Firm foundations for future development |
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| FRP-FLOWS Research cluster on the management of upper water catchments | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Various linked projects have been working to provide firm foundations for livelihood-improving efforts to manage forests and land in upper water catchments. Known as the FRP-FLOWS studies, the projects are providing in-country government departments in Grenada, South Africa, Tanzania, Costa Rica and India with much-needed facts and policy-guiding information. They've also been demonstrating that hydrological models like HYLUC, SWAT and ACRU really do work. Outputs from the projects include workshops for ministers and policy briefs that give decision makers key insights into payment for environmental services schemes. The projects have also developed a new dissemination tool known as EXCLAIM, as well as the so called 'Rapid Quadrant' approach, which is helping in the design of new interventions in 100 watersheds in support of two $200-million World Bank-funded watershed development projects. Project Ref: FRP31:
Research Programmes: Forestry Research Programme, FRP Relevant Research Projects: The research cluster on the management of upper water catchments comprised the following research (R) projects: R7937: CAtchment Management and Poverty (CAMP) Partners / Collaborators:
R8171: Forestry and low flows, spatial modelling and open GIS dissemination of the science perception - India Partners / Collaborators:
R8174: Socio-economic Opportunities from Upland Catchment Environmental Services: A Negotiation Support System Partners / Collaborators:
R7991 Hydrological impacts of converting tropical montane cloud forest to pasture, with initial reference to northern Costa Rica.
The aim of the project cluster was to provide a sound basis for incentives for forest and land management in upper water catchments, to improve local livelihoods and to meet needs of downstream users. Key outputs produced under FRP-FLOWS cluster: i) Better knowledge of the bio-physical and socio-economic impacts of changing land use on a notional altitudinal gradient from the cloud forests of Costa Rica to the semi-arid zone of India. ii) Validation of the HYLUC, SWAT and ACRU hydrological models in partner countries and development of the EXCLAIM dissemination tool and 'Quadrant' methodologies to assist sustainable catchment management. iii) Green/Blue water policy briefs which are influencing DWAF policies in South Africa. iv) Policy briefs for Costa Rica (R7991/R8174) which highlight some of the previous misconceptions on which past payment for environmental services schemes have been based and introduce caution in relation to assumptions about the necessary poverty alleviation benefits of such schemes. v) Workshops with ministers in Karnataka, MP and HP in India which are influencing policy in relation to watershed management. vi) Dissemination of research findings through journal papers and populist books including 'From the mountain to the tap' and 'Blue Revolution' which, through coverage in more than 50 national newspapers and radio programmes and interviews, is leading to a major revision of land and water policy and watershed policy by national governments and donors (including the World Bank) and the creation of a new IUFRO task force on Forest and Water Interactions (Prof. Ian Calder to lead). Key outputs proposed under the Furthering land And Water Policy -Improving Outcomes (FAWPIO- RIUP) programme, which will aim to introduce more evidence based, sustainable (with a demand management focus rather than increased provision of supply) and equitable land management policies, are: i) Green/Blue ILWRM management tools piloted and tested in partner countries (Initially India, China, RSA) ii) Green/Blue ILWRM management tools further refined using pilot outcomes in partner countries (In RSA this could involve integration of the Allocation Equity and Quadrant approaches) iii) Bridging Research and Policy (BRAP) activities including sharing knowledge and experiences of management tools and methodologies and policy instruments between African and Asian partner countries which may lead to revision and better planning of large scale afforestation schemes (e.g. 31,000,000 ha SLCP in China and possible 21,000,000 jatropha schemes in India), iv) International Dissemination (based also on results of piloting) of Green/Blue ILWRM management approach to national governments, donor and international organisations: World Bank, DFID, Aga Khan Foundation, WWF, IUFRO, UNFCC, EU; also through Electronic Journal: Land Use and Water Resources Research.
Water, sustainable agriculture and forestry production
Improved land and water policies, benefiting all sectors and particularly the rural and landless poor, can best be achieved through building on a number of research outputs. The proposed FAWPIO RIUP programme will pilot, take forward, disseminate and help implement, important research findings obtained from decades of research carried out under DFID FRP, KAR and NRSP. More specifically the intellectual basis of FAWPIO and the core linkages are derived from outputs and associations with the following key projects:
Of particular relevance is the 'Allocation Equity' mechanism developed under WFSP and 'Green Water' policy instruments developed under R7937 in consultation/collaboration with DWAF. These instruments contribute to and add value to the FAWPIO methodologies. The FAWPIO programme will also build on the GEF funded Hai Basin 'ET Management' project in China (essentially an ongoing example of a Green Water policy instrument in action) and links with the Chinese Academy of Forestry established through the IUFRO task force on Forest and water interactions. (Prof. Shirong Liu, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Forestry and Deputy Task Force leader). The FAWPIO programme may benefit from linkages with other RIUP clusters and this possibility will be investigated as and when these clusters become known. Synergies will also accrue through linkages and dissemination routes provided by other non- DFID funded initiatives:
How the outputs were validated: How were the outputs validated? The more generic outputs from the FRP-FLOWS cluster of projects comprising: · Better knowledge of the bio-physical and socio-economic impacts of changing land use and forest cover leading to more evidenced based policies for watershed management and payments for environmental services; · Improved validation of hydrological models; · Development of land and water management methodologies (including the EXCLAIM dissemination tool and 'Quadrant' methodologies); · Green/Blue water policy briefs which are influencing DWAF policies in South Africa; · Policy briefs for Costa Rica which (in conjunction with outputs from R7991) highlight some of the past misconceptions on which past payment for environmental services schemes have been based and introduce caution in relation to assumptions about the necessary poverty alleviation benefits of such schemes; · Policy
developments in Grenada leading to benefits to upland farmers; Who has validated? Within Country Within the partner counties FRP-FLOWS outputs (methodologies, tools, policy recommendations) have been presented, discussed and 'validated' at key events including: National Workshops, meetings with Ministers/ Principal Secretaries · Himachal Pradesh - 'Towards Implementing Environmentally Sustainable Water Policy for Himachal Pradesh' , 28 August, 2004. Attended by Shri Virbhadra Singh, the Chief Minister of HP, and Thakur Kaul Singh, Irrigation and Public Health Minister HP, and more than 100 participants connected with watershed and water resources development. The meeting produced a number of consensual recommendations for action in HP (R8171 Policy Brief 3). · Madhya Pradesh - 'Towards Implementing Sustainable Watershed Management Strategy for Madhya Pradesh, 6-7 February 2006. Attended by the Chief Minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the Minister for Panchayat and Rural Development, the Secretary for Panchayat and Rural Development, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar, the Chairman of the Central Groundwater Board and more than 300 other participants. · Karnataka, KAWAD Conference, Bangalore, India, 21-22 Jan 2003 · Karnataka, - Government of Karnataka, Watershed Development Project: 'National Workshop on Priorities for watershed management in India' as part of Sujala Watershed Project. 22-23 May 2006, Attended by Minister for Agriculture Bandeppa Kashempur, and Mr S Parthasarathy, Chairman, National Commission for Watersheds in India. · South Africa - 'Invasive Alien Species'. Symposium on Policies and Implementation. Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Cape Town. 22-24 February 2000 Where the Outputs were Validated: The outputs have been validated (in the sense that the outputs can be shown to have contributed to new policy developments of national governments, international organisations and bilateral and international donor organisations) through dialogue at a number of international meetings and workshops: International meetings · Marcus Wallenberg Prize Symposium: Water, Forests and People Stockholm, Sweden, September 27, 2002 · SIWI water week Keynote address, 2003 · FAO international workshops "Preparing the Next Generation of Watershed Management Programmes" : o FAO/ICIMOD, Kathmandu, Nepal 11-13th Sept 2003 o FAO/ICRAF, Nairobi, October 2003 o FAO International Conference: Integrated Watershed Management: Water Resources for the Future, Porto Cervo, Sassari, Sardinia, Italy, 22 - 24 October 2003 (The FRP-FLOWS research outputs were given extensive coverage in the FAO Forestry paper 150: The new generation of watershed management programmes and projects http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0644e/a0644e00.htm) · COFO - Committee on Forestry (FAO), Rome, 10-14 March 2003 · Katoomba group meeting, 2003 · Marcus Wallenberg Prize Symposium, 2002 · International Expert meeting on Forests and Water, Shiga, Japan, 20 - 22 November 2002 · World Bank Watershed Management Workshop, Washington DC, Feb, 2005 · Chinese Academy of Forestry, IUFRO - 'Forest and Water in a changing Environment' Beijing China, 8-10 August 2006 · International Congress on Cultivated Forests Planted Forests and Sustainable Development 3-7 October, Bilbao, Spain · Science for Nature Symposium, Washington, DC, October 31 - November 1, 2006 Who are the Users? The outputs (improved understanding of the biophysical and socioeconomic impacts of land use change and improved policies for land and water management) are currently being taken up by in-country government departments through various mechanisms:
Where the Outputs have been Used: Together with in-country users (see above) the outputs are also being used, considered or debated by many other government departments, international organisations, academic organisation and donor funded development projects throughout the world. Of particular note are the following: Donor funded development projects
International Organisations
Scale of Current Use: To date perhaps the most significant and largest scale example of FRP-FLOWS outputs influencing policy (and an external donor, the World Bank) which has resulted in changes 'on the ground', is in relation to the incorporation of FAWPIO methodologies and the Quadrant approach within two $200,000,000 watershed development projects underway in Karnataka, funded by the World Bank. The FRP-FLOWS outputs have also contributed to greater discussion and consideration of Payments for Environmental Services mechanisms by many projects and organisations including RUPES, IIED and the Government of Costa Rica, to ensure that the mechanisms are grounded in an evidence based understanding of the relationship between forests and water flows. Discussion are also currently underway with other Indian watershed development projects in MP and Orissa, in India and the Hai basin project in China and with USAID funded projects in Vietnam. What is hindering take-up is the present shortage of piloted examples of the FRP-FLOWS methodologies in action within development projects in different parts of the world. Policy and Institutional Structures, and Key Components for Success: The key programmes, platforms, policy, institutional structures that have assisted with the promotion and/or adoption of the outputs include:
Lessons Learned and Uptake Pathways Promotion of Outputs: Promotion and development of the FRP-FLOWS outputs is ongoing in all the original FRP-FLOWS partner countries and has been extended, through links with other partner organisations, throughout the world. Some specific examples include: R7937 CAtchment Management and Poverty (CAMP)
R8171 Forestry and low flows, spatial modelling and open GIS dissemination of the science perception
R8174 Socio-economic Opportunities from Upland Catchment Environmental Services: A Negotiation Support System
Potential Barriers Preventing Adoption of Outputs: The current barriers preventing the swift adoption of FRP-FLOWS research outputs, in terms of new knowledge, methodologies, tools and proposed policy instruments, into national and international policies can be considered within the context of the ODI RAPID Framework. Barriers currently exist in all of the four areas of the framework:
How to Overcome Barriers to Adoption of Outputs: To remove/reduce the barriers to the adoption of FRP-FLOWS outputs requires further efforts in all four areas of the RAPID frameworks:
To effectively get research outputs, in terms of new knowledge, methodologies, tools and proposed policy instruments, incorporated into national and international policies to benefit the largest number of poor people requires a systematic understanding of what, when, why and how research outputs can feed into development policies. The FRP-FLOWS projects have worked with the ODI's Research and Policy in Development (RAPID) programme, and have adopted the RAPID framework as a mechanism for understanding and improving research-policy links. The FRP-FLOWS projects have aimed to understand/target activities in each of the four RAPID framework areas which are needed for successful adoption of research into policy:
Poverty Impact Studies: Impact studies in relation to poverty have been carried out in the following cluster projects: ZF016 Mustoor, Karnataka. India. A socio-economic, water user typology study was carried out in conjunction with the World Bank funded Sujala watershed development project to determine who were the winners and who were the losers from watershed interventions carried out over the last 20-25 years. May - Dec 2005. Reported in: Calder IR, Gosain, A, Rama Mohan Rao MS, Batchelor C, Snehalatha Bishop E, 2006 Watershed development in India. 1. Biophysical and societal impacts. Environ Dev Sustain (in Press) R7937 CAtchment Management and Poverty (CAMP) Livelihoods research, following the Sustainable Livelihoods framework was conducted in the Luvuvhu catchment between September 2001 and October 2003 to understand the role of water in the livelihoods of the poor as a means to informing equitable and efficient water resource allocations and the development of pro-poor land use and water related policies in South Africa. R8171 Forestry and low flows, spatial modelling and open GIS dissemination of the science perception - India The social impacts of watershed development was evaluated using a propensity score matching method - Dudhi watershed, Madhya Pradesh, 2005. R8174 Socio-economic Opportunities from Upland Catchment Environmental Services: A Negotiation Support System. A livelihoods analysis was carried out in the Arenal watershed, Costa Rica to determine if payments for environmental services can contribute to poverty reduction. How the Poor have Benefited (including gender and other poverty groups): Various livelihoods studies have been carried out which indicate deficiencies in current land use/watershed management policies as they impact on the poor. The new FRP-FLOWS methodologies have yet to be piloted in development projects so it is too early to detect or claim poverty benefits. Results highlighted by the livelihood studies are: ZF016 India Water user typology: Whole Village
Landless and resource poor households
Landowners and resource rich during periods of good rainfall.
Land owners and resource rich at all times
R7937 Livelihoods research:
R8171 A propensity score matching method showed the following impacts of watershed development (Dudhi):
R8174 The study raised a number of dangers in relation to PES programmes in Costa Rica: · Creation of market distortion that promotes land speculation. · Land evictions of the poor as wealthier elites are provided with incentives to gain control of land resources. · Where small farmers hold land only through squatters' rights the lack of legal documents of tenure makes it difficult to enter into PES agreements and increases vulnerability to land forfeiture. · The poor are more often located in the lower rather than upper parts of the catchment · Environmental services perceptions are currently often based on misconceptions rather than science. Direct and Indirect Environmental Benefits: Environmental benefits include: improved environmental flows, avoidance of catchment closure, climate mitigation through reduced use of fossil fuels in electric power generation for pumping groundwater. Present land and water developmental policies are generally aimed at maximising production or pro-poor benefits and have often paid less attention to the impacts changing land use may have on water availability, environmental flows and the impacts on downstream users. In arid areas, where water is already scarce, this can not only have profound impacts on more vulnerable groups but land use changes can result in rivers drying out completely for long periods and significant impacts on the functioning of aquatic ecosystems. In some southern Indian States it has been estimated that as much as one half of all the electricity generated is being used for pumping groundwater, from ever greater depths, for irrigation purposes. More sustainable land and water policies which regulate the abstraction of groundwater would potentially enable a huge reduction in the consumption of electricity and a corresponding reduction in the use of fossil fuels. FAWPIO will work towards more sustainable and more environmentally responsive water policies. The potential magnitude of the environmental problems associated with present land and water policies are exemplified by the Hai basin in China. The Hai basin is one of the 7 largest river basins in China containing 10% of China's population, including Beijing and Tianjin and is one of the most important food-producing zones. It is currently experiencing major problems with water resources and pollution. Groundwater is over exploited causing declines in water table levels and subsidence of the land surface (2 meters in the Cangzhou area). The Hai is the most severely polluted river in China. Increased use of water for agriculture and industry has reduced flows to the ecologically sensitive Bohai Sea (Calder, 2005). Adverse Environmental Impacts: The promotion of Integrated Land and Water Resource Management (ILWRM) policies, which aim to ensure sustainable water use, equity of allocation and ensured flows to downstream users to meet basic human needs are fully commensurate with the objectives of ensuring and maintaining environmental flows. Indeed some of the concepts underlying ILWRM were driven by environmental considerations. We see no adverse environmental impacts associated with the implementation of the FAWPIO programme. Coping with the Effects of Climate Change, or Risk from Natural Disasters: The FAWPIO programme and the adoption of improved land and water policies will increase the capacity of poor people to cope with the effects of climate change, reduce the risks of natural disasters and increase their resilience through a number of mechanisms including: · Increased availability of water - this will be even more beneficial if global climate change results in locally decreased average rainfall. · Increased availability of water will be of value in maintaining water supplies in drought periods (even in the absence of climate change). · The maintenance of flows for basic human needs and environmental flows will have resilience value in supporting both human, livestock and ecological requirements in times of natural disaster. From Gavin Quibell, Ash Seetall (DFID -WFSP South Africa, DWAF South Africa, 20/11/2006): "However, promoting green water use holds particular risks associated with climate change, where decreased and more variable rainfall may impact on the viability of soil water conservation measures and farm ponds. As such, we would be very interested in supporting a project looking at green water allocations in one of our pilot catchments, either the Inkomati WMA (or a portion of it), or the Mhlathuze catchment." Relevant Research Projects,
with links to the
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For relevant research projects, with links to further information Geographical regions included: Caribbean, China, Costa Rica, India, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda,  Target Audiences for this content:Forest-dependent poor, |
