Improve Water Resource Management

As climate variability increases and the impacts of climate change begin manifesting in hydrological cycles, new approaches to water management are needed to deal with the evolving relationships between supply and demand. Our approaches to meeting the challenges of water management emphasize:

●         Improving the ability of societies and regions to live with hydrological variability and the risks that accompany such variability;

●         Soft resiliency approaches of working to alter demand and behaviors in ways that reflect, rather than attempt to control, the evolving water situation;

●         Altering approaches to the design and utilization of hard resiliency measures (such as levies, dams and other physical infrastructure) in ways that reflect both increased variability in hydrological conditions and substantial decreases in the ability to accurately quantify or predict that variability. Design and utilization changes emphasize approaches that work with and are adapted to, rather than attempt to control, the inherent variability of hydrologic systems. They also emphasize increased use of natural buffering mechanisms – such as flood plains and groundwater aquifers -- rather than newly constructed flood control or storage reservoirs.

Traditional approaches to water resources management typically involve linear, top-down institutional models in which the state or some other organization regulates operation standards, decides how and who will manage the water, and operates physical infrastructure. Water allocation and management systems are designed on the basis of precisely measured flows and estimates regarding the recurrence interval and magnitude of extreme events such as floods. Increased climate variability and change are altering hydrological cycles in ways that make both the institutional arrangements and the technical estimates on which systems are designed increasingly complex and unreliable. Increases in variability and uncertainty increase the importance of context-specific strategies and institutional arrangements, and are thus likely to reduce the efficacy of top-down institutional models. Increased difficulties in projecting flows, recurrence intervals and other hydrologic parameters reduce the ability to rely on such parameters as inputs to the design of physical and other water management structures or systems.

Given the above, our approach to water resources management issues involves a re-envisioning of attitudes and behaviors surrounding water use and risk. First, we are working with key actors to change behaviors surrounding water. Some behavioral changes involve learning to live with risk and variability in the hydrological cycle. For instance, relocating infrastructure out of floodplains or encouraging livelihood diversification away from agriculture in drought prone areas are measures that can be taken for living with risk. Other behavioral measures involve changing demand to reflect the limitations and variability in supply. Second, we are working with key actors to strategically choose which hard resiliency measures to enhance and which are simply too costly and ineffective to employ. For instance, the Thames flood barriers were erected to withstand floods on a 1-in-100 year interval. In the past ten years, the barrier gates have been closed numerous times to prevent flooding in London. It would be too costly to completely relocate the entire population and infrastructure of London, so it makes sense to invest in barrier enhancement while encouraging wiser development and behaviors throughout London. At the same time, the Dutch have realized that it is impossible to protect most of their coastline from the North Sea and are concentrating on reinforcing dikes that protect high value areas, while allowing for flooding in other areas. Rethinking of water resource management will require the restoration of numerous coastal and riparian ecosystems to provide buffers against increased flood events, for pollution control, and to protect watersheds. Third, we are working to change mindsets on water allocation and value. It is not possible to continue using water according to the belief that historically available water volumes will continue to be available under an uncertain and dynamic climate regime. As variability and pressures on water resource systems increase, we will have to learn how to balance competing human and ecosystem needs.