Integrated Assessment for Water Framework Directive Implementation: Data, Economic and Human Dimension

by Peter A. Vanrolleghem (Editor)

Overview

Special Offer: Water Framework Directive Series Set 


To buy all four titles including Volume 3 and save £100, visit: http://www.iwapublishing.com/books/9781780400013/water-framework-directive-series-set 


Implementing the comprehensive Water Framework Directive requires a thorough planning process that consists of several consecutive steps. The least one can say is that it is a challenging task which needs appropriate ICT tools that are able to cope with the complexity of the water system and this planning process. Integrated assessment, participatory processes and the science-policy interface are one of the newer elements in this overall implementation process that have developed greatly thanks to the WFD. Economic methods, models and instruments are integrative to the WFD implementation as well, with such concepts as cost recovery of water resources being central to debate with stakeholders. Economic valuation of natural resources (willingness-to-pay, willingness-to-accept, …) should get sufficient attention and the human dimension (perception, needs, wants, values and behaviours) should be incorporated in the modelling frameworks for decision-making. In the same line there is also a human dimension to the use of models: how do non-modellers, such as managers, policy-makers, other stakeholders feel about models and their use in their day-to-day activities. And finally, this volume deals with the large issue of data: its quality, availability and, not to forget, accessibility. And can we use data both for monitoring purposes (surveillance, operational and investigative in the WFD context) and for modelling. Is there a synergy to be found? These tasks, the underlying concepts, methods, tools and procedures are the subject of this volume. 


The other three volumes in the Water Framework Directive Series are: 

• Water Framework Directive: Model supported Implementation - A Water Manager’s Guide edited by Fred Hattermann and Zbigniew W Kundzewicz 
• Modelling Aspects of Water Framework Directive Implementation - Volume 1 edited by Prof. Peter A. Vanrolleghem 
• Decision Support for WFD implementation - Volume 3, edited by Peter A. Vanrolleghem   

Visit the IWA WaterWiki to read and share material related to this title: http://www.iwawaterwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Articles/IntegratedAssessmentforWaterFrameworkDirectiveImplementation

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781843393269
Publisher:	IWA Publishing
Publication date:	08/14/2010
Series:	Water Framework Directive Series
Pages:	326
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.75(d)

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Guidance Report II.1

Improving integrated assessment in model-supported river basin management

Ilke Borowski, Caroline van Bers and Claudia Pahl-Wostl

Preface

This Guidance Report was originally produced within the framework of Harmoni-CA – Harmonised Modelling Tools for integrated River Basin Management (EVK1- CT-20022003, www.harmoni-ca.info). Harmoni-CA is a concerted action supported by the European Commission under the Fifth Framework Programme and contributing to the implementation of the Key Action "Sustainable Management and Quality of Water (EKVI-2001-00192). The purpose of Harmoni-CA was to facilitate the dialogue and to help bridging the gap between research and policy. This was achieved by synthesizing available knowledge produced by the various Research – Technology and Development projects in the area of catchment modelling (CatchMod). The project also facilitated the development of methodologies and tools to support the use of Information, communication and technology (ICT) tools in implementing the Water Framework Directive (WFD).

Harmoni-CA work package 5 (WP5) focused on "Integrated Assessment and the science-policy interface". The specific task has been to develop and strengthen the science-policy interface across sectors and spatial boundaries. Part of this task has involved the creation of opportunities for water managers to learn about related research activities and for researchers to learn about water managers' needs. A central aspect of WP5 was to stimulate both groups to reflect more on their work. Thus a total of 9 workshops were organized (including four policy workshops, three method workshops, a synthesis workshop, a joint workshop with the International Water Association and The Integrated Assessment Society) on various methodological and policy-orientated issues in order to increase the understanding of integrating the human dimension into river basin management (RBM) and in the implementation of the WFD. The choice of themes addressed was the outcome of consultation with the WP5 task force consisting of stakeholders and experts in the field of RBM, namely two water managers and three researchers from five different countries.

This report synthesizes the results of the European Concerted Action Harmoni-CA – specifically those related to insights on integrated assessment and the science-policy interface. It provides recommendations concerning the practice of integrated assessment and priorities in the development of new RTD activities.

Keywords

Communication, Human Dimension, Integrated Assessment, Participatory Processes, Science-Policy Interface

1. INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT – ISSUES ADDRESSED

"Integrated Assessment (IA) can be defined as the interdisciplinary process of integrating knowledge from various disciplines and stakeholder groups in order to evaluate a problem situation from a variety of perspectives and provide support for its solution. IA supports learning and decision processes and helps to identify desirable and possible options for addressing the problem. It therefore builds on two major methodological pillars: approaches to integrating knowledge about a problem domain, and understanding policy and decision making processes" (The Integrated Assessment Society, www.tias-web.info).

Being located at the boundaries is intriguing but also gives rise to dangers. Integrated assessment faces the challenge of earning credibility in both the scientific and the policy communities and is at risk of not being respected by either. Hence, a forum for the exchange of experience is urgently needed.

IA in the context of integrated water resources management (IWRM) requires the integration of knowledge across scales, across boundaries, between different components of the water system, across various scientific disciplines, and/or policy fields (Gilbert et al., 1998). Also, in the context of river basin management as prescribed by the European Water Framework Directive (WFD; (2000/60/EC), the challenge of integrating knowledge has been identified as one of the main challenges – especially given the tight timeline demanded by the directive in order to achieve a satisfactory ecological state (European Commission 2001, 2004; de Rooy et al., 2005). Typically, issues of integrated assessment in water management, however, address not only specific water-related topics (e.g., eutrophication, water deficits, floods, agriculture, or urban areas) but they also include umbrella issues such as complexity, integration across different scales and/or uncertainty that tend to dominate the discussion (Gilbert et al., 1998).

Harmoni-CA has addressed issues related to integrated assessment and the science-policy interface in the context of IWRM from various angles. Two approaches were applied here: meetings were organized for water managers and researchers to foster exchange and communication; and research insights were synthesized in several documents to provide guidance on modelling-supported water management. For example, a water manager's guide for model supported implementation of the WFD has been developed to "contribute to improvement of the understanding of modelling aspects to facilitate the planning process for the implementation of the Directive" (Hattermann and Kundzewicz, 2009). Also, the generation and use of data as one of the very central aspects of successful model support in RBM have been addressed in the context of the joint use of modelling and monitoring. As Højberg et al. (2010) puts it: "The overall objective of the Water Framework Directive is to achieve a good quantitative and qualitative status of all waters by 2015".

The WFD brings two important challenges: 1) water must be managed in an integrated way, thus including all uses of water and all domains, such as surface-and groundwater, and 2) the qualitative status is related not only to the chemical substances measured in the water, but should also be evaluated based on the ecological status. To fulfil these requirements development of new tools and models is a necessity. To avoid a future, parallel development of monitoring and modelling praxis in the field of integrated and ecological assessments, it is of vital importance that monitoring and modelling are realised to be inter-linked activities and not independent disciplines. Two Guidance Reports have been published exploring the need and options for joint use of monitoring and modelling and raising awareness of the accessibility of data issue (Højberg et al., 2010; Refsgaard et al., 2010b). They link to existing efforts for improving the accessibility of water related tools and information such as WISE (Water Information System for Europe; www. http://www.water.europa.eu/) and INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe http://sdi.jrc.it/ inspire). Both reports include recommendations for improving data availability, accessibility, and use for monitoring and modelling. In addition, other aspects of technical catchment modelling of IA were addressed by Harmoni-CA such as uncertainty analysis, sensitivity analysis, model calibration, and quality assurance in modelling, as reported in Volume 1 of this series (Vanrolleghem, 2010). Also, specific research results from the catchment modelling projects can be found in the web portal WISE-RTD (http://wise-rtd.info/) which was also developed by Harmoni-CA.

Perhaps most importantly, Harmoni-CA/WP5 went far beyond the technical aspects of modelling supported water management in addressing the science-policy interface. WP5 focused strongly on the challenges of integration of different fields and disciplines into water management for the purposes of fulfilling the WFD, such as economy (Heinz et al., 2007; Brouwer et al., 2010), agriculture (Bazzani, 2010; Borowski and Heeb, 2005), and participatory aspects (Hare, 2003). Furthermore, the human dimensions of water management and modelling in terms perceptions and values have been a focus (Bots et al., 2010). Many valuable insights emerged on the science-policy interface and how to improve it (Borowski and Hare, 2007a; Brugnach et al., 2007; Giupponi et al., 2010; Horzlitz, 2007; Rotter and Rasche, 2007). By setting up a series of interactive and output oriented workshops, WP5 contributed both to capacity building for bridging the gap between science and policy; and to identifying further research directions and other recommendations for narrowing the gap.

This Guidance Report synthesizes the insights from Harmoni-CA/WP5 workshops and reports into recommendations for further improving the science-policy interface. The report contributes thus to a strengthening of the uptake of new research results in management and promotion of integrated water resources management. The report does not provide a complete review of literature related to the various issues presented here. References are made primarily to documents that were developed in the Harmoni-CA context. The intention, in particular, is to provide recommendations for better uptake of model-based tools that were developed and tested in various research projects. That means that our main concern is the use of research results and we consider this in the context of modelling and more generally ICT tools.

To enable a better understanding of the background of the recommendations, the report first summarizes briefly those issues that persisted throughout Harmoni-CA discussions. Section 3 then provides recommendations for improving the structure of the science-policy interface while section 4 presents the research directions identified. Section 5 concludes the discussion by briefly reflecting on the recommendations.

2. SUPPORTING RIVER BASIN MANAGEMENT WITH COMPUTER-BASED MODELLING TOOLS

The discussions during the eight workshops and five river basin meetings covered a range of issues related to how models can support the implementation of the WFD. However, several of these issues prevailed in the various discussions that took place. In this section, we have condensed them into five issues which we introduce in this section to provide the reader with more background. These are the role of models, the modelling- and the decision making process, confidence levels, communication and user-friendliness, and finally, the human dimension (see also Borowski and Hare, 2007a).

2.1. The role of modelling in water resources management: expectations and reality

In the context of this Guidance Report, the use of models in water management in general has to be distinguished from the use of research-derived models. Almost all model software used in daily practice are standard tools (and not only empirical tools, but also complex model codes like MODFLOW, FEFLOW, SOBEK and MIKE SHE) that were originally developed in a research context. By research-derived modelling tools, we mean those tools that are currently developed, tested, and/ or applied within the frame of research projects. Harmoni-CA acknowledges that model-based tools play an important role in supporting water resources management (Hattermann and Kundzewicz, 2009). Senior modellers at the first Harmoni-CA/WP5 Modelling Workshop even saw the process of modelling itself as being central to water resource management planning. Hence, there was agreement that participatory modelling is a central element for participatory management (Hare, 2004).

However, in day-to-day practice, water managers have considered models as one of many sources of information that contribute to a final decision (Hare, 2005). This seems to be strongly linked to the liability and responsibility associated with the decisions taken by water managers that require them to consider as many sources of knowledge as possible. In some countries such as Denmark or Germany, the application of models for decision making purposes is standard practice. In other countries, the application of modelling tools is in its infancy. Often, models are developed for addressing hydrological issues such as flood migration in which much data is required and the users have to be experts. There is an evident lack of socio-economic models and representation of human dimensions such as stakeholder interests (Hare, 2005). However, the expectations of water managers were often to improve the role of models in order to deliver specific and reliable answers to specific questions (Borowski and Hare, 2007b; Hare, 2003; Interwies and Borowski, 2007).

Reflecting these insights, Højberg et al. (2010), state that "a shift in the perception of models is needed, where models currently often are considered useful only to provide answers to specific questions. This view must be replaced by recognition of models as being valuable tools that should be used continuously and interactively along with monitoring data, a tool that serves many purposes from the design phase of monitoring programmes to the interpretation and quality assurance of the monitoring data". Model-based tools have played a smaller role in participatory approaches. At the same time, water managers have a higher expectation that models developed by researchers can contribute to improved understanding between various stakeholders. Yet, the problem for participatory use of models is the same as that of participatory management itself: how do you get people to start using the models and then keep them using them? The solution is not technological. Rather it is sociological/political: there is a need for a paradigm shift in the way stakeholders and/or the public are engaged in management processes. Stakeholder acceptance of model-based management practices is also often limited since new models are difficult to explain and ultimately to sell to lay people (Borowski and Hare, 2007b; Hare, 2005).

During the workshops, support for water management by research-derived model-based tools was more often identified in the process of model building and use. The outcomes (numbers, graphics) or the model itself were less important. This means that it is not the data or the maps as outputs of a model that provide the most important insights as such, but the process of learning about the system which is being modelled that provides more support to model-users. Stakeholder involvement in research projects is obviously an effective means for improving the impact of research.

(Continues…)

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Table of Contents

Contents: Improving integrated assessment in model-supported river basin management - Ilke Borowski, Caroline van Bers and Claudia Pahl-Wostl; Data availability and accessibility in view of model-based water management - Jens Christian Refsgaard, Lisbeth Flindt Jørgensen and Anker Lajer Højberg; Good practise in joint use of monitoring and modeling - Anker Lajer Højberg, Jens Christian Refsgaard, Lisbeth Flindt Jørgensen, Frans van Geer and István Zsuffa; Economic methods, models and instruments for the Water Framework Directive - Roy Brouwer, David N. Barton and Frans Oosterhuis; Understanding the role of perception and valuation in the development and use of models for water management - Pieter Bots, Geoffrey Gooch, Brian S. McIntosh and Claudia Pahl-Wostl