Finding Common Ground: How Advocacy Coalitions Succeed in Protecting Environmental Flows1

Abstract: This paper reviews several recent case studies in which states or countries have strengthened their protection of environmental flows to explore the key policy, stakeholder, and scientific elements that contributed to these advances in water management. A conceptual framework is developed to describe the actions of interest groups and individuals, how environmental flow issues get onto the formal agenda of decision makers, the events and conditions which precipitate this attention, the role of science and scientific uncertainty, and how interactions and dialog among individuals and groups with different interests lead to changes in state and national statutes. In general, the review found that changing policies is a result of actions of informed groups of interested parties using science and information to inform both the public and decision makers about the need for action and about the specific action needed. In almost all cases, environmental flow issues make it onto the formal agenda of institutions through one or more precipitating events, often legal challenges that call into question the existing legal framework for water management. Significantly, in almost all cases the engagement between advocacy coalitions with different and often opposing views results in reframing the issues to provide a common approach or solution upon which the competing coalitions can agree.     

A SURVEY OF HYDROLOGY COURSE CONTENT IN NORTH AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES1

ABSTRACT: This report presents the results of a survey of hydrology faculties of colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. Information is presented on topics covered in classes, allocation of class periods to individual topics, textbooks, prerequisites, computer use, and accreditation categories for hydrology courses offered by engineering departments. Hydrology courses generally require courses in fluid mechanics, mathematics, statistics, and computer science as prerequisites. Topics that receive the largest allocation of time in both introductory and advanced courses include rainfall-runoff relations, the hydrologic cycle, routing and open channel flow, and statistics. Advanced courses place greater emphasis on watershed models than do the introductory courses. Hydrology courses at both levels allocate the smallest amounts of time to snow hydrology ground-water hydrology, and “other topics.” Very few courses include field or experimental work. In a discipline where computer modeling is a major tool, this lack of field and data-collection experience may lead students to underestimate the uncertainties associated with data used to calibrate models and the modeling results themselves. Survey responses on hydrology courses taught in departments other than civil engineering were too few to permit detailed analysis. Most of these courses spend approximately two-thirds of available class time on the same topics as presented in engineering hydrology courses. The balance of class time is spent on topics that emphasize the specialized interest of the particular discipline, such as soil physics and soil moisture in agricultural engineering.     

PERSISTENT CONFLICTS OVER TIMBER PRODUCTION AND WATERSHED MANAGEMENP: A PROBLEM ANALYSIS1

ABSTRACT: Most forest lands are managed for multiple purposes, among them timber production and water supply. Conflicts often arise in such cases because logging is perceived as a threat to water quality. These conflicts can result from uncertain factual information, from differences in underlying social values, or from imbalances in the incidence of costs and benefits. Resulting conificts may go unresolved because existing institutional structures fail to address the real roots of the dispute. When such conificts go unresolved, benefits are often lost, and social, political, and managerial costs are high. This study found that the roots of conifict may lie in value differences or in interest impacts, but attention may be focused inappropriately and unproductively on factual issues. It suggests that at least some long-standing disputes in the management of forested watersheds may be resolved by identifying the root causes of these disputes and choosing those actions, whether they be changes in management guidelines or altered institutional structures, which are appropriate to those causes.     

Critical Risk Indicators (CRIs) for the electric power grid: a survey and discussion of interconnected effects

The electric power grid is a critical societal resource connecting multiple infrastructural domains such as agriculture, transportation, and manufacturing. The electrical grid as an infrastructure is shaped by human activity and public policy in terms of demand and supply requirements. Further, the grid is subject to changes and stresses due to diverse factors including solar weather, climate, hydrology, and ecology. The emerging interconnected and complex network dependencies make such interactions increasingly dynamic, posing novel risks, and presenting new challenges to manage the coupled human–natural system. This paper provides a survey of models and methods that seek to explore the significant interconnected impact of the electric power grid and interdependent domains. We also provide relevant critical risk indicators (CRIs) across diverse domains that may be used to assess risks to electric grid reliability, including climate, ecology, hydrology, finance, space weather, and agriculture. We discuss the convergence of indicators from individual domains to explore possible systemic risk, i.e., holistic risk arising from cross-domain interconnections. Further, we propose a compositional approach to risk assessment that incorporates diverse domain expertise and information, data science, and computer science to identify domain-specific CRIs and their union in systemic risk indicators. Our study provides an important first step towards data-driven analysis and predictive modeling of risks in interconnected human–natural systems.

     

COORDINATION OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE AC A CASE STUDY OF LAKE RESTORATION1

ABSTRACT: The potential for joint public and private action for lake restoration is examined using Lake Apopka, Florida, as a case study. Initial calculations indicate that private incentives alone are inadequate to attract investment in a facility to grow and harvest water hyacinths for conversion to methane gas. However, the private externality of water quality improvement associated with harvesting water hyacinths provides a key linkage between the public's water quality objectives and the private gas producer's actions. In order to establish the potential basis for negotiation, the public's willingness-to-pay for environmental services associated with improved water quality is estimated and compared with the estimated subsidy required to induce private action. A conceptual framework is then presented for coordinating actions between private firms and public water management agencies in order to internalize the private externality of water quality improvement while simultaneously achieving the public and private objectives. Results indicate that the subsidization of water hyacinth production and harvesting compares favorably with alternative means of enhancing the water quality of Lake Apopka.     

COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' WATER KNOWLEDGE1

ABSTRACT: This study examines the social construction of county commissioners' knowledge about water. Factors that influence what commissioners know about water include each commissioner's personal characteristics, education, experience in natural resources management, involvement in policy making, and use and evaluation of various sources of information. This study focused on county commissioners representing rural, mixed, and urban counties in Arizona, Nevada, and Utah and collected data through mail surveys and interviews. County commissioners in the survey were well educated; however, few had taken college courses directly addressing technical, management, or legal aspects of water issues. Approximately one-third had direct experience in farming and ranching; nearly two-thirds indicated that farming and ranching played a major role in their communities. Respondents had experience with a broad range of water policy issues. In evaluating thirteen information sources in terms of their frequency of use, relevancy, and reliability, respondents assessed fellow commissioners and local government staff and managers most positively and nonprofit organizations most negatively. The media was also broadly rated as less relevant and reliable than other sources of information. The commissioners in the study expressed a high level of general concern about water issues and a strung preference for local sources of information.     

Impacts of Variable Climate and Effluent Flows on the Transboundary Santa Cruz Aquifer

Assessing groundwater resources in the arid and semiarid borderlands of the United States and Mexico represents a challenge for land and water managers, particularly in the Transboundary Santa Cruz Aquifer (TSCA). Population growth, residential construction, and industrial activities have increased groundwater demand in the TSCA, in addition to wastewater treatment and sanitation demands. These activities, coupled with climate variability, influence the hydrology of the TSCA and emphasize the need for groundwater assessment tools for decision‐making purposes. This study assesses the impacts of changes in groundwater demand, effluent discharge, and climate uncertainties within the TSCA from downstream of the Nogales International Wastewater Treatment Plant to the northern boundary of the Santa Cruz Active Management Area. We use a conceptual water budget model to analyze the long‐term impact of the different components of potential recharge and water losses within the aquifer. Modeling results project a future that ranges from severe long‐term drying to positive wetting. This research improves the understanding of the impact of natural and anthropogenic variables on water sustainability, with an accessible methodology that can be globally applied.     

Why Mami Wata matter: Local considerations for sustainable waterpower development policy in Central Africa

This paper is based on the author's fieldwork on the incorporation of local cultural understandings in the design of rural sustainability projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It explores several narratives about Mami Wata, mythological aquatic figures widely known in West and Central Africa, and their meanings for small-scale waterpower development projects, or micro-hydros. Careful examination of such narratives represents one way in which local conceptions and understandings can inform rural development policy, especially with regard to the social distribution of the benefits such projects aim to bring. When designing policies, development agents and agencies would do well to take these mythological and spiritual dimensions of local people's reality seriously rather than dismiss them as irrelevant, or simply as non-empirical phenomena and therefore without effects. The paper concludes with some concrete suggestions for policy action, paying special attention to how researchers and policymakers can work together to integrate local understandings more effectively into rural development strategies.     

A LANDSCAPE‐BASED APPROACH TO ESTIMATE RIPARIAN HYDROLOGICAL AND NITRATE REMOVAL FUNCTIONS1

ABSTRACT: This study evaluates a conceptual model developed for riparian zones in Ontario, Canada, that links landscape hydrogeological characteristics to riparian ground water hydrology and nitrate removal efficiency. Data from a range of riparian sites in the United States and Europe suggest that the riparian zone types identified in the model are consistent with patterns of riparian hydrology and nitrate flux and removal in many humid temperate landscapes. These data also support the view that a riparian width of less than 20 m is often sufficient for effective nitrate removal unless riparian sediments are coarse grained or nitrate transport occurs mainly in surface‐fed ground water seeps. This study assesses the possibility of using topographic, soil, surficial geology, and vegetation maps to determine landscape attributes linked by the model to riparian zone hydrological functioning and nitrate removal efficiency. Although mappable data can help in determining broad classes of riparian zones, field visits are necessary to determine non‐mappable riparian attributes such as seeps, organic horizons, and permeable sediment depth in the riparian zone. This research suggests that the conceptual model could be used for landscape management purposes in most temperate landscapes with minor modifications and that the hydrological component of the model could be adapted for contaminants other than nitrate.     

Water Balances of Two Piedmont Headwater Catchments: Implications for Regional Hydrologic Landscape Classification

In the Piedmont of North Carolina, a traditionally water‐rich region, reservoirs that serve over 1 million people are under increasing pressure due to naturally occurring droughts and increasing land development. Innovative development approaches aim to maintain hydrologic conditions of the undisturbed landscape, but are based on insufficient target information. This study uses the hydrologic landscape concept to evaluate reference hydrology in small headwater catchments surrounding Falls Lake, a reservoir serving Raleigh and the greater Triangle area. Researchers collected one year of detailed data on water balance components, including precipitation, evapotranspiration, streamflow, and shallow subsurface storage from two headwater catchments representative of two hydrologic landscapes defined by differences in soils and topographic characteristics. The two catchments are similar in size and lie within the same physiographic region, and during the study period they showed similar water balances of 26‐30% Q, ?4 to 5% ΔS, 59‐65% evapotranspiration, and 9‐10% G. However, the steeper, more elevated catchment exhibited perennial streamflow and nongrowing season runoff ratios (Q/P) of 33%, whereas the flat, low‐lying stream was drier during the growing season and exhibited Q/P ratios of 52% during the nongrowing season. A hydrologic landscape defined by topography and soil characteristics helps characterize local‐scale reference hydrology and may contribute to better land management decisions.     

Social Acceptability of Water Resource Management: A Conceptual Approach and Empirical Findings from Portland,Oregon1

Abstract: Surface water resources in urban areas serve multiple functions ranging from recreation to wildlife habitat. As a result, diverse values influence people’s views about resource protection, potentially leading to conflicting interests. In metropolitan Portland, Oregon, natural resource planning has recently focused on habitat restoration as well as stormwater and pollution mitigation, especially through the protection of riparian areas. Due to opposition over proposed regulations in the study region, this research examines public attitudes about an array of resource management efforts. The primary research question is: what is the extent of positive–negative attitudes about water resource protection, and what theoretical dimensions underlie diverse judgments? After empirical survey results are presented, I outline a conceptual approach for future assessments of environmental attitudes while highlighting important value‐based dimensions of judgments. Although flexible, the framework allows broad comparisons to advance knowledge about the social acceptability of varied water resource management approaches across diverse places and contexts.     

Post-Project Appraisals in Adaptive Management of River Channel Restoration

Post-project appraisals (PPAs) can evaluate river restoration schemes in relation to their compliance with design, their short-term performance attainment, and their longer-term geomorphological compatibility with the catchment hydrology and sediment transport processes. PPAs provide the basis for communicating the results of one restoration scheme to another, thereby improving future restoration designs. They also supply essential performance feedback needed for adaptive management, in which management actions are treated as experiments. PPAs allow river restoration success to be defined both in terms of the scheme attaining its performance objectives and in providing a significant learning experience. Different levels of investment in PPA, in terms of pre-project data and follow-up information, bring with them different degrees of understanding and thus different abilities to gauge both types of success. We present four case studies to illustrate how the commitment to PPA has determined the understanding achieved in each case. In Moore's Gulch (California, USA), understanding was severely constrained by the lack of pre-project data and post-implementation monitoring. Pre-project data existed for the Kitswell Brook (Hertfordshire, UK), but the monitoring consisted only of one site visit and thus the understanding achieved is related primarily to design compliance issues. The monitoring undertaken for Deep Run (Maryland, USA) and the River Idle (Nottinghamshire, UK) enabled some understanding of the short-term performance of each scheme. The transferable understanding gained from each case study is used to develop an illustrative five-fold classification of geomorphological PPAs (full, medium-term, short-term, one-shot, and remains) according to their potential as learning experiences. The learning experience is central to adaptive management but rarely articulated in the literature. Here, we gauge the potential via superimposition onto a previous schematic representation of the adaptive management process by Haney and Power (1996). Using PPAs wisely can lead to cutting-edge, complex solutions to river restoration challenges.     

Rapid Geomorphic and Habitat Stream Assessment Techniques Inform Restoration Differently Based on Levels of Stream Disturbance

Visual‐based rapid assessment techniques provide an efficient method for characterizing the restoration potential of streams, with many focusing on channel stability and instream habitat features. Few studies, however, have compared these techniques to see if they result in differing restoration priorities. Three rapid assessment techniques were contrasted at three wild trout streams in western New York with different amounts of channel disturbance. Two methods focused only on geomorphic stability, whereas the third addressed physical habitat condition. Habitat assessment scores were not correlated with scores for either geomorphic assessment method and they varied more between channels with different degrees of disturbance. A model based on dynamic equilibrium concepts best explains the variation among the streams and techniques because it accounts for a stream's capacity to maintain ecological integrity despite some inherent instability. Geomorphic indices can serve as effective proxies for biological indices in highly disturbed systems. Yet, this may not be the case in less disturbed systems, where geomorphic indices cannot differentiate channel adjustments that impact biota from those that do not. Dynamically stable streams can include both stable and unstable reaches locally as characterized by geomorphic methods and translating these results into restoration priorities may not be appropriate if interpretations are limited to the reach scale.     

FOREST HYDROLOGY ISSUES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY: A CONSULTANT'S VIEWPOINT1

ABSTRACT: Forest hydrology should be a mature science with routine use of hydrological procedures to evaluate the effect of past, current and proposed harvesting practices on water resources. It is not. However, water users are pressuring forest managers to exercise their role in managing forested watersheds for water supply. Most forest managers are poorly equipped to carry out this role. Forestry schools need to ensure that their graduates, whether employed in forest management positions or as specialists in watershed management, understand that all forestry operations may affect instream or downstream water users. Specialists in forest hydrology should be fully aware of the following: (1) climate and watershed characteristics influence streamflow in separate ways; (2) forestry practices produce changes in water yield and quality, and that only these changes need to be evaluated to estimate their effects; (3) watershed storage is a critical factor in evaluating the effects of harvesting on streamflow; and (4) the effect of harvest on one watershed cannot be extrapolated to another without consideration of the processes affected. Research is needed to assist watershed managers in applying models to watersheds for which climate and streamflow data are insufficient. Research is also needed to incorporate climate, streamflow and other data for hydrological models into geographic information systems. Joint research projects are needed to develop physical relationships between stream channel characteristics of importance to fisheries biologists and streamflow characteristics affected by forest harvest.     

Compensatory Mitigation for Streams Under the Clean Water Act: Reassessing Science and Redirecting Policy1

Doyle, Martin W. and F. Douglas Shields, 2012. Compensatory Mitigation for Streams Under the Clean Water Act: Reassessing Science and Redirecting Policy. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 48(3): 494-509. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2011.00631.x Abstract: Current stream restoration science is not adequate to assume high rates of success in recovering ecosystem functional integrity. The physical scale of most stream restoration projects is insufficient because watershed land use controls ambient water quality and hydrology, and land use surrounding many restoration projects at the time of their construction, or in the future, do not provide sufficient conditions for functional integrity recovery. Reach scale channel restoration or modification has limited benefits within the broader landscape context. Physical habitat variables are often the basis for indicating success, but are now increasingly seen as poor surrogates for actual biological function; the assumption “if you build it they will come” lacks support of empirical studies. If stream restoration is to play a continued role in compensatory mitigation under the United States Clean Water Act, then significant policy changes are needed to adapt to the limitations of restoration science and the social environment under which most projects are constructed. When used for compensatory mitigation, stream restoration should be held to effectiveness standards for actual and measurable physical, chemical, or biological functional improvement. To achieve improved mitigation results, greater flexibility may be required for the location and funding of restoration projects, the size of projects, and the restoration process itself.     

Contrasting Lumped and Distributed Hydrology Models for Estimating Climate Change Impacts on California Watersheds1

Maurer, Edwin P., Levi D. Brekke, and Tom Pruitt, 2010. Contrasting Lumped and Distributed Hydrology Models for Estimating Climate Change Impacts on California Watersheds. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 46(5):1024–1035. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2010.00473.x Abstract: We compare the projected changes to streamflows for three Sierra Nevada rivers using statistically downscaled output from 22 global climate projections. The downscaled meteorological data are used to drive two hydrology models: the Sacramento Soil Moisture Accounting model and the variable infiltration capacity model. These two models differ in their spatial resolution, computational time step, and degree and objective of calibration, thus producing significantly different simulations of current and future streamflow. However, the projected percentage changes in monthly streamflows through mid-21st Century generally did not differ, with the exceptions of streamflow during low flow months, and extreme low flows. These findings suggest that for physically based hydrology models applied to snow-dominated basins in Mediterranean climate regimes like the Sierra Nevada, California, model formulation, resolution, and calibration are secondary factors for estimating projected changes in extreme flows (seasonal or daily). For low flows, hydrology model selection and calibration can be significant factors in assessing impacts of projected climate change.     

RATES,RIGHTS, AND REGIONAL PLANNING IN THE METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA1

ABSTRACT: The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has for more than 70 years shaped the development of an immense urban region. The district's current strategic planning process therefore could have substantial effects on regional water planning and management. The rate restructuring phase of the planning process has produced a multiple component, cost of service based framework. This paper describes that framework as well as some criticisms that have been directed toward it. The rate restructuring was shaped, and for a while stalled, by old disputes among member agencies over rights to water supplied by Metropolitan. That controversy has diverted attention from the resource management implications of the rate structure. This paper presents an alternative future focused approach to regional integrated water resource planning for Southern California based on projections of current trends and anticipation of future events. This discussion raises the question of how regional integrated water resources planning of this sort may proceed, and what role Metropolitan will play in that process.     

A question of ‘fit’: local perspectives on top-down flood mitigation policies in Vermont

Despite consensus on the need to adapt to climate change, who should adapt, and how, remain open questions. While local-level actions are essential to adaptation, state and federal governments can play a substantial role in adaptation. In this paper, we investigate local perspectives on state-level flood mitigation policies in Vermont as a means of analysing what leads top-down adaptations to be effective in mobilizing local action. Drawing on interviews with town officials, we delineate local-level perspectives on Vermont's top-down policies and use those perspectives to develop a conceptual framework that presents the ‘fit’ between top-down policies and the local-level context as comprised of three components: Receptivity, Ease of Participation, and Design. We explain how these components and their interactions influence local-level action. This analysis points to how careful consideration of the components of ‘fit’ may lead to greater local-level uptake of top-down adaptation policies.     

PERSPECTIVES ON ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND ITS MANAGEMENT: EXAMPLES FROM FOREST HYDROLOGY1

ABSTRACT: This paper uses the varying perspectives of researchers, funders, users or purchasers, and the wider community of stakeholders who have an interest in the outcome of research, to describe the socio-economic and organizational context in which forest hydrology research, as a particular form of environmental science, is carried out. The kinds of products from research, and the outcomes from research desired by these different parties are discussed. Implications for research organizations, their research strategies, and for the researchers within those organizations are discussed using the Porter-Harvard model of the context for the competitive strategies of enterprises. Some possible implications for research funding, research management, career paths for researchers, and the initial and lifetime education/learning needs of researchers and their managers are suggested. These considerations and implications are then related to the kinds of knowledge, skills, experience, and behaviors which are likely to be needed for a 21st century career in environmental research.     

REVIEW OF DETERMINATION OF INSTREAM FLOW REQUIREMENTS WITH SPECIAL APPLICATION TO AUSTRALIA1

ABSTRACT: A critical examination of the techniques used to assess and specify environmental instream flow requirements is provided. The strengths and weaknesses of individual techniques are evaluated on both an absolute and a comparative basis. Particular attention is given to the problem of specifying environmental flow requirements in Australia where the hydrology has distinctly different characteristics to those in countries where most of the models for prediction of instream flow requirements were developed. Broad recommendations as to the suitability and use of the different techniques for different conditions are provided.