Integrating spatially referenced social and biophysical data to explore landholder responses to dryland salinity in Australia

Researchers attempting to integrate socio-economic data in watershed planning often draw on nationally collected census data. However, there are critical limitations to the usefulness of this type of data for decision makers operating at the watershed scale. In this paper we demonstrate the relevance of spatially referenced socio-economic data collected using mail surveys to random selections of rural landholders. The issue explored was dryland salinity management in two large watersheds in the Murray-Darling Basin of south-eastern Australia. Contrary to the assumptions underlying public policy in Australia, but consistent with the literature on farmer knowledge, comparisons of expert maps and landholder identified salinity sites suggested that landholders in these watersheds had excellent knowledge of the current extent of salinity on their property. Our research also suggested that salinity education was a sound investment by governments. At the same time, the expert maps failed to predict half of the saline affected sites identified by landholders. Accurately mapping the extent of salinity would seem a first step in addressing this nationally significant land degradation issue.     

Public policy, private landholders: perspectives on policy mechanisms for sustainable land management

A variety of tools can be employed in support of environmental policy objectives, but achieving preferred outcomes also requires the cooperation of private landholders and others with vested interests in the land. The Land Stewardship project in the state of Victoria, Australia, is an initiative devoted to exploring the ways in which private landholders could be encouraged towards more sustainable land management. Following the view that the success of policy initiatives is contingent on effective stakeholder engagement, a component of the Land Stewardship project involved a dialogue with landholders about policy tools (e.g., regulation, economic instruments) that might be deployed to encourage improved land management practices. This paper provides an account of the views and attitudes of landholders, as revealed in a series of three workshops, which consisted of discussions about the factors influencing agriculture, participants' interpretations of sustainability, and policy methods. The focus of the paper is on what landholders believe to be the strengths and limitations of standard policy tools, and the essential requirements for these tools to deliver the best land management outcomes. One of the main findings of the project was a 'preference hierarchy' in respect of policy methods, according to which the strongest support was expressed for voluntary and education-based tools, followed by market-based instruments, with command-and-control regulation identified as a measure of 'last resort'. In the paper we reflect also on how the views and outlook of landholders should be positioned relative to other inputs in the design of policy interventions.     

Managing invasive plants in a rural-amenity landscape: the role of social capital and Landcare

Rural-amenity migration is changing the social and ecological compositions of landscapes globally. The in-migration of new landholders is contributing to significant biophysical changes to rural landscapes, as well as the weakening of collective awareness, knowledge and skills needed to manage natural resources. This is leading to the proliferation of environmental harm. This paper focuses on invasive plants as one such harm, detailing how collective action is developed and challenged in a rural landscape undergoing increasing property turnover and diversifying management priorities. Focusing on the role of a Landcare group, located in southern New South Wales, Australia, I explore how social capital – with a particular focus on trust and social norms – is mobilised to recruit newly arrived residents and maintain commitment among landholders to manage invasive plants. This research provides insights into how policy can better steer management interventions, particularly how to develop and maintain collective action in diversifying rural landscapes.     

WATERSHEDS ARE NOT EQUAL: EXPLORING THE FEASIBILITY OF WATERSHED MANAGEMENT1

ABSTRACT: We propose that some watersheds may be better candidates for watershed management than others. The extent of success of watershed management may depend, in part, on attributes intrinsic to watersheds: scientific feasibility, social feasibility, and motivational feasibility. Using illustrations from New Jersey watershed management efforts, we tie scientific feasibility to the nature of environmental problems and the scientific capability to solve them. Social feasibility encompasses civic infrastructure and engagement. Motivational feasibility includes issue salience linked to values or economic considerations. We suggest that assessments should be made about the viability of watershed management in specific watersheds and that priorities should be developed based on these assessments. Research on watershed management should explore not only how to improve watershed management but also where to conduct it.     

Canada's Model Forests 20 years on: towards forest and community sustainability?

We review how Canadian Model Forests pursued forest and community sustainability over the course of two decades (1992–2012). Given its roots in the forest industry and forest science, Model Forest programming initially faced some challenges in pursuing the socio‐economic dimensions of sustainable forest management (SFM) in order to fulfil mandated community sustainability objectives. This was due, in part, to how objectives, stakeholders, and expertise were brought together to develop SFM. The programme helped to define sustainability and the SFM paradigm, advance forest science and social research, and bring together a mix of usually adversarial partners in the name of innovation. Ultimately, the termination of federal programming was linked to high‐level policy shifts, yet difficulty in delivering on the socio‐economic dimensions of SFM during a period of forest sector and community crisis was also a factor.     

Economic Incentives to Conserve Wildlife on Private Lands: Analysis and Policy

Some believe that provision of private property rights in wildlife on private land provides a powerful economic incentive for nature conservation because it enables property owners to market such wildlife or its attributes. If such marketing is profitable, private landholders will conserve the wildlife concerned and its required habitat. But land is not always most profitably used for exploitation of wildlife, and many economic values of wildlife (such as non-use economic values) cannot be marketed. The mobility of some wildlife adds to the limitations of the private-property approach. While some species may be conserved by this approach, it is suboptimal as a single policy approach to nature conservation. Nevertheless, it is being experimented with, in the Northern Territory of Australia where landholders had a possibility of harvesting on their properties a quota of eggs and chicks of red-tailed black cockatoos for commercial sale. This scheme was expected to provide an incentive to private landholders to retain hollow trees essential for the nesting of these birds but failed. This case and others are analysed. Despite private-property failures, the long-term survival of some wildlife species depends on their ability to use private lands without severe harassment, either for their migration or to supplement their available resources, for example, the Asian elephant. Nature conservation on private land is often a useful, if not essential, supplement to conservation on public lands. Community and public incentives for such conservation are outlined.     

NEGOTIATING SCIENCE AND VALUES WITH STAKEHOLDERS IN THE ILLINOIS RIVER BASIN1

ABSTRACT: Current research in the Illinois River Basin is designed to develop and test a policy formulation protocol that will foster watershed management policy that is fully legitimated (i.e., policy that is technically effective, economically efficient, administratively implementable, politically feasible, and socially acceptable). This paper describes the results of the initial baseline impact assessment that includes physical, biological, economic, legal, and social systems as well as the development of a watershed management decision support system that is used to integrate technical information and analyses, and to facilitate policy maker and stakeholder negotiation workshops. Numerically modeled and visually simulated environmental impacts serve as the basis for developing alternative policy maker scenarios for prospective watershed management policies. These scenarios, which will be subjected to stakeholder review and negotiation, will undergo iterative review and amendment by policy makers and stakeholder groups to produce a recommended watershed management policy that satisfies all five substantive legitimation criteria. Preliminary results from the baseline social impact assessment indicate that fully legitimated policy is indeed obtainable.     

Structured Decision Making to Meet a National Water Quality Mandate

Water quality criteria are necessary to ensure protection of ecological and human health conditions, but compliance can require complex decisions. We use structured decision making to consider multiple stakeholder objectives in a water quality management process, with a case study in the Three Bays watershed on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. We set a goal to meet or exceed a nitrogen load reduction target for the watershed and four key objectives: minimizing economic costs of implementing management actions, minimizing the complexity of permitting management actions, maximizing stakeholder acceptability of the management actions, and maximizing the provision of ecosystem services (recreational opportunity, erosion and flood control, socio‐cultural amenity). We used multi‐objective optimization and sensitivity analysis to generate many possible solutions that implement different combinations of nitrogen‐removing management actions and reflect tradeoffs between the objectives. Results show technological advances in controlling household nitrogen sources could provide lower cost solutions and positive impacts to ecosystem services. Although this approach is demonstrated with Cape Cod data, the decision‐making process is not specific to any watershed and could be easily applied elsewhere.     

Government and voluntary policymaking for sustainability in mining towns: A longitudinal analysis of Itabira,Brazil

The socio‐economic fabric of single‐company mining towns needs to be carefully considered by both Government and companies in sustainability policymaking. Policy design and effectiveness in such towns are significantly impacted by the city's economic dependence on a single company. This paper explores the perceived effectiveness of government and voluntary private sector mining policies for pursuing sustainability in the historic mining town of Itabira, Brazil over a period of 20 years. Itabira serves as a worthwhile case study because it allows for an in‐depth and longitudinal analysis that can reveal valuable lessons to policymakers of different sectors and jurisdictions located elsewhere. Based on extensive face‐to‐face interviews and literature reviews, study results indicate that changes to the state environmental licensing policies in the 1990s led to significant socio‐environmental improvements in the area. The globalization of the mining company also contributed to an increase in the quantity and quality of voluntary industry policies. Recent technological improvements in the beneficiation processes of the mining company promises to extend the life of the mine to 2050. Although there are significant incremental socio‐environmental policies and programmes, sustainability remains an elusive vision in Itabira, with no clear objectives or monitoring and accountability mechanisms. The paper concludes by recommending a more formal integrated policymaking framework.     

Same but different: sources of natural resource management advice for lifestyle oriented rural landholders

Amenity migration to attractive and accessible non-metropolitan areas changes social and environmental relations with consequences for natural resource management and landscape composition and trajectories. Lifestyler oriented rural landholders are often cast as a problem for land management and extension. Managers and some researchers see them as a cause of landscape and social fragmentation and report difficulties in engaging such landowners on natural resource management issues and responsibilities. In contrast, limited existing research indicates that lifestylers do join and form networks of personal and other contacts for advice and support in land management. We contribute to this research with a survey of rural landholders in southeastern New South Wales (NSW). We explicitly compare the sources of advice for land management for lifestylers with those of farmers. We focus on the types of sources available to rural landholders in Australian regions and their relative importance to these two landholder groups. We find that lifestylers and farmers are different in their sources of advice but that both prefer personal sources rather than sources such as agencies. We reflect on the significance of the differences for engagement with lifestyle oriented rural landowners and for understanding landscape change.     

INTEGRATING SOCIAL BENEFIT COST ACCOUNTING INTO WATERSHED RESTORATION AND PROTECTION PROGRAMS1

ABSTRACT: Successful watershed management requires consideration of multiple objectives and the efficient use of scarce public and private resources. One way to address these multi-faceted issues is through Social Benefit-Cost Accounting (SBCA). SBCA is a systematic method of addressing complex social and economic issues relevant to proposed watershed management projects. Benefits of using this technique include: benefits and costs of watershed projects are better understood; politically sensitive issues tend to be put into perspective; and stakeholders' interests are placed on a level playing field. An example from Bogota, Colombia demonstrates how SBCA can be used to value the benefits and costs of a proposed project. By addressing the benefits and costs to all stakeholders, the design of watershed management programs can be improved to achieve goals in a cost-effective manner.     

Examining the agricultural producer identity: utilising the collective occupational identity construct to create a typology and profile of rural landholders in Victoria,Australia

Multifunctional rural landscapes are often characterised by contrasting values, land uses and land management practices of rural property owners. It seems these trends are, in part, an expression of rural landholder's identification as farmers. Existing typologies of rural landholders seldom take into account occupational identity. Research discussed in this paper addresses that gap. The objective was to apply the collective occupational identity construct to address the challenges of profiling rural landholders and test its effectiveness at distinguishing between different types of landholders. A 12-item scale was used to explore the extent rural landholders in south-eastern Australia held an agricultural producer identity. Cluster analysis resulted in the creation of four clusters of rural landholders with distinctive characteristics, suggesting the approach can provide researchers with a theoretically sound construct and practitioners with a useful tool as they attempt to better understand and engage rural landholders in sustainable agriculture.     

Landowner motivations for watershed restoration: lessons from five watersheds

Collaborative watershed management initiatives have increased tremendously over the past decade. One of the critical questions for these initiatives is how to influence private land management practices to improve watershed health. This article researches landowner motivations and preferences for watershed restoration efforts in five watersheds in Western Oregon. Based on a survey of 446 landowners and 80 personal interviews, the research revealed that landowner perspectives vary by socio-economic, cultural, and land use characteristics. They are strongly motivated by a concern for future generations and interpersonal influence is particularly important. Finances, time, and unfamiliarity were all significant barriers to the adoption of conservation practices. The findings also revealed considerable variation among landowners as to their trusted sources of information and preferred outreach methods. Beyond the findings in Oregon, the research suggests that watershed initiatives need to understand landowner characteristics and motivating factors to better promote watershed restoration and target outreach efforts.     

Social Demand for Ecosystem Services and Implications for Watershed Management

We performed a sociocultural preference assessment for a suite of ecosystem services provided by the Kiamichi River watershed in the south‐central United States, a region with intense water conflict. The goal was to examine how a social assessment of services could be used to weigh tradeoffs among water resource uses for future watershed management and planning. We identified the ecosystem services beneficiaries groups, analyzed perception for maintaining services, assessed differences in the importance and perceived trends for ecosystem services, and explored the perceived impact on ecosystem services arising from different watershed management scenarios. Results show habitat for species and water regulation were two ecosystem services all beneficiaries agreed were important. The main discrepancies among stakeholder groups were found for water‐related services. The identification of potential tradeoffs between services under different flow scenarios promotes a dynamic management strategy for allocating water resources, one that mitigates potential conflicts. While it is widely accepted the needs of all beneficiaries should be considered for the successful incorporation of ecosystem services into watershed management, the number of studies actually using the sociocultural perspective in ecosystem service assessment is limited. Our study demonstrates it is both possible and useful to quantify social demand of ecosystem services in watershed management.     

Towards a socio‐economic analysis of Scotland's coastal areas

Integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) has evolved as a key mechanism for the delivery of sustainable development objectives within coastal regions. Yet, despite significant advancements in ICZM application over recent years, one of the most noticeable weaknesses of ICZM performance has been a failure to adequately account for the existence of socio‐economic concerns. This information deficiency is particularly apparent in Scotland. Despite significant progress in the promotion of ICZM, Scottish experiences have been characterized by a focus upon sectoral policy co‐ordination and environmental dimensions of sustainability. This paper provides an evaluation of both socio‐economic conditions and processes which impact upon coastal communities in Scotland and considers how such issues can be accounted for within future coastal management debates.     

Consuming water smartly: the significance of sociocultural differences to water-saving initiatives

This article explores how strategies to encourage households to consume less water, through education and the installation of smart meters, play out in actual social worlds where the texture and complexity of households, and the individuals within them, have a tendency to be simplified to average or statistical norms. Building on research and critical analysis from earlier studies, particularly in Australia, this research set out to explore Thames Water’s smarter home initiative deploying three frames – affect, habit, and the meaning of home – for thinking through the different responses of householders to the intervention. The study revealed that differences in response to the smarter home visit were articulated across income, education, gender, age, and ethnicity – not as homogenous or fixed categories, but rather as categories which emerged through the smart metering intervention. The research concluded that demand management interventions such as the smarter home visits, conceived as a relatively simple technology-driven behavioural change strategy, are more complex and nuanced in their reception and effects, especially on the user–provider relationship, in the constitution of social differences, and in the definitions of public and private spaces and practices. Acceptance or resistance of these programmes is not knowable in advance of their dissemination. For such interventions to be successful, water companies thus need to recognise the differentiated social, cultural, and economic environments in which their strategies are enacted. A failure to do so can only limit their stated objectives of reducing household water consumption.     

Watershed management and the Web

Watershed analysis and watershed management are developing as tools of integrated ecological and economic study. They also assist decision-making at the regional scale. The new technology and thinking offered by the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web is highly complementary to some of the goals of watershed analysis. Services delivered by the Web are open, interactive, fast, spatially distributed, hierarchical and flexible. The Web offers the ability to display information creatively, to interact with that information and to change and modify it remotely. In this way the Internet provides a much-needed opportunity to deliver scientific findings and information to stakeholders and to link stakeholders together providing for collective decision-making. The benefits fall into two major categories: methodological and educational. Methodologically the approach furthers the watershed management concept, offering an avenue for practical implementation of watershed management principles. For educational purposes the Web is a source of data and insight serving a variety of needs at all levels. We use the Patuxent River case study to illustrate the web-based approach to watershed management. A watershed scale simulation model is built for the Patuxent area and it serves as a core for watershed management design based on web applications. It integrates the knowledge available for the Patuxent area in a comprehensive and systematic format, and provides a conceptual basis for understanding the performance of the watershed as a system. Moreover, the extensive data collection and conceptualisation required within the framework of the modeling effort stimulates close contact with the environmental management community. This is further enhanced by offering access to the modeling results and the data sets over the Web. Additional web applications and links are provided to increase awareness and involvement of stakeholders in the watershed management process. We argue that it is not the amount and quality of information that is crucial for the success of watershed management, but how well the information is disseminated, shared and used by the stakeholders. In this respect the Web offers a wealth of opportunities for the decision-making process, but still to be answered are the questions at what scale and how widely will the Web be accepted as a management tool, and how can watershed management benefit from web applications.     

How is Shrimp Aquaculture Transforming Coastal Livelihoods and Lagoons in Estero Real,Nicaragua?: The Need to Integrate Social–Ecological Research and Ecosystem-Based Approaches

Ecosystem-based approaches to aquaculture integrate environmental concerns into planning. Social–ecological systems research can improve this approach by explicitly relating ecological and social dynamics of change at multiple scales. Doing so requires not only addressing direct effects of aquaculture but also considering indirect factors such as changes in livelihood strategies, governance dynamics, and power relations. We selected the community of Puerto Morazán, Nicaragua as a case study to demonstrate how the introduction of small-scale aquaculture radically transformed another key livelihood activity, lagoon shrimp fishing, and the effects that these changes have had on lagoons and the people that depend on them. We find that shrimp aquaculture played a key role in the collapse, in the 1990s, of an existing lagoon common-property management. Shrimp aquaculture-related capital enabled the adoption of a new fishing technique that not only degraded lagoons but also led to their gradual privatization. The existence of social ties between small-scale shrimp farmers and other community members mitigated the impacts of privatization, illustrating the importance of social capital. Since 2008, community members are seeking to communally manage the lagoons once again, in response to degraded environmental conditions and a consolidation of the shrimp industry at the expense of smaller actors. This research shows that shrimp aquaculture intersects with a complex set of drivers, affecting not only how ecosystems are managed but also how they are perceived and valued. Understanding these social–ecological dynamics is essential to implement realistic policies and management of mangrove ecosystems and address the needs of resource-dependent people.     

WATERSHED MANAGEMENT AND POLICY IN HAWAII: COMING FULL CIRCLE1

ABSTRACT: Changes in watershed management and policy in Hawaii are an instructive case study on the evolution of resource management from a traditional vertically integrated system, to a segmented central government‐based system, and now towards a community and watershed focus. The rise of European social and economic influences coupled with the precipitous decline in the Hawaiian population in the years following European contact led to the destruction of traditional management structures. Subsequently, the dominance of outside interests in Hawaii society and politics, culminating with the sugar industry, facilitated the unrestricted use and privatization of land and water resources. The post‐World War II era ushered in fundamental changes in Hawaii society and politics including renewed appreciation of traditional management practices. Government policies, increased community interest in resource management, and a renaissance in Hawaiian culture have converged in recent years to facilitate the development of new management structures that draw on both traditional and contemporary management. These structures hold great promise for improving Hawaiian watershed management. Our observations suggest that other jurisdictions may find it productive to examine traditional management and policy structures and try to relate them to contemporary community‐based resource management policies and activities.     

Adaptive Management and Watersheds: A Social Science Perspective1

Abstract:  Adaptive management is often proposed as the most effective way to manage complex watersheds. However, our experience suggests that social and institutional factors constrain the search for, and integration of, the genuine learning that defines adaptive management. Drawing on our work as social scientists, and on a guided panel discussion at a recent AWRA conference, we suggest that watershed‐scale adaptive management must be recognized as a radical departure from established ways of managing natural resources if it is to achieve its promise. Successful implementation will require new ways of thinking about management, new organizational structures and new implementation processes and tools. Adaptive management encourages scrutiny of prevailing social and organizational norms and this is unlikely to occur without a change in the culture of natural resource management and research. Planners and managers require educational, administrative, and political support as they seek to understand and implement adaptive management. Learning and reflection must be valued and rewarded, and fora established where learning through adaptive management can be shared and explored. The creation of new institutions, including educational curricula, organizational policies and practices, and professional norms and beliefs, will require support from within bureaucracies and from politicians. For adaptive management to be effective researchers and managers alike must work together at the watershed‐scale to bridge the gaps between theory and practice, and between social and technical understandings of watersheds and the people who occupy and use them.