Integrated Watershed Management The Importance of Developing a Good Plan for Successful IWM

(8/10/2019 12:00:00 AM)

In order to utilize an effective ecosystem and spatial-based approach for managing your watersheds, one must develop a sound plan, which includes specifics that are incorporated into a detailed strategy implemented to conserve, restore, and enhance your aquatic/riparian/ terrestrial resources.

A good integrated watershed management (IWM) plan has these elements:

●      Vision

●      Goals

●      Objectives, Indicators and Benchmarks

●      Management Actions

The connections between these are illustrated in the two flow charts below:

*Note:  many IWM’s also include a “Mission Statement”, which usually describes an agency’s/organization’s particular work activity(ies)

In addition to these fundamental parts, good IWM plans might also include descriptions of a) Background information about the resources and your management area (MA); b) Major threats to your resource, and issues associated with its management; c) Regulatory compliance among resource users; d) Resource data and information needs (including sources of data, missing information that’s needed, etc.); e) Financing options for plan implementation; f) Communication regarding planning efforts, as well as plan revisions, implementation, and monitoring (with links to your communication strategy); and g) Reviews/revision of the plan (with a description of the frequency of these reviews).

An Integrated Watershed Analysis (IWM) Plan should identify the geographic area under consideration, as well as the political boundaries that affect the management of aquatic resources within it.

Defining Your IWM Management Area

Both the managers and stakeholders who are involved in writing your IWM plan document should agree on a Management Area (MA).  Deriving answers to the following questions about your MA will be useful for further development of the IWM plan: 

●      What are the current resources use within your MA, and where will these uses take place?

○      Example:  Small-scale artisanal commercial fishing, rice farming

●      What are the future resources use within your MA?

○      Example:  River boat eco-tourism, catfish aquaculture

●      What are the geographic and political/administrative boundaries of your MA?

○      Example:  Vàm Cỏ Đông river basin, Long An Province, Mekong Delta

An important part of IWM planning is the delineation of a time period associated with your efforts (typically ten [10] years).  Once this has been established, ask yourself “What should the MA look like in xx years (i.e., your desired outcomes of management)?”  This description might include:

·        Increased benefits to stakeholders

o   Example: Small scale commercial fishing catches will increase in value by 2030, as a result of improved catch care during harvest and processing which will deliver better quality products that can garner higher prices when sold to consumers

·        Sustainable use of the resources

o   Example: Average catch quantity per small scale artisanal commercial fisher will be maintained at sustainable levels via the adoption of harvest limits, specified seasons, and use of nets with net mesh sizes that primarily target larger sized fish.  These management approaches will protect smaller juvenile fish, target the harvest of larger and more valuable adult fish, and ensure that a sufficient abundance of breeders is available to maintain the population.

·        Increased ecosystem services

o   Example: The abundance and diversity of freshwater fish – including species which are targeted for harvest, as well as non-targeted ones -- is enhanced through the management approaches recommended in the IWM Plan.  This will support a productive aquatic environment that can deliver enhanced ecosystem services important for this watershed, which include commercial fisheries and wildlife-based eco-tourism.

Active participation by both managers and people affected by your resource management (i.e. “stakeholders”) is at the heart of an effective IWM plan, and it’s best to involve these parties in all phases of development, implementation, and the monitoring of the plan’s results.

Vision, Goals, and Objectives

Vision Statement

For an effective IWM plan document, it is very important to create a strong vision that’s based on your particular management area (MA).

Building A Vision:  A vision statement is the preferred future of the MA i.e., what do you want the MA to look like as a result of your management program?

In developing your vision, these additional questions might be helpful to also consider:

·        What does the perfect world look like for the MA in 10-20 years?

·        What would you like the condition of the aquatic resources to be?

·        What would you like the economic condition to be?

·        What would you like the social and cultural condition to be?

·        What would you like to leave for future generations?

Here are some examples -- from North America -- to illustrate these concepts about visions for your IWM plan:

·        Wild capture fisheries are sustainable and provide both short- and long-term socio-economic benefits to harvesters, processors, and marketers – which support local communities

·        Water supply management supports multiple uses and users (including agriculture, aquaculture, domestic, industrial, and transportation needs) in harmony, via environmentally sound and sustainable means

To better refine your IWM plan vision, you might answer the following key questions

·        What do we want to achieve by managing your watershed’s resource(s)?

·        What are current resource conditions, patterns of resource use, and resource use problems, and how are they changing over time?

·        What problems or obstacles for watershed management have occurred or could arise in the future?

·        What are the “patterns of power” (among different users), as they relate to resource use and exploitation? Are there also gender-based differences among your resource users?

Goals

To create goals for your IWM plan:  these can be general descriptions that summarize the ultimate desired state of the MA.  Well-developed goals are typically:

·        Visionary – a positive statement, outlining the desired state of the MA

·        Brief – short and succinct, so that it can be remembered by stakeholders

·        Constant over time

·        Broad - a broad and general statement that captures the vision of the MA or directed at priority management targets

It’s usually best to limit your goals to a “small” set – i.e. between 3 to 5 -- for any IWM plan; examples include the following:

·        Fisheries and other living aquatic resources have been restored and managed sustainably

·        Degraded, vulnerable and critical aquatic habitats are restored, conserved and maintained

·        Food security for the Delta communities is increased and sustained

Other categories often associated with IWM plan goals are:

·        Reduce water pollution (and other sources of contamination) that impair watershed ecosystems

·        Coordinate resource use and/or watershed management activities

·        Empower communities to manage their local watershed resources

·        Educate stakeholders regarding the role and importance of managing watershed resources

Objectives

For the IWM planning process, an objective is “What you want to achieve” for your watershed resource(s) of interest.  More specifically, we often use the concept of an “operational objective” -- or an objective at the level that can actually be achieved by management -- to ensure that these can be attained through your efforts.

Developing IWM plan objectives can involve identifying/specifying the particular threats and issues for your watershed resources – which are then used to create your Operational Management Objectives.  To aid in this, you might ask, “What specifically for this issue do you want the managers to achieve?”

Here are some examples of well versus poorly developed operational objectives:

·        Operational objective = To reduce the % of juvenile fish OR To increase the # of public access paths to water OR reduce number of days that pollution levels are above government standards (specific and defined = well developed)

·        Operational objective = Improve the health of the ecosystem (too broad and undefined = not well developed)

Indicators

An indicator is an index that measures the current condition/status of a selected component that has been identified in your IWM plan objective. When compared with an acceptable “benchmark”, the indicator(s) provides a measure of how well you are meeting the objective(s).  For your IWM plan, it is helpful to derive ones which are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed (or SMART, as depicted and described in the diagram below):

A fisheries resource example which illustrates how a goal, objective, and indicator are linked:

An ecological example:

A socio-economic example:

A governance example:

Management Actions

For an IWM plan, a management action is one that will help to meet the particular objective that you’ve defined.  For fisheries resources, these might include the following ones (which are listed according to different categories):

Management Action Category:  Technical measures

·        Catch and effort controls (e.g. use of specific harvest methods [gill nets vs fixed traps], gear specifications [fine mesh vs large mesh gill nets], limited entry [require having a permit to participate in the fishery, and limit the number of permits issued])

·        Spatial & temporal controls (e.g. protected areas [no fishing in designated fish nursery zones to protect rearing juvenile fish], seasonal closures [no fishing during the latter 2 weeks of the spawning season to ensure that a sufficient number of adults are able to reproduce])

Management Action Category:  Ecosystem manipulation

·        Habitat restorations (e.g. re-planting mangrove trees to restore rearing habitat for juvenile fish)

Management Action Category:  Community-based

·        Income diversification (e.g. develop alternative livelihoods skills, such as operating eco-tourism tour boats, for small-scale fishers desiring to earn additional income outside of the fishing season)

Management Action Category:  Human capacity

·        Improve aquatic resource management skills (e.g. provide IWM continuing education for professional managers)

·        Strengthen institutions (e.g. add IWM Planning courses to curricula at local universities)

·        Increase coordination (e.g. convene inter-agency groups, with representatives from agencies responsible for all aspects of managing aquatic resources within the IWM, to address common issues)

Work with other stakeholders to achieve objectives outside your mandate (e.g. meet with small-scale artisanal commercial [A1] fishers, fish buyers, and fish consumer representatives to develop new markets for species that are abundant but not yet targeted)

Linking Vision, Goal, Objectives, Indicators, and Management Actions

Here’s a simple example – which is based on an actual approach utilized in North America to address the issue of plastic pollution in coastal and inland waterways – that depicts the links between an objective, indicator, and management action:

1.     Operational objective:

·        Reduce rubbish that reaches Mekong Delta waters

2.     Indicators:

·         Amount of plastic bags collected on shores

o   Benchmark:  By 2020, plastic bags in Essential Bay reduced to 50% of 2010 volume

3.     Management action:

·        Impose a small fee for plastic bags at markets and stores, to encourage their re-use

The flow chart below also illustrates these connections, using the same example.

VIFEP (USAID workshop)