Murray-Darling basin. Murray-Darling challenges Covers 14 percent of Australia’s area; contains >...
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Transcript of Murray-Darling basin. Murray-Darling challenges Covers 14 percent of Australia’s area; contains >...
Murray-Darling challenges
• Covers 14 percent of Australia’s area; contains > 40% of farms, produces $10 billion worth of crops and livestock annually.
• Nearly 2 million people live in basin; another 1.25 million depend on basin for public supply.
• 1985 – Murray-Darling Basin Agreement (NSW, Victoria, S. Australia) provides integrated management of water, related land resources. Goals:
– Reduce salinity levels caused by irrigation. – Employ comprehensive watershed restoration approach to manage drought,
control runoff, regulate in-stream flow, avert flooding.– Regulate uses, cap diversions, allocate water to control/dilute pollution.
Collaboration and adaptation
• Most significant innovation is MDBA’s sustainable management program:– Environmental resource assessment process evaluates institutional factors
adversely affecting water problems. – Employs frequently updated environmental monitoring. – Community advisory effort mandates local, state, federal officials to work
with stakeholders in developing “integrated” plans.
• Successes:– In-stream flow has improved.– Endangered fish species recovering. – Elevated public attention to impacts of diversion and salinity.
• Floodplain management remains contentious because some of the choicest agricultural lands in the basin are subject to floods.
Practical adaptation – thinking globally, acting locally
– International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives (1990): Comprised of 1070 local governments worldwide.
– Water program focuses on promoting local practices for managing water resources in a sustainable manner. Goals?
• Develop bottom-up practical policies: demonstrate strategies locally.• Disseminate experiences to other cities and sub-national regions. • Provide means of co-producing climate knowledge by bringing scientists,
policymakers, NGOs together.
• ICLEI’s East Asian sustainability training center established in Kaohsiung – 4/2012.
• NOAA supports university-based teams across U.S. to analyze how climate change impacts key sectors within a region.
• Teams comprised of federal, state, local government agencies within a region – as well as NGOs.
• Research questions are posed by users who ask: how can climate information help with resource management and planning?
• Topics of investigation include: agriculture, wild-land fire, drought planning, fisheries, public health, energy use, coastal restoration.
USA – Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments
Do they co-produce knowledge?
• RISAs do promote interaction between scientists and policy-makers/NGOs.• Have succeeded in packaging & communicating information in useable form.• Have been less effective in integrating social science knowledge of climate impacts and responses. • Evaluations suggest need for sustained funding, leadership, more frequent discussion to promote research priorities.
Brazil – water reform in Ceara state
• 1990s – Interdisciplinary group within state water agency was established to institute legal reforms in response to drought, competing water claims – and foster
collaboration between scientists, local farmers.
• Developed participatory management councils in river basins (Lower Jaguaribe-Banabmuiú River), negotiated water allocation agreements among users.
Does it co-produce knowledge?
– In departure from traditional top-down decision-making, técnicos (staff scientists) work with farmers to:
• Combine local knowledge of drought/flooding with expert weather predictions.• Help farmers, local governments better manage reservoirs, flood, drought.
• Results?
– More participatory approach to river basin management.– Farmers are more willing to share risks of drought, avoid depleting local supplies.– State agency permits locals to monitor and manage water; local users more trusting of state-
level information.
Impediments to knowledge co-production
• Since 1998 – 10 countries (Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt, Uganda, Congo) negotiating Nile Basin Initiative.
• Unable to establish a compact to equitably re-allocate basin to benefit upstream countries (with fastest-growing populations). Why?
– Up- and downstream states have competing interests, limited capacity for basin wide adaptive responses.
– Egypt and Sudan (countries with largest populations) refuse to relinquish power to upstream countries over withdrawals.
– Ethiopia is fiercely opposed to continuing this practice and is building hydroelectric projects without Egypt’s permission, creating additional friction.
• MEANWHILE: Lake Victoria, a major source of the Nile, is falling 2.5 meters every three years – likely due to climate change.
Is knowledge co-production occurring?
Support is growing for management of problems particular to sub-basins.
Strong support for improvements to irrigation, groundwater management, rural electrification.
Local communities, NGOs, Initiative scientists working together to design solutions, identify funding sources, share information.
Conclusions
• Climate change will force adapting to alternations in freshwater – basins, cities well-suited for adaptation with international efforts to share experiences (e.g., ICLEI & selected cities).
• Adaptation requires better communication between scientists and end-users – thus, reform of water institutions to facilitate dialogue among them (e.g., Brazil, Nigeria, Australia).
• Impediments to adaptation include approaches which predicate that scientists generate data without consulting users or incorporating local knowledge (e.g., Nigeria, US-RISAs).
• Adaptive management –emphasizing social learning, incremental and reversible remedies (if they fail) – may overcome these obstacles (e.g., Australia, Bangladesh, Nile Basin).
• Sound knowledge/effective collaboration go together – experts must reach-out to local water users and embrace cultural, social, ethical concerns: we can all learn from one another’s experiences.