Catchment and River Basin Management

Integrating Science and Governance

Laurence Smith, Keith Porter, Kevin Hiscock, Mary Jane Porter, David Benson, Laurence Smith, Keith Porter, Kevin Hiscock, Mary Jane Porter, David Benson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781849713047
• eBook ISBN: 9781136472411
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology

The central focus of this volume is a critical comparative analysis of the key drivers for water resource management and the provision of clean water – governance systems and institutional and legal arrangements. The authors present a systematic analysis of case study river systems drawn from Australia, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, UK and USA to provide an integrated global assessment of the scale and key features of catchment management.

A key premise explored is that despite the diversity of jurisdictions and catchments there are commonalities to a successful approach. The authors show that environmental and public health water quality criteria must be integrated with the economic and social goals of those affected, necessitating a 'twin-track' and holistic (cross-sector and discipline) approach of stakeholder engagement and sound scientific research.

A final synthesis presents a set of principles for adaptive catchment management. These principles demonstrate how to integrate the best scientific and technical knowledge with policy, governance and legal provisions. It is shown how decision-making and implementation at the appropriate geographic and governmental scales can resolve conflicts and share best sustainable practices.

Part I

Overview

1 The challenge of protecting water resources

An introduction and the purposes of this book

Laurence Smith, Keith Porter, Kevin Hiscock, David Benson and Mary Jane Porter

The necessity of integrated catchment management

Healthy ecosystems, a clean environment and safe water supplies are vital to human health, quality of life and economic well-being, and thus to the overarching goal of sustainable development. It is a simple truism that our water resources are irreplaceable. They meet our needs for drinking, food and fibre production and hygiene, and they sustain the industries and ecosystems that support our livelihoods and lifestyles (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Protection of the natural ecosystems of river basins and the restoration of degraded water catchments are crucial to securing the world’s water supplies, maintaining their quality, regulating floods, mitigating threats to water security from climate change, conserving biodiversity and enhancing cultural benefits and social values (Vörösmarty et al., 2010; UNEP, 2011).

Beyond all other natural resources it is in our use of fresh water that our dependence on a healthy environment is most evident. Society has entered an era defined by the confrontation between natural limits to our resource use and growth in human demands in which the challenges of water resource management are at the forefront. These are global challenges as the amount of fresh water on Earth is finite. Achievement of social and economic development, improved social equity and stability, and the conservation of aquatic habitats and biodiversity all depend on our management of this scarce resource. Put simply, good water management is essential for sustainable development.

Despite this need, water resources continue to be degraded and although this is catalogued by an increasing frequency and volume of international meetings and reports, remedial actions at both catchment and river basin scale often remain inadequate. The following quotes highlight some of the challenges.

Water scarcity

More than 40% of the global population is projected to be living in areas of severe water stress through 2050.

There is clear evidence that groundwater supplies are diminishing, with an estimated 20% of the world’s aquifers being over-exploited, some critically so.

(WWAP, 2014)

There are major uncertainties about the amount of water required to meet demand for food, energy and other human uses, and to sustain ecosystems. These uncertainties are compounded by the impact of climate change on available water resources.

(WWAP, 2012)

Degraded water quality

Over 80 per cent of sewage in developing countries is discharged untreated directly into water bodies.

Industry is responsible for dumping an estimated 300–400 million tonnes of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge and other waste into waters each year.

Nutrient enrichment has become one of the most widespread water quality problems, severely degrading freshwater and coastal ecosystems.

The biodiversity of freshwater ecosystems has been degraded more than any other ecosystem, including tropical rainforests.

(UN Water, 2011)

Nutrient pollution

The sustainability of our world depends fundamentally on nutrients. In order to feed 7 billion people, humans have more than doubled global land-based cycling of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P).

The world’s N and P cycles are now out of balance, causing major environmental, health and economic problems that have received far too little attention.

Unless action is taken, increases in population and per capita consumption of energy and animal products will exacerbate nutrient losses, pollution levels and land degradation, further threatening the quality of our water, air and soils, affecting climate and biodiversity.

(Sutton et al., 2013)

Failures in the sustainable management of water resources are evident in most regions of the world. Extreme and well-known examples include the Aral Sea, diminished in volume and area by abstraction from its tributaries, and the ‘Dead Zone’ of the Gulf of Mexico. The latter occurs regularly and consists of a swathe of shallow coastal waters up to 22,000 square kilometres in area (equivalent to the state of New Jersey) within which there is not enough oxygen in the water to support marine life. This is caused in large part by the run-off from farms in the mid-west of the USA, from where excess nitrogen and phosphorus lost from liberal use of fertilizers on farmland is carried by the Mississippi to the Gulf. Resultant blooms of algae deprive the water of oxygen as they die and decompose.

Of equal if not greater significance in aggregate to such ‘flagship environmental disasters’ are the less extreme but globally widespread examples of overabstraction of surface and groundwater, deterioration in inland and coastal water quality, degradation of aquatic and wetland ecosystems and increased incidence of damaging floods.¹ Of particular concern in this book is the deterioration in water quality caused by diffuse sources of pollution from human activities in rural areas. However, this cannot be considered in isolation from other aspects of water and land management in our river basins and catchments.

Rain, hail and snow are the ultimate source of water but once it starts to melt, infiltrate or run off, the way water moves, is stored, is lost or degraded depends mainly on the characteristics of the land and how it is managed. The sustainable development challenge at the ‘heart’ of this book thus concerns how best to protect and conserve water within the landscapes in which people live, work and play. In other words, it is about managing land and water resources to achieve the multiple aims of clean and safe water supplies, profitable production of food and other agricultural commodities, viable rural livelihoods, businesses and settlements, and natural spaces for recreation, physical and psychic health, and attractive lifestyles. This requires the sustained conservation of healthy and diverse ecosystems and the goods and services they provide. However, despite the passage of a quarter-century since the Brundtland Report,² neither the principles of sustainable development, nor the principles of the ‘ecosystem approach’³ have yet to be comprehensively adopted in catchment and river basin management.

Inherent in these challenges are many complex complementarities and trade-offs. These prompt a comprehensive and integrated approach, and raise questions about the scale and scope of necessary action. In terms of scale, the river basin is typically the natural geographical unit to consider. A river basin encompasses the area drained by a river and its tributaries, from the source of each stream to a final destination in the sea, an estuary or inland lake. Most of Earth’s land surface falls within the area of river basins. In comparison the terms ‘catchment’ and ‘watershed’ are commonly used to refer to areas of land defined by the sub-basins of tributaries within a river basin. Many such smaller catchments or watersheds can exist within a basin. More precisely a watershed refers to the divide that separates one drainage area from another, although in some countries, including the United States and Canada, the term is also applied to the river basin or catchment area itself.

There are several reasons why it is considered logical to take a river basin or catchment as the spatial unit for analysis, planning and management of land and water resources. The river and its tributaries are common to all parts of the basin and water users within the basin are interdependent insofar as the actions of one person can affect the amount and quality of water available to others. In particular, upstream water users and land managers can affect the volume, quality or seasonality of water available to those downstream. For example, draining upland peat bogs or other wetlands can remove water storage capacity and natural mechanisms that modulate the flow of a river and assimilate waste. Similarly, deforestation and change in upstream land use may affect the frequency and severity of downstream floods, while also increasing soil erosion and the sediment and other pollutants carried by the river system. Such mechanisms are also manifest as catchment to coast linkages such that changes in upstream land and water use can impact on near-shore coastal ecosystems. Pollution largely conveyed by rivers from land-based sources can account for as much as 80 per cent of all marine pollution. Overall the challenges of water scarcity, flood risk and diminished water quality each impose the need to manage water at each stage from its source to the sea. In addition, if it is true that water users and land managers within a catchment can perceive their dependence on a common resource and understand their interdependence with others, then a basis for resolution of conflicts of interest and competition over resources may exist. A catchment or basin thus appears to provide both a natural unit for strategic planning and management, and a potential ‘forum’ for assessment of resources, trade-offs and the incidence of impacts. This introduces the duality of technical assessment and stakeholder deliberation that is a core theme of this book.

Although these arguments for planning, analysis and management at a catchment or basin scale are clear there can be exceptions and obstacles. Exceptions may include transboundary effects arising from groundwater flows or inter-basin water transfers. In terms of obstacles it is usual to find that watersheds and thus the boundaries of catchments do not match existing administrative and political boundaries. Such institutional boundaries were usually established in eras before the relative scarcity or poor quality of water resources became a leading concern. Also, while individuals can be expected to be responsive to issues and trade-offs within their immediate locality, it is not clear that they will always be either cognizant of, or responsive to, objectives set at a larger catchment or basin scale.

Despite the importance of catchments and river basins it can thus be difficult to determine the best scale at which to manage land and water resources, or at which to implement programmes and policies for their improvement. This will depend on a range of factors and a complexity which can be compounded by the timescale over which problems may materialize and the cumulative nature of impacts that can occur. As we will explore further in this book local management of land and water at a catchment or sub-catchment scale is the natural default situation and has many advantages, but the logic of water resource management at a whole catchment or basin scale will also require interventions at this higher scale. In turn this will require appropriate and effective multi-agency and multi-level governance arrangements.

The logic of catchment management also reveals that any single management intervention in a catchment or basin can be expected to have foreseen consequences and side effects, both of which will be subject to uncertainty. Given such complexities and interdependencies the logic of assessment and management at a catchment scale extends to the need to be holistic and comprehensive in scope. The concept of integrated catchment management thus includes integration of the management of landscapes, waterways, lakes, estuaries and coastal ecosystems within a river basin. It encompasses the management of both water quantity and quality, and diverse uses of water by the public, industry, agriculture and other land uses, and the energy sector. It requires data and scientific understanding that is integrated both across disciplines and with the location-specific knowledge of local residents and resource users. As noted above integrated catchment management must be coordinated across the tiers and divisions of administration and civil society that exist. In terms of objectives, integrated catchment management requires that economic and social goals are aligned with ecological and environmental outcomes. In implementation it requires that voluntary efforts coincide in objectives and are coordinated in implementation with the programmes and projects of the private and public sectors.

Catchment management exhibiting some or all of these features of scale and scope has become a global phenomenon, but with different forms emerging in different contexts (Benson et al., 2013) – for example, ‘watershed management’ in the USA prompted by the provisions of the federal Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts; ‘integrated catchment management’ in Australia under the Landcare programme and latterly the National Heritage Trust and Caring for our Country initiative; ‘river basin management’ as required by the Water Framework Directive in the European Union; and the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) paradigm adopted by the United Nations and other international bodies. Each of these can be contrasted to prior governance regimes for water that can typically be characterized as technocratic and engineering led, primarily public sector, and focused on single-sector objectives of water abstraction and supply, hydropower, navigation or flood control (Molle, 2009).

This global and ‘paradigmatic’ change in management philosophy and practices potentially provides multiple and diverse cases on which to draw for learning and lesson transfer between locations and jurisdictions. A selection of leading cases provides the basis for this book and its attempt to draw lessons for catchment management, and specifically the control of diffuse pollution in rural areas.

The objectives, focus and scope of this book

In this book ‘catchment management’ is used as a generic term to refer to the management of water and to the relevant management of land uses and built infrastructure at a catchment and sub-catchment scale. As such use of the term overlaps with a range of related concepts including river basin management planning, watershed planning, integrated catchment management and relevant aspects of IWRM.

The subject of this book is how best to protect, conserve and manage water resources at their source and at the scale of a catchment or watershed. Issues of scale are very important and raise challenges for the transferability of recommendations and best practice. This book focuses on small- to medium-scale catchments for surface and groundwater. Challenges at a whole river basin scale for major rivers, including international transboundary issues, are not directly addressed although some of the lessons drawn here are potentially transferable to such cases. The issues and approaches that are considered at a smaller scale are certainly relevant as ‘building blocks’ and potential delivery mechanisms for the challenges of large basins.

This book seeks to provide an innovative perspective by adopting an inter-disciplinary approach to critical comparative analysis of drivers and modalities for catchment-based water resource management that include governance systems and institutional and legal arrangements. Catchment management crucially depends on these drivers and modalities. Case studies in the book allow a comparison of catchment scientific approaches, governance systems and institutional arrangements for the management of water resources, drawn from case examples in the USA, Australia and north-west Europe. This collective experience and understanding is supported by lessons culled from the wider international literature to attempt an integrated and globally applicable synthesis of the scope and commonalities of catchment management.

Focusing on water as a natural resource, the primary purposes for catchment management are the efficient allocation and use of a catchment’s water resources and cost-effective application of measures to protect catchment ecosystems and the quantity and quality of the water that these produce. A further breakdown of water management objectives according to water use by sectors of the economy could include: water supplies for people and animals; water for agricultural (including aquaculture) and industrial production; water for nature conservation and capture fisheries; navigation; recreation; power production; flood control; fire protection; and waste disposal.

Overabstraction, flood risk and water quality are almost universal concerns. Water pollution comprises point and diffuse (or non-point) sources of contamination including discharges from wastewater treatment and industry, surface run-off from fields, seepage of nutrients and other contaminants from soil into groundwater, stream bank erosion and discharges from dispersed and numerous minor point sources such as field, farmyard and urban drains. Diffuse or non-point source water contamination is the most difficult to overcome and its control is a primary concern of this book. A point source can be defined as a discrete and discernible conveyance of wastewater such as pipes, ditches, channels and other means of conveying water. Point ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• Notes on contributors
• Foreword by Professor Philip Lowe, Director, Rural Economy and Land Use Programme
• Acknowledgements
• PART I Overview
• PART II Case studies
• PART III Lessons for catchment and river basin management
• Index