inaugural address

jay o’keeffe

sustaining river ecosystems: balancing use and protection

sustaining river ecosystems:balancing use and protection

Inaugural Address

Jay O’Keeffe, WWF Professor of Freshwater Ecosystems,

at UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Educationin Delft, The Netherlands

October 10, 2008

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ISBN: 978-90-73445-21-5

Copyright: UNESCO-IHE

Available also on: www.unesco-ihe.org

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Dedication:For Tom, Lucy, Roo, Max and Sarah,

my children, who sustain me

A slogan for sustainability:

“You can’t always get what you want,But if you try sometimes

you just might findYou’ll get what you need”

(Jagger and Richards, 1968)

Lucy O’Keeffe

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Mr Chairman, Rector of UNESCO-IHE Professor Meganck,Members of the Board of Governors, colleagues from the Academic Board, Professors from the other Universities, Participants who are here from many countries of the world, Distinguished Colleagues, Honourable Guests, Friends and Family, Ladies and Gentlemen,

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1. introduction

An inaugural lecture is a rare opportunity for some professional self-indulgence – the chance to talk about the issues and people that have inspired me, and to make a case for the type of research that I have done, and that I would like to continue to do. What I hope to demonstrate in this paper is that sustainable management of water resources is a priority, and that it can be achieved, but that there are serious requirements for people to change their thinking and their habits at all levels to implement sustainable management. If you think that’s a bit ambitious, then I would ask you to reflect on the changes that have already happened in this field over the past 40 years. Prior to the 1960’s, environmental issues were restricted to the thinking of various specialists and some far-thinking policy makers who were viewed (if at all) as eccentric alarmists. Since the 1960’s there have been, in the words of Pearce and Warford (1993) “two environmental revolutions”. The first, in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, was characterised by a debate over environmental quality versus economic growth. Much of the discussion was focussed on whether traditional economic policies aimed at raising real incomes could be pursued in the face of limits to growth. The second revolution, from the 1980’s, concentrated on how growth could be achieved in an environmentally benign way. The assumption was that good environmental policies will help growth, and that economic growth, if sensibly managed, will help the environment. This theme is further explored by Berkes and Folke (1998) who make the distinction between the narrow view of biological ecology, which views humans as external to ecosystems, and a more holistic ecosystem perspective, which includes the human social system. Such concepts have led to sustainable development as a dominant aim of natural resource management: that the use of resources for human benefit is inevitable, but that the protection of the resource base, or capital, is essential if those benefits are to continue. This point emphasizes the importance of understanding the ecological goods and services provided by natural resources.

One of the trends that demonstrates directly the growing recognition of the value of natural goods and services in the rivers of the United States, is the rising number of dam removals:

According to Postel and Richter (2003), the numbers in the last three decades of the last century are as follows: 1970’s 20 dams removed 1980’s 91 dams removed 1990’s 177 dams removed

In 2002 alone, 63 dams were removed (http://whyfiles.org/169dam_remove/index.html), and removals have recently begun to outnumber dams being built. Of course the same source points out that there are some 2 million dams in the rivers of the US, and the majority of removals are of small dams (< 2m high) which have outlived the uses for which they were built. So, there’s no implication that dam construction is a thing of the past, but there are indications that the previous “command and control” philosophy of river management is transforming to a more holistic appreciation of the benefits of natural rivers.

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2. some history

Like most people, and all scientists, my career owes almost everything to the ideas and influences of supervisors, mentors and colleagues. My origins in science are somewhat checkered – I failed most of my school exams, eventually did a biology A level in evening classes, and entered the University of East Anglia’s Environmental Sciences BSc programme as a 26 year-old “mature” student. There were a number of lecturers there who were very influential to me, but none more so than Brian Moss, who introduced me to Limnology and Freshwater Ecology, and who supervised my undergraduate research project. From him I first learned about the mysteries of thermal stratification in lakes, of nutrient cycling, and of the processes governing the eutrophication and biodiversity of freshwater ecosystems. But what I really learnt from him was a consuming interest in wondering about freshwaters – learning how they work, and what lives in them. So it was Brian who first fired my enthusiasm for research, and that’s probably the most important thing that any teacher can do for a student.

There are lots of other people who have inspired me in my work, too many to mention them all, but I want to pick out a few:- Roy Anderson, Head of the Department of Applied Biology at Imperial College in London,

who nurtured me through my PhD, explaining the intricacies of population dynamics, and finally convincing me that modelling was not destined to be my career.

- Brian Allanson, the Director of the Institute for Freshwater Studies at Rhodes University, who persuaded me to go and work in South Africa, and gave me the freedom and encouragement to try to apply research findings in a management context, and ultimately into the policy and legislation of the country.

- Kevin Rogers, Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, Research Director of the Kruger National Parks River Research Programme (KNPRRP), and a colleague whose startling new ideas about Strategic Adaptive Management in ecosystem research and management helped revolutionise the management of the Kruger National Park, and are being adopted in many other parts of the world.

- Carolyn (Tally) Palmer, my first PhD student, who was primarily responsible for promoting the environmental issues that were included in the revolutionary 1998 South African Water Act, and who is now Director of the Institute for Water and Environmental Resource Management, at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. She taught me the importance of persistence and determination in research – of the need to go one step further, and not to be confined by the limitations of reductionist science.

So the important lessons for me have come from all levels from Professors and Directors, to colleagues and students. They can be summarised as: enthusiasm; creativity; the application of new ideas; persistence and determination; all seasoned with a healthy recognition of what your strengths and limitations are. All you need then, for a successful career in research, is a basic grasp of the techniques, and a hide like a rhino – to absorb the slings and arrows of outrageous criticism that your peers will fire at you.

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3. sustainability

The concept of sustainability seems self-evidently sensible, and is supported by most international and national environmental legislation and policy, although the idea of sustainable development is more contentious, and many people consider this a contradiction in terms. There is a copious literature and many definitions, but we should perhaps accept the WCED (1987) version:

“Development to be sustainable must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”

Aside from discussion and definitions, there has been a significant gap between the sentiments and ambitions described in policy, and the ability to provide managers with working rules to apply them:

“Whereas the criteria for ecological sustainability are relatively well-known, there are no agreed-upon criteria for economic and social/cultural sustainability” Birkes and Folke (1998)“While many authors and orators have extolled the virtues of sustainability in principle, relatively few have taken the next step and tied the vision down to its practical implications”. Clarke (1997)

Rob Edwards, from New Scientist, takes a much harsher line:“We don’t have to protect the environment, we just have to figure out what sustainable development means. This kind of jargon-laden nonsense is a certain sign of lazy thinking. Using big muddy words is far easier than choosing small precise ones. It also gives you power over others, for confusing your colleagues is as good a way as any of controlling them.” Edwards (2000)

I don’t agree with the above sentiments, in relation to rivers at least, and the next two sections describe my experiences with a particular management tool for sustainability – environmental water allocation (EWA), or environmental flows, as it is termed in rivers. Environmental flows define the “sustainability boundary” for developing water resources from rivers (Postel and Richter, 2003).

4. the path to environmental flows

The concept of environmental flows arose from the relatively common-sense idea that taking all of the water out of rivers was not a wise or sustainable way to manage water resources. Apart from anything, it meant that downstream users were left without water for their own needs, and a waterless river provides none of the benefits that a flowing river offers. The 1950’s in particular was a time of command and control engineering – dams, canals, levees and inter-basin transfers were considered the priorities, and freshwater reaching estuaries and deltas was termed “wastage” or “escapage” (in some areas such terms are still applied, eg Gonzales et al, 2005). It was only in the 1970’s that far-sighted environmentalists such as Tennant (1976) began to promote the advantages of leaving water in rivers, and developing the original methods for assessing how much water was necessary to maintain downstream ecosystems. There are now over 200 methods for assessing environmental flows for rivers

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(Tharme, 2000), and a new method, developed by an inclusive international group, and known as ELOHA (Ecological Limits of Hydrological Alteration), aims to synthesize and regionalise the best practice (LeRoy Poff et al, in press).

Paradoxically, my own interest in environmental flows was stimulated by my first research job in South Africa in the early 1980’s, in a river which has too much water flowing down it.The Great Fish River in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa (figure 1) was a naturally seasonal river which stopped flowing during the winter months (July and August) during most years (figure 2). In 1977 a 90 km canal and pipeline was opened between the Orange River and the Upper Great Fish (figure 1) to provide irrigation water to riparian farmers. Since 1977 the river has flowed permanently, usually at the rate of between 2 and 9 m3s-1 in the middle reaches (Rivers-Moore et al, 2007). Biological surveys prior to the inter-basin transfer had found 9 species of blackflies of the family Simuliidae, among a total of 41 invertebrate taxa in the middle reaches of the river. Since the transfer opened, one species, Simulium chutteri, has taken over to the extent that this species now constitutes over 98% of the invertebrate population in the middle river (O’Keeffe and de Moor, 1988; Rivers-Moore et al, 2007). Simuliid blackflies have a life-cycle not unlike that of mosquitoes, with the larvae and pupae developing in water, and the adults emerging (figure 3) . The females are blood-feeders

Figure 1: A map of the catchment of the Great Fish River, Eastern Cape province, South Africa, showing theinter-basin transfer scheme from the Orange River.

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and seek out mammals to feed on before returning to the river to mate and deposit eggs. The difference between blackflies and mosquitoes is that the blackfly larvae require fast flowing water – they have cephalic or head fans (figure 3), which they push up into the current to intercept food particles. Prior to the inter-basin transfer, the loss of flow in the winter months had killed off most of the over-wintering larvae, preventing the spring population explosion which now occurs (figure 4). Hydraulic conditions in the river are now similar year-round, and are particularly suited to S. chutteri larvae. The swarms of females now harass and damage farm stock in the riparian areas, to an estimated cost of $6 - 10 000 000 per year (Knowler et al, 2007). They are also a significant deterrent to the rapidly-expanding eco-tourism trade in the conservation areas around the river.

Figure 3: Life-stages of black-fly of the genus Simulium. (a) Adult (b) A pupa in the slipper-shaped cocoon typical of Simulium chutteri (c) A final instar larva

Figure 2: Flow patterns in the Great Fish River before and after the opening of the inter-basin transfer from the Orange River. Blue lines indicate flows prior to the IBT and red lines post-IBT flows. (Adapted from Rivers-Moore et al, 2007)

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The general conclusion from this case-study is that the natural variability (or ecological disturbance regime) of flows in rivers is a very important determinant of the biodiversity of these systems (LeRoy Poff et al, 1997; O’Keeffe, 2000). Environmental flow assessment (EFA) is a process by which to predict the effects of changing flow regimes on the ecology and users of the river, so that stakeholders can make an informed choice about the extent to which they wish to use their rivers, while still maintaining the important natural services which the river provides for people.

5 demonstrating environmental flows

Since my own realisation of the importance of flows as a major driver of biodiversity in the Great Fish River, the science and application of environmental flows has become a major aspect of river management in many parts of the world, but especially in regions where water scarcity tempts users to over-exploit the capabilities of rivers to supply it. The United States, Australia, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, and even Zimbabwe are examples of countries which have legislation requiring EFA’s, and China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Mexico, Brazil, and Turkey are among the countries which have current projects to determine environmental water requirements for major rivers. Member countries in Europe are bound by the EU Water Framework Directive, which requires the maintenance of adequate flows in rivers to maintain “Good” status.

I would like to concentrate here on a river in which pioneering efforts for EFA were made, as a demonstration of the kind of research and understanding that is necessary to predict the effects of changing flows in rivers. In South Africa prior to the 1990’s, water legislation vested ownership of water in riparian land owners. Since these were exclusively white, the new democratic government elected in 1994 had an urgent priority to develop new legislation, which they did, based on the slogan “Some, for all, for ever”. This neatly encapsulates the

Figure 4: Densities of immature simuliid flies in the middle Fish River in 1983/84, showing the characteristic development of high spring populations (September to November). Adapted from O’Keeffe and de Moor, 1988

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idea of need rather than want (some); of equitable distribution (for all); and sustainability (for ever). Environmentalists were welcomed into the process of developing the legislation by the far-sighted Minister for Water Affairs and Forestry, Dr Kader Asmal. The result was the South African Water Act of 1998, which contained the then revolutionary concept of the Reserve, consisting of water for basic human needs, such as washing, cooking and laundry, and based on the UN minimum requirement of 25 litres per person per day, and the Ecological Reserve which “.... relates to the water required to protect the aquatic ecosystems of the water resource. The Reserve refers to both the quantity and quality of the water in the resource” (Republic of South Africa, National Water Act, 1998). The Reserve is the only right under the Water Act (apart from international obligations) and all water uses have now to be licensed.

While the Act was being developed, various techniques and methodologies were being developed and tested to provide the quantification of the Ecological Reserve which the new law would require. One of the most extensive test cases was for the Sabie River (figure 5), for which there was extensive historical data and current research under the Kruger National Park River Research Programme (see section 6 below).

The results for the middle Sabie are presented in figure 6. The recommendation of the specialist team which carried out the assessment was that this section of the river should be maintained in a B Class, indicating “Largely natural with few modifications. Although the risk to the well-being and survival of especially intolerant biota .... may be slightly higher than expected under natural conditions, the resilience and adaptability of biota must not be compromised”

Figure 5: Catchments of the rivers flowing through the Kruger National Park, South Africa

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(Tharme, 1997). In order to maintain these conditions in this section of the Sabie river, the team recommended flows for maintenance years (normal flows – not especially wet or dry, when they would expect the full suite of ecological, chemical and physical processes to be functioning) as 177.6 million cubic metres of water per year; and drought years, which would require 70.6 mcm. This represents 32.5% of the natural mean annual runoff (MAR), 47.3% of the present MAR for maintenance years, and 12.9% of natural and 18.8% of present MAR for drought years. In the long-term, this would average 166.9 mcm of water left in the river per year, or 30.5% of natural MAR, and 44.5% of present MAR.

These figures seem not unreasonable, given the objective to maintain the river in a largely natural condition as it flows into the national park, but what was the justification for these recommendations, and could they be supported against the upstream lobby supporting increased use of the river for forestry, agriculture and domestic use?

The process used to assess the environmental flows for the Sabie River was a modification of the Building Block Methodology (King and Louw, 1998). The BBM is designed to identify a series of important flows (the building blocks), such as dry season low flows, wet season high and low flows, which will together provide the essential aspects of the natural hydrological regime that ensure the persistence of as much of the biodiversity as possible. A variety of different flows provides the mosaic of habitats in time and space that allow all the species native to the system to persist. There are a number of assumptions inherent in the EFA process:

Figure 6: Environmental flow recommendations for site 2 on the Sabie River, just upstream of the Kruger National Park, South Africa.

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• that some flow can be removed from rivers without critically reducing the ecologicalcomponents, processes and functions;

• thatriversareresilienttoshort-termperturbations;• thatthenaturalvariabilityordisturbanceregimeofariveriscrucialforthemaintenanceof

their biodiversity;• thatthemaintenanceofhabitatwillensurethepersistenceofspecies;• that riverine communities are drivenprimarily by abiotic processes such as flow,water

chemistry and sediment transport, rather than biotic processes such as predation, competition, and disease.

These assumptions are discussed by O’Keeffe (2000), who reviews the scientific evidence and concludes that, with exceptions in specific cases, they seem to be generally supported.For a comprehensive EFA, in which detailed field investigations are undertaken for between one and three years prior to the assessment, there is a complex but clearly defined set of tasks that need to be undertaken by a group of specialists. The EFA team will typically include a coordinator and water resources manager, who will together plan and coordinate the logistics of the process; a facilitator, who needs to understand the role of the different disciplines in the assessment; and a number of specialists in the various disciplines: Hydrologist; Hydraulician; Geomorphologist; Water Chemist; fish, invertebrate, and riparian vegetation Biologists; Sociologist; Resource Economist. The roles of these specialists are briefly explained in the appendix, and more details can be found in King et al (2000).

The point is that EFA’s require a genuinely inter-disciplinary organisation. The purpose of the process is clear, and the roles of the various specialists well defined. The steps in the process are well described and logical, so that each of the specialists is well aware of what is expected. There has to be a trust that each specialist will be able to provide adequately supported information and recommendations in terms of their own sphere of interest.

In the Sabie River study, the recommendations were motivated in terms of clear biodiversity objectives and their links to social benefits; an understanding of the natural and presently modified hydrology; careful hydraulic analysis of the characteristics of different flows at selected sites; a long-term appreciation of the sediment processes governing the channel morphology; a recognition that present water quality had not been compromised; a careful selection of flow-dependent organisms, with a detailed understanding of their life cycle requirements; and a sustainable and committed stakeholder engagement to define long-term requirements from the river.

These flow recommendations were further supported by a detailed understanding of the history of the river, and the processes that had formed the present conditions. This understanding was not complete, as the effects of a major flood in 2000 demonstrated, but they were sufficient to underpin the first stages of an adaptive process for the sustainable management of the river. Maintaining sediment transport processes were seen as crucial to the diversity of habitats in the river, and to its ability to sustain its characteristic channel morphology. Riparian vegetation characteristics maintain the bank stability and create the preferred habitat for many of the large mammals which attract tourists to the Kruger Park. The condition of tree species such as Breonadia were used as early warning indicators of the

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adequacy, or otherwise, of higher flow conditions. Flow-dependent fish and invertebrate species, such as Chiloglanis anoterus (see figure 7) were used to indicate the adequacy of lower flows to provide the diversity of habitats to maintain biodiversity in the river. The resulting suite of flows (figure 6) could be confidently recommended to maintain the objectives set for the river in the conservation areas in the short-term, with the proviso that continuous monitoring would provide up-dated information to fine-tune flow requirements for the future.

6. integration

One of the consistent lessons of the environmental flow process has been the issue of integration of disciplines in water management. It is increasingly obvious that little can be achieved in terms of sustainable management of water resources without a multi-disciplinary approach. It has certainly been a developing theme for environmental flows that little can be achieved by ecologists alone, or for that matter, by hydrologists, geomorphologists or water chemists on their own (see above). The emerging theories of Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM), and Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) testify to the desire of water professionals to move beyond the one-solution-fits-all management practices that characterised water resource management in the mid-1900’s.

Figure 7. Hydraulic habitat requirements of Chiloglanis anoterus, a small rock catlet which is highly flow-sensitive, and was used as an indicator species for flows in the Sabie River. C. anoterus is typically found in shallow, fast-flowing water over gravel and small cobbles, at the base of riffles. Numbers on the x axis of the substrate/cover bar chart are indicative of codes which indicate size of substrate and type of instream cover. Modified from Weeks et al, 1996.

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Holistic water resource management requires the integration of many skills: Hydrology, to understand the circulation and delivery of the water; geomorphology to understand the erosion and deposition of sediments and how these affect the structure and dynamics of the river channel; water chemistry to understand how the different elements affect the uses and condition of the water; hydraulics to understand the behaviour of the water in and out of the channel; and ecology to understand the consequences of all these on the life-forms (including people) that depend on the water. All this has to be understood in the framework of the social, political, governance and economic drivers that control peoples’ decision-making.

Since 1997, integration has been a requirement under the European Commission Treaty. Article 6 of the Treaty states that “environmental protection requirements must be integrated into the definition and implementation of the Community policies .... in particular with a view to promoting sustainable development”. The question is, how is integration to be achieved? It’s not enough simply to have a group of the requisite specialists available – they have to understand what each other is doing, and appreciate how their own and other skills fit into the overall process of managing water resources. They have to be able and want to collaborate with one another. Many researchers (eg Spence, 2006) have tried to define the characteristics and requirements for successful integration and collaboration. Most of the emphasis is on common-sense rules such as establishing common ground but accepting different perceptions and opinions; being prepared to learn from others; listening to and respecting others; communicating clearly and completely, but concisely; etc.

Perhaps the most influential writer on the characteristics of integration has been Peter Senge. In 1990 he introduced the concept of “learning organisations” as a necessary framework for collaboration, particularly in a changing environment. He distinguishes “survival learning” or what is more often termed “adaptive learning” as being necessary, but adds that, for a learning organization, “adaptive learning” must be joined by “generative learning”- learning that enhances our capacity to create (Senge, 1990).The dimension that distinguishes learning from more traditional organizations is the mastery of certain basic disciplines or ‘component technologies’. The five that Peter Senge identifies as necessary to innovate learning organizations are:• Systemsthinking(focussingonthewholeratherthantheparts)• Personalmastery(organizationslearnonlythroughindividualswholearn)• Mentalmodels(learningtounearthourinternalpicturesoftheworld,tobringthemtothe

surface and hold them rigorously to scrutiny)• Buildingsharedvision(thecapacitytoholdasharedpictureofthefutureweseektocreate.

When there is a genuine vision, as opposed to the all-to-familiar ‘vision statement’, people excel and learn, not because they are told to, but because they want to).

• Teamlearning(theprocessofaligninganddevelopingthecapacitiesofateamtocreatetheresults its members truly desire)

Watkins and Marsick (1992) point out that learning organizations are characterized by total employee involvement in a process of collaboratively conducted, collectively accountable change directed towards shared values or principles. Senge (1990) comments on the time-scales required for holistic learning:

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“The systems viewpoint is generally oriented toward the long-term view. That’s why delays and feedback loops are so important. In the short term, you can often ignore them; they’re inconsequential. They only come back to haunt you in the long term.”

Senge’s ideas have been subject to criticism (eg Smith, 2001), mainly because they are felt to be too idealistic for real-life organisations to follow effectively. This is probably true for most commercial organisations – as Smith (2001) points out: “Where the bottom line is profit, a fundamental concern with the learning and development of employees and associates is simply too idealistic”. However, for organisations where profit is not the first priority, Senge’s model has important applications. Organisations (and individuals) can largely be divided into two groups: Those which do their work to earn money, and those which earn money to do their work. For the latter group, especially researchers and educators, building a “learning organisation” has to be a fundamental objective.

For such organisations, the above ideas can be summarised as: Accepting and coping with change; holistic thinking; a long-term view and plan; open-mindedness; effective communication; sharing ideas and objectives; building a common understanding. For the sort of multi-disciplinary research and training which is involved in environmental flow assessment, I would add the following requirements:• Understanding the technical language and concepts of different disciplines. This doesn’t

mean that everyone has to become a specialist in each of the disciplines, but that each specialist should understand the implications of the other disciplines, and where each one fits into and contributes to the whole process.

• A framework for fitting the different types of information and results together. Such a framework should clearly provide the overall purpose of the project, and the progressive inclusion of each participant towards the achievement of the purpose. Without such a framework, specialists tend to concentrate on their own view and objectives, and the results will be dis-integrated – less than the sum of the parts.

• Interpretationoftheresults that is clear, understandable and relevant to all the participants, so that they can critically assess, use and invest in the implementation of the results.

Many of the ideas and concepts discussed above were applied with considerable success in the Kruger National Park Rivers Research Programme (KNPRRP), a 10 year multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional effort which culminated in a fundamental reorganisation of the way in which the Park is managed. The programme was driven by a political imperative to change the Kruger Park from an isolated elitist conservation enclosure, managed for the favoured minority under the previous apartheid regime, into a national heritage with contact and relevance for the majority under the democratic government established in 1994.The main legacy of the Programme was the establishment of Strategic Adaptive Management (SAM) as the guiding framework for the Park (Biggs and Rogers, 2003). This defines a desirable envelope of environmental conditions in which the Park should be maintained, rather than trying to reach targets, which many conservation agencies set as their management plans. Biggs and Rogers (2003) summarise a set of generic needs for success:• Recognitionthatwearedealingwithspatiallyandtemporallycomplexecosystems• Clearpurposeandgoals• Participativelearningbyallthestakeholders(notjusttheiradvisors)

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• Monitoringtotestassumptions• Adaptiveorganisationalprocesses thatpromote institutional curiosity and theability to

capitalise on experience, new knowledge and surprises

The Rivers programme was an ideal vehicle in which to develop the new research and management paradigm, because, in common with many conservation areas, the protected land area did not correspond with the river catchment boundaries. (figure 5) As a result, the fenced conservation area could be looked after and conserved by the Park staff, but the water supply on which the Park relies is generated almost completely outside the control of the Park authorities, and is subject to all the normal exploitative activities – irrigated agriculture; commercial forestry; mining; urban supply and effluent. Prior to the 1990’s, the Park had been subject to command-and-control management including fencing; systematic fire setting; and rigid, Park-wide carrying capacities leading to culling of “excess” animal populations. This “pseudo-agricultural” management style had extended to the river systems: when some of the perennial rivers stopped flowing in the late 1960’s, as a result of impoundment and abstraction upstream of the Park, dams were built on the rivers within the Park, and ground-water fed pools were pumped to provide drinking water for animals (O’Keeffe and Rogers, 2003). The resulting mis-match between vegetation and water availability led to high densities of animals in areas with insufficient vegetation, over-grazing and erosion. One of the first crucial tests of the concepts underpinning the Rivers Programme, was the drought of 1991-92, the worst on record. As the drought progressed, it became clear that the Sabie River would stop flowing for the first time in recorded history, if urgent steps were not taken. Staff from the Park joined in the formation of the Sabie River Forum to negotiate a collective response to the drought. Fruit farmers voluntarily stopped irrigating for one day per week to reduce stress on the river downstream in the Park, and the Sabie River continued to flow (O’Keeffe and Rogers, 2003). In time, the KNPRRP led the way to an overall redesign of the Park’s management objectives. Biggs and Rogers (2003) describe 4 core elements which were used to operationalise the requirements for success:• Anewvisionstatementdevelopedthroughongoingpublicparticipation: “To maintain biodiversity in all its natural facets and fluxes and to provide human benefits

in keeping with the mission of the SA National Parks in a manner which detracts as little as possible from the wilderness qualities of the Kruger National Park”.

• Ahierarchyofobjectives:aninvertedtreeofgoals,branchingdownwardsfromagenerallyunderstandable but unmeasurable vision, to increasingly explicit technical and institutional goals (see Figure 8), with endpoints which could be measured and audited for compliance with the vision.

• TheseendpointswereexpressedasThresholdsofPotentialConcern(TPC),eachofwhichdefines the upper and/or lower boundary of a measurable variable, describing the envelope of conditions within which conditions are expected to fluctuate (eg salinity levels in the middle Sabie River between 12 and 25 mS/m). TPC’s are defined conservatively, to prompt management responses before irreversible changes have taken place. The management response (mandatory if a threshold is exceeded) may be to investigate and mitigate the causes of exceedence, or to revisit and possibly reset the TPC in the light of improved knowledge.

• Anadaptivedecision-makingprocess inwhich theTPC’s are constantlymonitored, themonitoring results are used to improve the knowledge base, and are checked against the

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objectives hierarchy, and management responses are tailored to changing conditions and an improving knowledge base. In the words of Biggs and Rogers (2003) “the suite of TPC’s acts as a central hub around which research, monitoring, and management activities can be sensibly unified”.

These core elements were adopted with considerable success for the rivers of the Kruger Park, and have been, and continue to be expanded to all aspects of the Park’s activities within and outside the Park boundaries. These include other ecosystem aspects – terrestrial, large mammals, vegetation, atmospheric etc. – and human benefits, education, ecotourism, wilderness, legal, personnel, and communication and promotion. Kruger Park researchers, rangers and managers have, in almost all cases, enjoyed the new freedom to stretch their knowledge and experiment – learning-by-doing. In this sense the Kruger experience has

Figure 8. An example of an objectives hierarchy (modified from K. Rogers, unpublished lecture notes)

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been a very successful application of the philosophy of Gregory Bateson in his seminal work “Steps to an ecology of mind”. His wife summarises some of the essence of his thinking in her forward to the 2000 edition (Bateson, 2000): “The importance of diversity in maintaining flexibility (and resilience), the search for basic continuities that support adaptation, including learning how to learn from change and cultural disparity”

7. future developments

The major difficulty with the implementation of environmental flows has turned out to be achieving the social consensus that is an essential precursor to the process. In fact, there is more than one social consensus that needs to be achieved: the first is the consensus between policy-makers, water managers and scientists, that environmental flows are necessary for sustainable management. The second consensus is among the scientists, managers and other specialists who have to agree to work together in a way that acknowledges the importance of each others’ work, and to put in the effort to understand the process and the role of all the required disciplines, and where their own special knowledge fits in. The third (and often the most difficult) consensus, is that between the population of stakeholders, who have to learn about each others’ needs from the water resource, and come to an agreement about the conditions to be sustained by the environmental flows. A typical stakeholder group will contain representatives with a wide range of understanding about rivers and catchments, distributed among a variety of interest groups. These will include industrialists, farmers, municipal managers, as well as representatives of government and NGO’s with remits for conservation, recreation and tourism. Local communities will often have cultural, historic, aesthetic and spiritual interests. This diverse group has to be able to put aside their individual interests to the extent that they can reach consensus about environmental objectives for the river. If this part of the process can be achieved successfully, the technical tasks of assessing a modified flow regime which will achieve the agreed objectives are relatively simple. So collaboration and integration is the key to a successful environmental flow assessment.

The final part of this discussion is devoted to the case of UNESCO-IHE. How can UNESCO-IHE best contribute to the challenge of sustainability? If we accept that research and training for the sustainable management of water resources requires a multi-disciplinary approach, then UNESCO-IHE, with 5 departments and 14 Research Cores under one roof, could be ideally placed to take a lead. There are many specialist institutes with greater resources than UNESCO-IHE in one particular aspect of water, but very few with the range of disciplines that UNESCO-IHE covers: Research themes include water security, environmental integrity, urbanisation, water management and governance, and information and communication systems. Masters degree courses cover Environmental Science, Municipal Water and Infrastructure, Water Management, and Water Science and Engineering. Different departments and research cores already cooperate on particular projects, but the key to promoting sustainability as a central initiative for the Institute will be to create a formal framework to encourage integrative and collaborative projects. Such a framework should include:• Aninitialworkinggrouptodevelopaplanandincentivesforintegration.• Staff time assigned for developing integration between different disciplines. This could

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include workshops, presentations and training.• Incentivesforintegratedinitiatives,suchasmulti-disciplinarycourses.• Favouredstatusforprojectproposalswhichincludestafffromanumberofresearchcores.

This could particularly apply to applications for support from the internal research fund.

For UNESCO-IHE, the rewards to be gained from a formal engagement with integrated research and training can be very far-reaching. The focus of policy for modern water resources management is encapsulated in IWRM and IRBM, but these remain largely theoretical concepts because of the erroneous assumption that integration happens simply by lumping different aspects of the management process together. A recognition of the requirements for integration, and a commitment to set up the conditions for these requirements to be met, can result in a research and training agenda which will produce the next generation of water managers, who can make sustainability a reality.

acknowledgements

This account encapsulates the work of a large number of researchers, some of whom are acknowledged in section 2. Apart from those already mentioned, my understanding of rivers, other disciplines, and integration has been helped along by the patient efforts of Denis Hughes, Delana Louw, Bryan Davies, Jackie King, Fred van Zyl, Mandy Uys, Drew Birkhead, Dez Weeks, Bonani Madikizela and Sue Southwood, as well as my colleagues in UNESCO-IHE. Tom Le Quesne and his colleagues from WWF have been a major encouragement and incentive for my work. The production of this paper and particularly the figures owes much to the efforts of Peter Stroo.

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references

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Berkes, F and Folke, C. (1998) Linking social and ecological systems. Management practices and social mechanisms for building resilience. Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge.

Berkes, F. and Folke, C. (1998) Linking social and ecological systems for resilience and sustainability. Chapter 1 in “Linking social and ecological systems. Management practices and social mechanisms for building resilience.” Edited by Berkes and Folke. Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge.

Biggs, H.C. and Rogers, K.H. (2003) An adaptive system to link science, monitoring, and management in practice. Chapter 4 in “The Kruger Experience. Ecology and management of savannah heterogeneity” Edited by J.T. du Toit, K.H. Rogers, and H.C.Biggs. Island Press, Washington.

Clarke M.J. (1997) Restoration Ecology and Sustainable Development. Edited by Urbanska, Webb, Edwards, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Edwards, R. (2000) Clarity at stake, New Scientist, 1st April

Gonzales, F.J., Basson, T., and Schultz, B. (2005) Final report of IPOE for review of studies on water escapages below Kotri Barrage. Unpublished Report, by an international Panel of Experts, Pakistan.

Jagger, M and Richards, K (1968) You Can’t Always Get What You Want. Decca Records/ ABKCO

King, J. and Louw, D., 1998. Instream flow assessments for regulated rivers in South Africa using the Building Block Methodology. Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Management, 1:109-124.

King, J.M., Tharme, R.E., and de Villiers, S.M. (2000) Environmental flow assessments for rivers: Manual for the Building Block Methodology. Report No. TT 131/00 of the Water Research Commission, Pretoria.

Knowler, D., O’Keeffe, J. and Nathan, S. (2007) Valuing ecosystem services associated with biodiversity in the Blackfly-livestock system of South Africa. Paper presented at the CREE 2007 Conference, University of Ottawa, Ontario.

Leroy Poff, N., Allan, J.D., Bain, M.B., Karr, J.R., Prestegaard, K.L., Richter, B.D., Sparks, R.E., and Stromberg, J.C., 1997: The natural flow regime. BioScience, 47: 769-784

LeRoy Poff, N., Richter, B., Arthington, A.H., Bunn, S.E., Naiman, R.J., Apse, C., Kendy, E., Warner, A.T., Jacobson, R.B., Rogers, K.H., Tharme, R., Freeman, M., Bledsoe, B.P., Merritt, D., Acreman, M., O’Keeffe, J.H., Henriksen, J., Olden, J., Kennen, J. (In Press) Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration (ELOHA): A New Framework for Developing Regional Environmental Flow Standards. Freshwater Biology.

O’Keeffe, J.H. (2000) Environmental flow assessments: Background and assumptions. Chapter 2 in “Environmental flow assessments for rivers: Manual for the Building Block Methodology” Edited by J M King, R E Tharme, and M S de Villiers. Report No. TT 131/00 of the Water Research Commission, Pretoria.

O’Keeffe, J.H. and de Moor, F. C. (1988). Changes in the physico-chemistry and benthic invertebrates of the Great Fish River, following an interbasin transfer of water. Regulated Rivers: Research and Management, 2: 39-55.

O’Keeffe, J.H. and Rogers, K.H. (2003) Heterogeneity and management of lowveld rivers. Chapter 21 in “The Kruger Experience. Ecology and management of savannah heterogeneity” Edited by J.T. du Toit, K.H. Rogers, and H.C.Biggs. Island Press, Washington.

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Pearce, D.W. and Warford, J.J. (1993) World without end. Economics, Environment, and Sustainable Development. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 200 Madison Avenue, New York

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Rivers-Moore, N.A., de Moor, F.C., Morris, C. and O’Keeffe, J. (2007) Effect of flow variability modification and hydraulics on invertebrate communities in the Great Fish River (Eastern Cape Province, South Africa), with particular reference to critical hydraulic thresholds limiting larval densities of Simulium chutteri lewis (Diptera, Simuliidae) River Research and Applications 23: 201–22

Senge, P. M. (1990) The Fifth Discipline. The art and practice of the learning organization, London: Random House.

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Tennant D.L. (1976) Instream flow regimens for fish, wildlife, recreation and related environmental resources. Fisheries 1(4): 6-10.

Tharme, R.E. (1997) Sabie-Sand River System. Instream flow requirements. Proceedings of IFR Workshop. Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, Draft Report.

Tharme, R.E. (2000) An Overview of environmental flow methodologies, with particular reference to South Africa P15-40. In: JM King, R.E Tharme and MS De Villiers (eds).Environmental Flow Assessments for Rivers: Manual for the Building Block Methodology. WRC Report No: TT131/00.

Watkins, K., and Marsick, V. (1992) “Building the learning organization: a new role for human resource developers”, Studies in Continuing Education, Vol. 14 No.2, pp.115-29.

Weeks, D. C., O’Keeffe, J. H., Fourie, A., and Davies, B. R. (1996) A pre-impoundment study of the Sabie-Sand River system, eastern Transvaal, with special reference to predicted impacts on the Kruger National Park. Volume 1: The ecological status of the Sabie-Sand River system. Water Research Commission Report WRC 294/1/96.

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appendix

the tasks to be undertaken by specialists in different disciplines during an environmental flow

assessment and implementation

NB These tasks may vary depending on the methodology being used, the size and type of river being assessed, the time, resources and information available for the assessment.

stage a: scoping

This is an initial assessment of the area of interest, to try to identify issues of particular importance, and to draw up an initial plan for the assessment.

stage b: preparation for the assessment workshop

Task1:InitiateEFAassessment(levelofdetail,definemethodology,appointmentofthespecialistteam)This task will depend on:- - Urgency of the problem,- Data availability,- Resources available,- Importance of the river,- Present and future river use,- Complexity of the system,- Difficulty of implementation,

Task2:ZonethestudyareaZonation is intended to identify reaches of the study river in which physical and ecological conditions are likely to be similar. Major changes in channel size, hydrology, geology, gradient or land-use are likely to define zone boundaries. Detailed studies will be based on sample sites, and the ideal is to locate one site for each zone, that will characterise the conditions throughout that zone. Geomorphological assessment is a prelude to the zonation of the river and choice of study sites, but is also an analysis of the stability of the river channel, and the status of sediment throughput processes. The zonation is based on the geology, slope, climate, the shape and size of the river channel, and confluences with tributaries. River bed condition, riparian benches and sediment transport data are used to assess how stable the channel is, and how it might respond to changes in the flow regime.

Task3:HabitatintegrityAn overall assessment of the condition of the area of interest. This is usually done by dividing the river into sections of equal length and surveying the environmental condition of each section separately for the river channel and the riparian zone. This may be done as an aerial

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survey, from maps with ground visits, from reports of previous surveys, and/or from aerial photography if available. The aim is to classify the sections in terms of how much they have been modified from natural conditions. One way of doing this is to apply a scoring system to aspects such as water abstraction, channel modification, water quality, introduced species, solid waste disposal, vegetation removal and bank erosion.

Task4:SiteselectionSites are selected within the study area for detailed analysis. The criteria for selecting sites which will be suitable for the assessment of environmental flows include:- Ease of accessibility- Habitat diversity- Sensitivity of habitats to flow changes- Suitability for measuring a rated hydraulic cross-section and for modelling discharges,

velocities, and wetted perimeter at different water depths- Proximity to a flow gauging site- Representation of conditions in the river zone- Critical flow site (i.e. where flow will stop first if discharges are reduced)

Task5:SurveysandmeasurementsThe surveys are intended to augment information and fill in gaps that have not been covered in previous studies.• Biological Surveys Sampling of fish communities, benthic invertebrates, and riparian vegetation, concentrating

on identifying flow-sensitive species and defining their seasonal habitat requirements in terms of current velocity, depth and wetted perimeter. Other groups, such as amphibians, macrophytes, or algae may be included. The riverine biota can be used as indicators of the types of flow that will be needed to maintain different levels of ecosystem health.

• Hydraulic survey and analysis Hydraulic cross-sections (or habitat modelling if resources allow) provide the link between

ecological knowledge and flows. If the fish ecologist can define species’ habitat requirements in terms of depths, current velocities, or river widths, then the hydraulic model can convert these parameters into specific flows in cubic metres per second at the site. The accuracy of the hydraulic analysis is crucial to the confidence in flow recommendations. The most detailed ecological knowledge will be rendered useless if the conversion to required flows via the hydraulic analysis is flawed.

• Hydrological analysis The hydrology, or flow record, within the EFA is essentially used to check that the

recommended flows are within reasonable limits of flows experienced in the river, and is therefore a check on the realism of the process, rather than a motivation for recommended flows. Flow time series, showing flow variability between different seasons and different years, should be provided to guide the ecological specialists. An analysis of the frequency of floods of different sizes is also used to guide the high flow recommendation of the ecologists and the geomorphologist. As with the hydraulics, the accuracy of the hydrological analysis is crucial to the confidence in flow recommendations. Inaccurate flow records or modelled results will result in erroneous predictions for environmental flows, no matter how good the information for other disciplines is.

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• Geomorphological survey The aim is to assess the sources and types of sediment in the river, analyse the channel

morphology in terms of the geomorphic features and their stability, and predict the consequences of changing flows on the sediment input-output and therefore the channel shape and substrate types. Geomorphological changes will typically happen at longer time scales than the biological responses (in decades rather than seasons), but will ultimately sculpt the physical template on which the hydraulic habitats are superimposed. Riparian and marginal vegetation will interact with the sediment dynamics, often anchoring loose sediments that have been deposited during flood recessions.

• Water Quality analysis Water quality requirements are assessed in parallel with the flow requirements. A survey

of existing information, and seasonal measurements of water quality variables, is used to assess possible problems and to identify point and diffuse runoff impacts. Present water quality conditions are compared with reference conditions and applicable guidelines to categorise the present state.

• Social survey There are two types of survey associated with the comprehensive EFA methods:

1. The identification of people who are directly dependent on a healthy riverine ecosystem. These may be subsistence fishermen or farmers, those who withdraw domestic water direct from the river, recreation interests such as angling or rafting, and cultural or religious aspects. Interviews and other survey methods are used to quantify and prioritise these uses, and to identify aspects of the flow regime that are important for each use.

2. Consultation and capacity building with all stakeholders to identify preferences for the management objectives for the river. This is a long-term undertaking which should be part of a broader catchment management planning process, in which the environmental flows will be one aspect of sustainable management of the resource.

Task6:EcologicalandSocialImportanceandSensitivityThe EIS can be quantified in different ways, but is a measure of the priority of the area of interest from an ecological perspective. A river in a national park may be of overriding ecological importance, whereas one in a primarily industrial area may be designated mainly for water supply and waste disposal. Typical measures include the number of sensitive and rare species, the resilience of the system to human disturbance, the biodiversity, importance as a migration route, etc. An index of social importance should take account of the number of people directly dependent on a healthy riverine ecosystem, which will include subsistence fishing and farming, recreation, and cultural and religious issues.

Task7:DefinereferenceconditionsThe reference conditions (usually natural conditions) will provide a baseline against which to judge how much the river has been modified. Reference conditions should be described for all the main physical, chemical and ecological features. Methods used to define reference conditions may include historical accounts and data, or comparisons with neighbouring less-impacted catchments. Where such information is not available, conditions can usually be inferred with reasonable accuracy from modelled hydrology, geological, soil and vegetation data, and regional data on biodiversity.

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Task8:DefinepresentecologicalstatusBased on available data and expert judgment it is necessary to define present ecological status. As in the previous step, this should be done for all physical, chemical and ecological features of the river, from existing monitoring data, or collected in the project surveys. The purpose is to compare present conditions with the reference conditions, to measure how far the river has been modified over time. This process provides the basis for the definition of environmental objectives.

Task9:DefineenvironmentalobjectivesThere is no single ‘correct’ environmental flow for any given river. Removing water from rivers is always likely to have some impact on the ecology of rivers. The question is how much impact is acceptable, and what objectives should be achieved by managing the river? Much environmental legislation globally incorporates classification systems that recognise that society will wish to conserve some rivers to a higher quality than others. For example, it is likely that the conservation rivers that run through national parks, or with particularly important fisheries, should be managed to a higher level perhaps than rivers in extensively developed urban areas. In other contexts, there may be vital hydrological processes that need to be conserved – commonly, flows may be necessary to prevent saline intrusion into farmland and groundwater supplies at the mouth of rivers (e.g. Yangtze River in China), or to maintain the structure of important delta ecosystems (e.g. Indus River in Pakistan). Ideally, an extensive stakeholder process should be undertaken to identify environmental objectives. This may require a long-term (several year) process to identify all interested parties, to inform and educate them about the importance of protecting natural resources for sustainable use, and to capacitate them so that they can make informed input to the setting of environmental targets for the flow regime.

stage c: efa workshop

At the assessment workshop, flow recommendations are decided upon by the whole group of specialists. For each recommended flow (e.g. dry season base flow, wet season base flow, higher flows and floods), the specialists consider what habitats should be inundated, what current velocities will be needed, what river width etc will be required to meet the objectives. The specialists may come to a consensus on these requirements, or the critical requirement (that which will fulfil or more than fulfil the others) is used to assess the recommended flow. The hydrologist then checks that the recommended flow is realistic in terms of the flow patterns experienced at that point in the river.At the EFA workshop, the water quality specialist will respond to recommended flows by estimating the consequences of recommended flows on the concentrations of various water quality parameters. The specialist worksession will normally last for 5 days, or 4 days and a day of site visits. The results from the specialist worksession should be fed into the management and decision-making procedures for the river, but must first be collated with the user requirements, and analysed to discover the assurance level at which the river may be able to supply the user needs and environmental flows.

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stage d: negotiation

Task1:HydrologicalyieldanalysisA hydrological yield analysis calculates the likelihood of being able to maintain the environmental flows and supply the user needs, in wet and dry years. If all these requirements can be all be met with a high assurance, a water allocation plan can be agreed.

Task2:ScenarioanalysisScenario development and negotiation take place where there is insufficient water to meet all requirements. Different scenarios are developed, allocating a series of assurance levels to different users (and to the recommended environmental flows). The different scenarios provide the basis for negotiations and decisions, ideally within the framework of an integrated catchment management plan.

Task3:DecisionThe decision to implement environmental flows may rest with different authorities, depending on the scale of the river (international, national, regional etc) and the governance protocols of the basin. In areas where there is competition for scarce water resources, the best chance for a decision in favour of implementation of environmental flows will depend on a high-confidence assessment, and on the support of the majority of stakeholders.

stage e: implementation and compliance monitoring

Implementation and compliance monitoring is the culminating step in the process, but lasts indefinitely. Methods of implementation cannot be dealt with in detail here, and will depend on the availability of storage structures, inter-basin transfers, or potential for demand management on any specific river. However, often the implementation of the full range of recommended flows may take some time and ingenuity to accomplish. In the meantime, it is possible to apply an adaptive approach: This involves releasing some water down the river, by whatever means are currently available, accompanied by an effective monitoring operation that allows for the response of the river to the flows to be assessed. This method may be particularly appropriate in contexts of extreme water stress, where over-exploited rivers run dry for some or all of the year.

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