuals can be members of several communities at the same time, linked to each by different factors such as location, occupation, economic status, gender, religion or recreational interests. Communities are dynamic: people may join together for common goals and separate again once these have been achieved.
