Given the eclectic and localized nature of environmental risks, planning for sustainability requires solutions that integrate local knowledge and systems while acknowledging the need for continuous re-evaluation. Social-ecological complexity, increasing climate volatility and uncertainty, and rapid technological innovation underscore the need for flexible and adaptive planning. Thus, rules should not be universally applied but should instead be place-based and adaptive. To demonstrate these key concepts, we present a case study of water planning in Texas, whose rapid growth and extreme weather make it a bellwether example. We review historic use and compare the 2002, 2007, 2012, 2017 and 2022 Texas State Water Plans to examine how planning outcomes evolve across time and space. Though imperfect, water planning in Texas is a concrete example of place-based and adaptive sustainability. Urban regions throughout the state exhibit a diversity of strategies that, through the repeated 5-year cycles, are ever responding to evolving trends and emerging technologies. Regional planning institutions play a crucial role, constituting an important soft infrastructure that links state capacity and processes with local agents. As opposed to “top-down” or “bottom-up”, we frame this governance as “middle-out” and discuss how such a structure might extend beyond the water sector. 

The women’s sector in the academe is one of the most affected profiles during the COVID-19 pandemic which directly ravages their livelihood and other economic activities. Thus, this research project investigated the economic situations of 30 private and public-school teachers who were displaced from their occupations or were forcibly deprived of income-generating activities. In-depth interviews as research instruments were employed in the study to extract responses on how the educators creatively apply adaptive economic strategies and how government should aid them during a global crisis. The research findings showed that the pandemic has affected the economic activities of the respondents including the loss of their livelihood and other economic sidelines. They responded to these economic effects through adaptive strategies using diversifying and analyzing trends, using digital technology resources, data-driven, acquiring new alternative skills, pricing strategy, and becoming an expert. Results dictated that government could support affected women by initiating training options, homepreneurship support, encouraging independent income-earners, financial management and tax breaks, and industry compatibility endorsement. This study is important to map out the specific economic effects of the pandemic and aid them with initiatives by providing them with concrete economic tools and programs.

Gender inequality is a structural social problem, associated with history, culture, education, religion and politics, this difficulty occurs in all social institutions due to the heterogeneity of the structure in the sexual division of labor, socioeconomic inequality, inclusion and inequity in participation in the public space between men and women. Public policies and attitudes towards gender equality in Peruvian university students were analyzed according to socio-academic variables. A descriptive-comparative study, with a quantitative approach, and not experimental cross-sectional, involved 776 university students from a public and a private university in Peru, intentionally selected. Adaptive attitudes (57.9%) were found to tend to be sexist; Likewise, in the study dimensions, the same trend was found in the sociocultural and relational levels, while in the personal dimension students develop sexist attitudes (62.4%). It is concluded, attitudes towards gender equality are sexist reproduction that is influenced by the sociocultural environment of the family, this situation occurs to a greater extent in men, while female students present attitudes of equality in greater intensity to seek equity in the distribution of roles.