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Land use policy in headwater catchments
Land Use Policy 80 (2019) 410–414
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Land use policy in headwater catchments a,⁎
Josef Křeček , Martin Haigh a b
T
b
Department of Hydrology, Czech Technical University in Prague, Thákurova 7, CZ-166 29, Prague, Czechia Department of Social Sciences (Geography), Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, OX3 0BP, UK
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Headwater catchments Ecosystem services Water resources control Land use transition Environmental management Land use policy formulation
Headwaters are the low order catchments found on the upper margins of river basins. Designing effective land use policies for headwater areas is challenged by uncertainties related to changes in environmental, political and socio-economic circumstances, and by extreme events. This special headwater issue explores the changing relationships between the endogenous and external drivers of land use change and how inappropriate policy frameworks contribute to deficient land use management. Case studies highlight how headwater services, notably water supply, when overexploited or mismanaged become major sources of social, political and environmental stress, leading to conflict and land abandonment and also how land abandonment may positively affect ecosystem services. Case studies also highlight how present short-termism and ‘tunnel vision’ lead to inaccurate research results and poor environmental management and also how the mind-set driving such problems might be resolved by the conative education of future generations. Effective headwater management and the sustainable utilisation of headwater services is a long term, whole system, whole landscape process.
1. Introduction Effective land use policies are the key to sustaining social and individual well-being, inclusion and prosperity through the underpinning of environmental, cultural and socio-economic sustainability (OECD, 2017). Today, more than ever, land use planning is challenged by the pace of development, social and environmental change, especially climatic (IPCC, 2000,2015). The upper catchments of river basins, the zero to first order basins better known as ‘headwaters’, are often the most environmentally sensitive and most rapidly developing parts of many landscapes. They tend to be in the front-line of environmental change and to pose the greatest challenges for those engaged with land management, policy and planning (Křeček and Haigh, 2000). However, designing effective land use policy in headwater regions is a task beset with difficulty. The formulation and implementation of policies with beneficial outcomes is challenged by changing political, cultural and socio-economic circumstances, as well as by serious uncertainties related to the probability/occurrence/timescales of extreme events, hydrological processes (water yield, runoff timing, water quality, effects of land use change), ecological and climatic change and often steep, unstable and complicated topography (Haigh, 2018). It can be difficult to quantify the costs and benefits of the ‘ecosystem services’ provided by headwaters to those areas downstream (Kertesz et al., 2018). However, there is no doubt that changes in headwater regions may have major adverse downstream consequences, social and political
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Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J. Křeček), [email protected] (M. Haigh).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.03.043 Received 11 February 2018; Accepted 22 March 2018
0264-8377/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
as well as environmental impacts on water supply, water quality, sediment pollution and flooding (Křeček et al. 2017). Dealing with these challenges and managing this uncertainty are the foci of this special Land Use Policy theme issue. The papers published in this special issue arise from the eighth meeting of the International Association for Headwater Control (IAHC). This was prepared in conjunction with the ‘31st Session of the European Forestry Commission Working Party on the Management of Mountain Watersheds (Prague, September 4–6, 2017)’ and was co-organised by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (Palán and Křeček, 2017). Here, the special IAHC sessions were dedicated to the life's work of the Czech hydrologist Dr. Jaroslav Balek, which focussed on water resources control in tropical Africa including the importance of dambo headwater wetlands (Balek, 1983, 1989). Dr. Balek was also author of the influential environmentalist polemic, ‘Environment for Sale’, famous for its, still timely, critique of the bureaucracy, carpetbagging, corruption and waste involved in many major environmental projects (Balek, 1992). This IAHC session sought to carry forward the Balek legacy and provide both new insights into and critiques of current policies for headwater management. It addresses three broad themes: the interplay between the endogenous and exogenous causes of land use change in headwater and their implications for policy, the role of ecosystem services theory and expert systems in the design of land use management systems and, finally, the importance of taking the long term view in designing effective land use policies for headwater
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with global environmental problems in the minds of young learners in Austria using Water Foot-printing as their vehicle. During the 1980s, atmospheric deposition of acidic substances (sulphate, nitrate and ammonia) produced, largely, by coal-burning power stations in the Black Triangle of southern Poland, eastern Germany and northern Bohemia, resulted in the acidification of open waters and runoff and the catastrophic dieback of headwater spruce forests, which was caused, partly, by the trees ability to harvest and release pollutants by fog drip. Subsequently, after the 1985 ‘Helsinki Protocol on the Reduction of Sulphur Emissions or their Transboundary Fluxes’ and consequent reduction of sulphur emissions from coal burning in the region and after the clear cutting of the damaged forests, acid deposition declined. Meanwhile, land use policy in the area has been dominated by local concerns for nature preservation and the protection of steep slopes or the catchment areas of drinking water reservoirs. However, still, it does not recognise the active role of forests in modifying acid deposition. For example, fog drip can be responsible for as much as a third of all sulphur deposition. Hence, the resulting policies do not help these areas’ recovery from acidification as much as they could, despite major declines in sulphur deposition (84%), fog drip (> 50%), and increase in stream water pH from 4.2 to 5.9 during the period of observation, although nitrogen deposition remains much higher than the region’s critical maximum level. The team propose a new system of forestry structured around five zones, recognised for their role in both water and sediment runoff genesis. These are riparian buffer zones, zones of soil protection on slopes > 30%, zones of evapotranspiration control, zones of significant fog drip and wetlands. The team’s policy proposals, therefore, put forests where they are most needed for environmental and watershed protection and keep them away from areas where their harvesting of atmospheric pollutants do most harm (Křeček et al., 2018). It was not until 1967 that the whole of the Sea of Galilee, Lake Kinneret, became part of the State of Israel. This is a region, one of an increasing number, where headwater discharge has been a source of conflict. In 1964, lake waters were diverted to feed Israel’s National Water Carrier infrastructure. In the same year, the Arab League’s Headwater Diversion Plan (Jordan River) sought to divert the flow of two tributaries from the lake, which would have reduced Israel’s water supply by 11% and the value of the diversion by about a third. The threat was resolved by military intervention in 1967 (Murakami, 1995). Upstream of the lake, the River Jordan crosses the Hula valley, a former wetland. This was drained for agriculture during the 1950s. Ultimately, the consequences of this action included groundwater table recession, hydraulic subsidence of the drained land, erosion, soil degradation, underground fires in the drained peatland and enhanced nutrient flux into the lake. In the face of land abandonment, a reclamation project was launched in the 1990s. Meanwhile, research workers recorded a > 35% reduction in the available waters in the lake, 16% due to increased human consumption but 22% to rainfall/runoff decline due to increasing climate aridity. Gophen (2018) explores the role of the transformed hydrology and soil structure of the drained peatlands in this process. This includes the emergence of new flow pathways and reductions in both water volume and retention. These have led to increased effluence from the River Jordan. Gophen (2018) suggests that the solution may be the preservation of higher levels of soil moisture and reduction of flow pathways in the drained peatland, of course, neither of which is easily achievable. Haida (2018) also focus on water conservation, this time connecting acting local and thinking globally to tackle the main cause of environmental degradation, which is human decision making; this study points out that the responsibility for good water governance is shared, in different ways, between consumers, governments, businesses and investors. However, consumers have the greatest influence and the greatest leverage on other stakeholders (Welp et al., 2006). Haida and team’s work addresses water conservation and the future by empowering young people in schools. Specifically, they try to build each
habitats. 2. Headwater management: The interplay between endogenous and exogenous drivers of land use change Headwaters are low order catchments located on the margin of all river basins at every scale (Haigh and Křeček, 1991). Very few studies have attempted to map the extent of these lands. One reason is that, because of the fractal characteristics of river basins, the area measured depends very much on the yardstick used for measurement. Recent work in Portugal has suggested that the location of headwaters and channel heads is best explored using a mapping grid with a 0.1 km2 mesh (Pena et al., 2018). However, the classic work of Paracchini and Vogt (2006) used 250 m2 cells to identify 1,750,000 km2 headwater catchments in a 6,500,000 km2 European area (i.e. 27%). Because all catchments have headwaters, this area is greater than that of those, mainly forested, mountainous headwaters (just 12% of EU area) (Paracchini et al., 2000). Of course, these tend to be the headwaters of greatest concern both because of their environmental fragility and because their relatively high atmospheric precipitation and low evapotranspiration make them the ultimate source for much of the terrestrial freshwater used downstream. Messerli et al. (2004) calculated that watersheds in mountainous regions provide between 40 and 80% of the water resources available to lowland settlements. Headwaters, especially in mountains, can also be important boundary regions that reflect social, cultural, administrative and political divisions. Nowadays, land use change is strongly influenced by international and globalised flows of commodities, capital and people, which, increasingly, are driven by factors in distant markets. Traditionally, headwaters were thought of as thinly populated marginal areas but, today, they face intense development pressures that are often driven by the populations of distant urban centres. However, in many administrations, land resource and land use management is based on laws and regulations that can be decades, sometimes over hundred years, old. As Meyfroidt et al. (2013) point out; land use change is still managed in local terms. Sometimes, decision making is based simply on linking some remotely-sensed data on land cover with local socio-economic surveys of land use; more widely spatially-explicit land use models are rarely applied (Pena et al., 2018). Meanwhile, two main sources of land use change can be observed (Lambin and Meyfroidt, 2010). There are changes that are endogenous to the tightly-coupled local socio-ecological system, which may be the result of the depletion of key resources or other declines in ecosystem capital and services. There are also socio-economic and macroscale environmental changes that are exogenous to the local socio-ecological system, which result from processes in larger regional, national, or global systems. In either case, there may be non-linear relationships between these processes and land use transitions in the headwater area with their associated impacts on both local socioeconomic and biophysical systems. However, the impacts of exogenous changes on both environmental and socio-economic systems are easily overlooked or under-estimated in planning at the local or even regional-scales. This special issue of Land Use Policy aims to address some of these wider processes and their consequences for land use transition, planning, policy formulation and both the socioeconomic and environmental trajectories of some critical headwater regions. Three examples of the relationship between (and the management of) endogenous and exogenous causes of environmental change are described in this special issue. First, Křeček et al. (2018) examine the long term (> 30 year) impacts of acidification on the forested mountain headwaters of the Jizera Mountains in northern Bohemia. Second, Gophen (2018) revisits the view older view that the decline of headwater discharge into Lake Kinneret, otherwise known as the Sea of Galilee, is due mainly to human water consumption and finds important impacts caused by climate change. Finally, Haida (2018) use environmental educational practices to connect personal water consumption 411
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learner’s self-conscious awareness of their personal ‘Water Footprint’, to link this awareness to the overall problem of adaptation to climate change, and to provide learners with both the knowledge and skills needed to make a positive change and the conative wish to act as future change-makers. The problem of all such ‘bottom-up’ approaches is, of course, their upscaling from small-scale beginnings. Here, the team recognises that, far more important than the actual 9% reduction in the participants’ own Water Footprints was their commitment to motivating others to do the same.
placement, in terms of torrent control and land stabilisation, as well as the structure’s vulnerability to failure, and its integration with larger watershed processes. The model gives a new twist to the old problem of using structures for effective torrent control. However, again following tradition, while the engineering and environmental functionality of the structure is assessed; discussions of its cost-benefits, not least of maintenance, along with the question of the structure’s aesthetic impact on the mountain scenery, are all absent. In this sense, the paper provides an argument for the more comprehensive approach suggested by the various ecosystem services models (MEA, 2005).
3. Designing land use policies for headwaters: Estimating benefits and making decisions
4. Science and the long term perspective
Many ecological problems and human crises arise as the consequence of inappropriate land use (Gleick, 1997, Taniguchi et al., 2009). The environmental benefits provided by upland watersheds may include the recharge of rivers and water resources (quantity and quality), the mitigation of flood hazard, as well as the provision of resources for recreation, timber, habitat, biodiversity conservation and, sometimes, beautiful scenery (Körner and Ohsawa, 2005). Inevitably, policy-making involves prioritisation and making, sometimes difficult, management decisions. Two papers in this theme issue tackle these issues. First, Kertesz et al. (2018) use the ecosystem services concept for an overview of the positive and negative benefits of land use change in the Lake Balaton basin of Hungary. Second, Carladous (2018) discuss the development of a multidisciplinary, decision-aiding, framework for practical decision-making in torrent-control engineering. Today, the benefits that result from the condition and quantity of the natural capital in headwater regions are often monetarised as in the various systems used to calculate the value of such ‘environmental services’ to human societies (e.g. MEA, 2005; TEEB, 2010). However, as Postel and Thompson (2005) warn, the reality is that most ‘natural ecosystem services’ are undervalued; they lie outside the traditional domain of commercial markets and beyond the timescales of tradition economic thought. The identification and assessment of the environmental benefits of headwaters is further complicated by global climatic change; even today, mountain headwaters may provide refuges that support biodiversity and sometimes also cultural diversity (IPCC, 2015). More generally, headwaters provide society with water, rivers, peat, forest, grazing land, and locally aesthetic, cultural, recreational and educational benefits to local communities; they can help mitigate hazards (flood flows, sediment loads, landslides, and/or avalanches), and buffer climate change through carbon sequestration (Levy et al., 2004). The physical costs and benefits of environmental management and different land use practices in headwater catchments have been discussed in many previous IAHC publications (e.g. Haigh et al., 1998; Haigh and Köeček, 2000; Taniguchi et al., 2009; Beheim et al., 2010; Křeček et al., 2012; Křeček et al., 2017). Here, Kertesz et al. (2018) examines the effect of land use change during the period 1990–2012 on the provision of environmental services in the Lake Balaton catchment of Hungary. Here, ongoing land use transition, which is replacing arable land and natural grassland with forest and pasture, is having some positive benefits. These include reductions in the problems caused by soil erosion and sediment pollution. Downstream flood hazard management is one of the abiding concerns of headwater land use policy. Carladous (2018) introduced a project sparked by a calamitous flood that afflicted the Hautes-Pyrénées in June 2013 and the problem of determining an acceptable level of risk. Briefly, the team revisits the long running debate about the relative efficacy of channel-based hard engineering and catchment-based ecological measures as well as France’s history of using both structures and forestry to ward against hazards such as floods, avalanches and slope failures, together with the problems of their maintenance. However, they then focus on the less complex issue of designing a multi-criteriabased model for decision-making about torrent control engineering structures. Their criteria include the efficacy of the structure’s form and
Scientific research provides the essential foundation for effective land use policy formulation in headwaters regions. Davies and Mazumder (2003) emphasise that water resource management must be based on sound science: environmental, socio-political and economic, as well as on strong policy and effective implementation. The focus of this section is the problem of providing the necessary strong scientific base in a world that demands quick answers. Haigh (2018) points out the problems caused by short-term thinking in environmental research and planning. Two case studies are used to highlight how sustained ‘slow’ research can reveal insights that would be missed or even contradicted by one-off, ‘snapshot’ studies of the same phenomena, in this case, landslide generation in the Himalaya and the growth of trees after fertiliser application in upland Wales. Dimelisová (2018) goes further, contradicting the old adage about no-one learning anything from history, to show what may be learnt from the circumstances surrounding the collapse of the pre-Columbian Mayan urban civilisation of Central America. The point highlighted by Haigh (2018) concerns the way in which scientific research is funded and assessed. He points out that land use change in headwaters and its consequences do not respect the 1–5 year cycles of research review and research grants. Environmental and, equally, social, cultural and economic transitions have their own, much longer timescales. Current UK policy-making on ‘Upper Catchment’ (i.e. headwater) management involves 25-year planning; this is a reaction to the failure of projects based on short-term thinking. Introducing ideas from the larger ‘Slow Movement’, Haigh (2018) suggests that a more considered, more reflective, and less hectic approach to research planning is required. In support, results from 2 case studies are considered. In the first, the findings of a 25-year investigation of landslide generation on two new roads, constructed on the outskirts of two townships in Uttarakhand, was contrasted with the litany of knee-jerk reports published after each extreme event in the Himalaya. The study showed that, while the number of landslides has declined to almost nothing on the road that ran through forest, those on the road that ran through rapid suburban development, have remained remarkably constant, despite great differences in the amount of landslide outfall. The study showed that increased landslide volume in extreme events was caused by the same landslide zones producing more debris rather than by new landslides. It also connected landslide incidence to land use. The second case study explored the effects of an initial dose of fertiliser on the growth of trees used to reclaim former coal-lands in South Wales. This showed, simply, that statistically significant negative results, recorded in the first years after plantation, were contradicted by statistically significant positive results recorded in the tenth year after planting. Research based on shorter duration studies would have produced conclusions and recommendations that would have proved inappropriate in the long term. The only solution was to create research projects that respect the timescales of the objects being studied be that landslide generation or the growth of trees. Dimelisová (2018), however, demonstrates that there is another way. Not every process or every event is unique. History is apt to repeat itself, so it is sensible to learn from the historical record. This study examined the development of three Mayan centres in relation to their 412
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management of water. At Copan, the control of flood waters was the priority while at Kaminaljuyu and Tikal the aim was water harvesting and storage in the face of a long dry season. All three centres demonstrated great skill in hydraulic engineering and the organisation of public water supply projects, which sustained them for centuries but this was less supported by knowledge of watershed management. The crisis that, finally, destroyed of these systems was caused by the gradual build-up of stress factors including natural resource over-exploitation and population expansion beyond the sustainable carrying capacity of the land. However, the final collapse of these increasingly over-stretched systems was triggered by a series of extreme droughts. The author resists drawing the obvious comparisons with current conditions in the modern world, much of which is threatened by desertification, population growth and environmental degradation.
2011). However, the efficacy of any new approaches will still depend on the availability of better information on changes in land use and their effects and on a more sensitive approach towards intervention that is better grounded in local context and community. In sum, land use policy formulation needs to expand its focus from local needs and the provision of individual resources towards addressing the system as a whole, including both its endogenous potentials, risks and tolerances and the impacts of exogenous processes such as: climate change, human migration, demand expectations, and economic conditions. Headwater research must remain focused on the tolerances, exchanges, checks and balances within headwater landscapes and the impact of changes in the headwater system on those downstream. Lessons from the past need to be learnt (e.g. Dimelisová, 2018). 6. Conclusions: Headwater control and ecosystem services
5. Discussion This headwater themed issue explores relationships between the endogenous and external drivers of land use change and shows how out of date policy frameworks can contribute to deficiencies in land use management (Křeček et al., 2018; Haigh, 2018). It has shown how headwaters services, especially the provision of waters, become major sources of environmental stress when they are overexploited or mismanaged, leading to conflict and land abandonment (Gophen, 2018; Dimelisová 2018). Of course, land abandonment, a common feature of headwaters across Europe, whatever its social consequences, may actually benefit ecosystem services (Kertesz et al., 2018). This headwater collection also highlights how present short-termism and tunnel vision are not well suited to the management of headwaters at the landscape scale (Haigh, 2018; Carladous, 2018). It illustrates solutions to the problem, like those based on conative water-foot-printing education of future generations (Haida, 2018); and shows that much remains to be learnt from past experience and history (Dimelisová, 2018). There are still large gaps in the understanding of the workings of headwater environmental systems for research to address, as these papers demonstrate. Meanwhile, problems from the past continue to obstruct effective land use policy in headwaters. These include short-term thinking in policy formulation including the continuing conceptual mismatch between the short-term time-frames used for economic analysis and the longer perspectives needed for effective environmental management. They also include the tunnel vision of those focused, exclusively, on the exploitation or development of an individual resource or the control of a particular hazard. Effective headwater management and the sustainable development of headwater services is a long term, whole system, whole landscape process.
Headwater Control has always aimed to promote more grounded, integrated and self-sustainable environment management. However, the needs assessments for headwater land use policy are changing. Haigh (2010) proposed a future agenda for headwater control and it is worthwhile reassessing its prescriptions. Some things have changed. Today, there is no longer a need for further proof that global climate change, not only local human impacts, is responsible for the development of adverse circumstances in headwaters. However, the need for a better appreciation of the value of long-term environmental monitoring and research has become, if anything, more acute. Some things have remained the same. The problems caused by poor access to data and data-sharing remain as do those obstacles to effective environmental management caused by obsolete or inappropriately defined institutional, legislative and policy-making frameworks. Similarly, many of the ‘tasks for the future’ persist. These include the more effective integration of the environment, social science and cultural aspects of policy formulation; greater consideration of ethics in environmental decision making; and better communication of the headwater management message through education and community engagement. At least, here, some progress is being made (e.g. Poudrier, 2017, Haida, 2018). Forests are a special focus. Many headwaters are given over to forests and forest management is critical to the provision of many of the ecosystem services provided by headwaters, especially the service most often given priority, water supply (FAO, 2006; Křeček et al., 2017). However, forests also affect water quality, hydro-electric power generation, wildlife (including fisheries) and have recreational uses (Willis, 2002). To this list may be added their role in flood management, water storage against droughts, slope stabilisation, biodiversity conservation and recreation. Certainly, they also produce timber but this is very far from being their only ecosystem service; thankfully, this fact is becoming more widely accepted. Forests are also vulnerable to external pressures such as the demand for land for the development of infrastructure and homes. It is not unusual for short-term pressures for development to overwhelm the longer term arguments for conservation or hazard management. This is why, like headwater research, land use policy and planning in headwaters has to take the long view. Effective land use planning and policy making is essential for maximising the environmental capital and services of headwater catchments. There remains the need for better land use policy supported by better administrative and legal frameworks. These should be informed by longer time frames and longer-term environmental monitoring as well as a new generation of holistic, more environmentally conscious, models for headwater management (FAO, 2006). In particular, there is work to be done to redress the conceptual mismatch between the relatively short-term time-frames used for economic analysis and those longer perspectives needed for effective environmental management. Current economic-evaluation models still do not adequately value environmental services (MEA, 2005; TEEB, 2010; Spash,
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Dimelisová, E., 2018. Possibilities and limits in the management of mountain watersheds: lessons from the Maya civilization. Land Use Policy. FAO, 2006. The New Generation of Watershed Management Programmes and Projects (Forestry Paper 150). (Accessed: 27 January 2018). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome. http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/ a0644e/a0644e00.htm. Gleick, P.H., 1997. Water in crisis: path to sustainable water use. Ecol. Appl. 8, 571–579. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/1051-0761(1998)008[0571:WICPTS]2.0.CO;2. Gophen, M., 2018. Climate change and water loss in the Kinneret drainage basin. Land Use Policy. Haida, C., 2018. From water footprint to climate change adaptation: capacity development with teenagers to save water. Land Use Policy. Haigh, M., 2018. Slow Science: benefits for the management of headwater catchments. Land Use Policy. Haigh, M., 2010. Headwater control: An agenda for the future. In: Zlatic, M. (Ed.), Global Change: Challenges for Soil Management. Catena Verlag, Reiskirchen, DL (Advances in GeoEcology 41), 1-12. ISBN 978-3-923381-57-9; US ISBN 1-59326-248-5. Haigh, M.J., Křeček, J. (Eds.), 2000. Environmental Reconstruction in Headwater Areas. Kluwer, Dordrecht NATO Science Series, ASEN 2, 68) ISBN-10: 0792362950; ISBN13: 978-0792362951. Haigh, M.J., Křeček, J., 1991. Headwater management: problems and policies - special feature. Land Use Policy 8, 191–205. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0264-8377(91) 90028-H. Haigh, M.J., Singh, R.B., Křeček, J., 1998. Headwater control: matters arising. In: Haigh, M.J., Křeček, J., Rajwar, G.S., Kilmartin, M.P. (Eds.), Headwaters: Water resources and soil conservation. Balkema (CRC), Rotterdam, NL pp. 3-24. ISBN-10: 9054107804; ISBN-13: 978-9054107804. IPCC, 2000. Special report on land use, land-use change and forestry. ISBN: 9780521804950. Summary. (Accessed: 26 January 2018). Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, UK. https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ special-reports/spm/srl-en.pdf. IPCC, 2015. Climate Change 2014 - Synthesis Report. ISBN 978-92-9169-143-2. (Accessed: 26 January 2018). Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, World Meteorological Organization, Genéva, Switzerland. https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ assessment-report/ar5/syr/SYR_AR5_FINAL_full_wcover.pdf. Kertesz, A., et al., 2018. Effects of land use change on ecosystem services in the Lake Balaton catchment. Land Use Policy. Körner, C., Ohsawa, M., 2005. Mountain systems. In: Hassan, R., Scholes, R., Ash, N. (Eds.), Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Current State and Trends. Island Press, London ISBN-10: 1559632283; ISBN-13: 978-1559632287. pp. 683-716. (Accessed: 27 January 2018). https://www.millenniumassessment.org/documents/document. 293.aspx.pdf. Křeček, J., Haigh, M., 2000. Reviewing the contexts of headwater control. In: Haigh, M., Křeček, J. (Eds.), Environmental Reconstruction in Headwater Areas. Kluwer, Dordrecht, NL (NATO Science Series 2: Environmental Security 68), 9-24. Křeček, J., Haigh, M., Hofer, T., Kubin, E. (Eds.), 2012. Management of Mountain Watersheds. Springer and Capital Publishing, New Delhi. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/ 978-94-007-2476-1. ISBN-10: 9400724756; ISBN-13: 978-9400724754. Křeček, J., Haigh, M., Hofer, T., Kubin, E., 2017. Ecosystem Services of Headwater Catchments. Springer International, Dordrecht, NL ISBN 978-3-319-57945-0; e-ISBN 978-3-319-57946-7. Křeček, J., Palán, L., Stuchlík, E., 2018. Impacts of land use policy on the recovery of mountain catchments from acidification. Land Use Policy. Lambin, E.F., Meyfroidt, P., 2010. Land use transitions: Socio-ecological feedback versus socio-economic change. Land Use Policy 27, 108–118. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j. landusepol.2009.09.003. Levy, P.E., Friend, A.D., White, A., Cannell, M.G.R., 2004. The influence of land use
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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol
Land use policy in headwater catchments a,⁎
Josef Křeček , Martin Haigh a b
T
b
Department of Hydrology, Czech Technical University in Prague, Thákurova 7, CZ-166 29, Prague, Czechia Department of Social Sciences (Geography), Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, OX3 0BP, UK
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Headwater catchments Ecosystem services Water resources control Land use transition Environmental management Land use policy formulation
Headwaters are the low order catchments found on the upper margins of river basins. Designing effective land use policies for headwater areas is challenged by uncertainties related to changes in environmental, political and socio-economic circumstances, and by extreme events. This special headwater issue explores the changing relationships between the endogenous and external drivers of land use change and how inappropriate policy frameworks contribute to deficient land use management. Case studies highlight how headwater services, notably water supply, when overexploited or mismanaged become major sources of social, political and environmental stress, leading to conflict and land abandonment and also how land abandonment may positively affect ecosystem services. Case studies also highlight how present short-termism and ‘tunnel vision’ lead to inaccurate research results and poor environmental management and also how the mind-set driving such problems might be resolved by the conative education of future generations. Effective headwater management and the sustainable utilisation of headwater services is a long term, whole system, whole landscape process.
1. Introduction Effective land use policies are the key to sustaining social and individual well-being, inclusion and prosperity through the underpinning of environmental, cultural and socio-economic sustainability (OECD, 2017). Today, more than ever, land use planning is challenged by the pace of development, social and environmental change, especially climatic (IPCC, 2000,2015). The upper catchments of river basins, the zero to first order basins better known as ‘headwaters’, are often the most environmentally sensitive and most rapidly developing parts of many landscapes. They tend to be in the front-line of environmental change and to pose the greatest challenges for those engaged with land management, policy and planning (Křeček and Haigh, 2000). However, designing effective land use policy in headwater regions is a task beset with difficulty. The formulation and implementation of policies with beneficial outcomes is challenged by changing political, cultural and socio-economic circumstances, as well as by serious uncertainties related to the probability/occurrence/timescales of extreme events, hydrological processes (water yield, runoff timing, water quality, effects of land use change), ecological and climatic change and often steep, unstable and complicated topography (Haigh, 2018). It can be difficult to quantify the costs and benefits of the ‘ecosystem services’ provided by headwaters to those areas downstream (Kertesz et al., 2018). However, there is no doubt that changes in headwater regions may have major adverse downstream consequences, social and political
⁎
Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J. Křeček), [email protected] (M. Haigh).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.03.043 Received 11 February 2018; Accepted 22 March 2018
0264-8377/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
as well as environmental impacts on water supply, water quality, sediment pollution and flooding (Křeček et al. 2017). Dealing with these challenges and managing this uncertainty are the foci of this special Land Use Policy theme issue. The papers published in this special issue arise from the eighth meeting of the International Association for Headwater Control (IAHC). This was prepared in conjunction with the ‘31st Session of the European Forestry Commission Working Party on the Management of Mountain Watersheds (Prague, September 4–6, 2017)’ and was co-organised by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (Palán and Křeček, 2017). Here, the special IAHC sessions were dedicated to the life's work of the Czech hydrologist Dr. Jaroslav Balek, which focussed on water resources control in tropical Africa including the importance of dambo headwater wetlands (Balek, 1983, 1989). Dr. Balek was also author of the influential environmentalist polemic, ‘Environment for Sale’, famous for its, still timely, critique of the bureaucracy, carpetbagging, corruption and waste involved in many major environmental projects (Balek, 1992). This IAHC session sought to carry forward the Balek legacy and provide both new insights into and critiques of current policies for headwater management. It addresses three broad themes: the interplay between the endogenous and exogenous causes of land use change in headwater and their implications for policy, the role of ecosystem services theory and expert systems in the design of land use management systems and, finally, the importance of taking the long term view in designing effective land use policies for headwater
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with global environmental problems in the minds of young learners in Austria using Water Foot-printing as their vehicle. During the 1980s, atmospheric deposition of acidic substances (sulphate, nitrate and ammonia) produced, largely, by coal-burning power stations in the Black Triangle of southern Poland, eastern Germany and northern Bohemia, resulted in the acidification of open waters and runoff and the catastrophic dieback of headwater spruce forests, which was caused, partly, by the trees ability to harvest and release pollutants by fog drip. Subsequently, after the 1985 ‘Helsinki Protocol on the Reduction of Sulphur Emissions or their Transboundary Fluxes’ and consequent reduction of sulphur emissions from coal burning in the region and after the clear cutting of the damaged forests, acid deposition declined. Meanwhile, land use policy in the area has been dominated by local concerns for nature preservation and the protection of steep slopes or the catchment areas of drinking water reservoirs. However, still, it does not recognise the active role of forests in modifying acid deposition. For example, fog drip can be responsible for as much as a third of all sulphur deposition. Hence, the resulting policies do not help these areas’ recovery from acidification as much as they could, despite major declines in sulphur deposition (84%), fog drip (> 50%), and increase in stream water pH from 4.2 to 5.9 during the period of observation, although nitrogen deposition remains much higher than the region’s critical maximum level. The team propose a new system of forestry structured around five zones, recognised for their role in both water and sediment runoff genesis. These are riparian buffer zones, zones of soil protection on slopes > 30%, zones of evapotranspiration control, zones of significant fog drip and wetlands. The team’s policy proposals, therefore, put forests where they are most needed for environmental and watershed protection and keep them away from areas where their harvesting of atmospheric pollutants do most harm (Křeček et al., 2018). It was not until 1967 that the whole of the Sea of Galilee, Lake Kinneret, became part of the State of Israel. This is a region, one of an increasing number, where headwater discharge has been a source of conflict. In 1964, lake waters were diverted to feed Israel’s National Water Carrier infrastructure. In the same year, the Arab League’s Headwater Diversion Plan (Jordan River) sought to divert the flow of two tributaries from the lake, which would have reduced Israel’s water supply by 11% and the value of the diversion by about a third. The threat was resolved by military intervention in 1967 (Murakami, 1995). Upstream of the lake, the River Jordan crosses the Hula valley, a former wetland. This was drained for agriculture during the 1950s. Ultimately, the consequences of this action included groundwater table recession, hydraulic subsidence of the drained land, erosion, soil degradation, underground fires in the drained peatland and enhanced nutrient flux into the lake. In the face of land abandonment, a reclamation project was launched in the 1990s. Meanwhile, research workers recorded a > 35% reduction in the available waters in the lake, 16% due to increased human consumption but 22% to rainfall/runoff decline due to increasing climate aridity. Gophen (2018) explores the role of the transformed hydrology and soil structure of the drained peatlands in this process. This includes the emergence of new flow pathways and reductions in both water volume and retention. These have led to increased effluence from the River Jordan. Gophen (2018) suggests that the solution may be the preservation of higher levels of soil moisture and reduction of flow pathways in the drained peatland, of course, neither of which is easily achievable. Haida (2018) also focus on water conservation, this time connecting acting local and thinking globally to tackle the main cause of environmental degradation, which is human decision making; this study points out that the responsibility for good water governance is shared, in different ways, between consumers, governments, businesses and investors. However, consumers have the greatest influence and the greatest leverage on other stakeholders (Welp et al., 2006). Haida and team’s work addresses water conservation and the future by empowering young people in schools. Specifically, they try to build each
habitats. 2. Headwater management: The interplay between endogenous and exogenous drivers of land use change Headwaters are low order catchments located on the margin of all river basins at every scale (Haigh and Křeček, 1991). Very few studies have attempted to map the extent of these lands. One reason is that, because of the fractal characteristics of river basins, the area measured depends very much on the yardstick used for measurement. Recent work in Portugal has suggested that the location of headwaters and channel heads is best explored using a mapping grid with a 0.1 km2 mesh (Pena et al., 2018). However, the classic work of Paracchini and Vogt (2006) used 250 m2 cells to identify 1,750,000 km2 headwater catchments in a 6,500,000 km2 European area (i.e. 27%). Because all catchments have headwaters, this area is greater than that of those, mainly forested, mountainous headwaters (just 12% of EU area) (Paracchini et al., 2000). Of course, these tend to be the headwaters of greatest concern both because of their environmental fragility and because their relatively high atmospheric precipitation and low evapotranspiration make them the ultimate source for much of the terrestrial freshwater used downstream. Messerli et al. (2004) calculated that watersheds in mountainous regions provide between 40 and 80% of the water resources available to lowland settlements. Headwaters, especially in mountains, can also be important boundary regions that reflect social, cultural, administrative and political divisions. Nowadays, land use change is strongly influenced by international and globalised flows of commodities, capital and people, which, increasingly, are driven by factors in distant markets. Traditionally, headwaters were thought of as thinly populated marginal areas but, today, they face intense development pressures that are often driven by the populations of distant urban centres. However, in many administrations, land resource and land use management is based on laws and regulations that can be decades, sometimes over hundred years, old. As Meyfroidt et al. (2013) point out; land use change is still managed in local terms. Sometimes, decision making is based simply on linking some remotely-sensed data on land cover with local socio-economic surveys of land use; more widely spatially-explicit land use models are rarely applied (Pena et al., 2018). Meanwhile, two main sources of land use change can be observed (Lambin and Meyfroidt, 2010). There are changes that are endogenous to the tightly-coupled local socio-ecological system, which may be the result of the depletion of key resources or other declines in ecosystem capital and services. There are also socio-economic and macroscale environmental changes that are exogenous to the local socio-ecological system, which result from processes in larger regional, national, or global systems. In either case, there may be non-linear relationships between these processes and land use transitions in the headwater area with their associated impacts on both local socioeconomic and biophysical systems. However, the impacts of exogenous changes on both environmental and socio-economic systems are easily overlooked or under-estimated in planning at the local or even regional-scales. This special issue of Land Use Policy aims to address some of these wider processes and their consequences for land use transition, planning, policy formulation and both the socioeconomic and environmental trajectories of some critical headwater regions. Three examples of the relationship between (and the management of) endogenous and exogenous causes of environmental change are described in this special issue. First, Křeček et al. (2018) examine the long term (> 30 year) impacts of acidification on the forested mountain headwaters of the Jizera Mountains in northern Bohemia. Second, Gophen (2018) revisits the view older view that the decline of headwater discharge into Lake Kinneret, otherwise known as the Sea of Galilee, is due mainly to human water consumption and finds important impacts caused by climate change. Finally, Haida (2018) use environmental educational practices to connect personal water consumption 411
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learner’s self-conscious awareness of their personal ‘Water Footprint’, to link this awareness to the overall problem of adaptation to climate change, and to provide learners with both the knowledge and skills needed to make a positive change and the conative wish to act as future change-makers. The problem of all such ‘bottom-up’ approaches is, of course, their upscaling from small-scale beginnings. Here, the team recognises that, far more important than the actual 9% reduction in the participants’ own Water Footprints was their commitment to motivating others to do the same.
placement, in terms of torrent control and land stabilisation, as well as the structure’s vulnerability to failure, and its integration with larger watershed processes. The model gives a new twist to the old problem of using structures for effective torrent control. However, again following tradition, while the engineering and environmental functionality of the structure is assessed; discussions of its cost-benefits, not least of maintenance, along with the question of the structure’s aesthetic impact on the mountain scenery, are all absent. In this sense, the paper provides an argument for the more comprehensive approach suggested by the various ecosystem services models (MEA, 2005).
3. Designing land use policies for headwaters: Estimating benefits and making decisions
4. Science and the long term perspective
Many ecological problems and human crises arise as the consequence of inappropriate land use (Gleick, 1997, Taniguchi et al., 2009). The environmental benefits provided by upland watersheds may include the recharge of rivers and water resources (quantity and quality), the mitigation of flood hazard, as well as the provision of resources for recreation, timber, habitat, biodiversity conservation and, sometimes, beautiful scenery (Körner and Ohsawa, 2005). Inevitably, policy-making involves prioritisation and making, sometimes difficult, management decisions. Two papers in this theme issue tackle these issues. First, Kertesz et al. (2018) use the ecosystem services concept for an overview of the positive and negative benefits of land use change in the Lake Balaton basin of Hungary. Second, Carladous (2018) discuss the development of a multidisciplinary, decision-aiding, framework for practical decision-making in torrent-control engineering. Today, the benefits that result from the condition and quantity of the natural capital in headwater regions are often monetarised as in the various systems used to calculate the value of such ‘environmental services’ to human societies (e.g. MEA, 2005; TEEB, 2010). However, as Postel and Thompson (2005) warn, the reality is that most ‘natural ecosystem services’ are undervalued; they lie outside the traditional domain of commercial markets and beyond the timescales of tradition economic thought. The identification and assessment of the environmental benefits of headwaters is further complicated by global climatic change; even today, mountain headwaters may provide refuges that support biodiversity and sometimes also cultural diversity (IPCC, 2015). More generally, headwaters provide society with water, rivers, peat, forest, grazing land, and locally aesthetic, cultural, recreational and educational benefits to local communities; they can help mitigate hazards (flood flows, sediment loads, landslides, and/or avalanches), and buffer climate change through carbon sequestration (Levy et al., 2004). The physical costs and benefits of environmental management and different land use practices in headwater catchments have been discussed in many previous IAHC publications (e.g. Haigh et al., 1998; Haigh and Köeček, 2000; Taniguchi et al., 2009; Beheim et al., 2010; Křeček et al., 2012; Křeček et al., 2017). Here, Kertesz et al. (2018) examines the effect of land use change during the period 1990–2012 on the provision of environmental services in the Lake Balaton catchment of Hungary. Here, ongoing land use transition, which is replacing arable land and natural grassland with forest and pasture, is having some positive benefits. These include reductions in the problems caused by soil erosion and sediment pollution. Downstream flood hazard management is one of the abiding concerns of headwater land use policy. Carladous (2018) introduced a project sparked by a calamitous flood that afflicted the Hautes-Pyrénées in June 2013 and the problem of determining an acceptable level of risk. Briefly, the team revisits the long running debate about the relative efficacy of channel-based hard engineering and catchment-based ecological measures as well as France’s history of using both structures and forestry to ward against hazards such as floods, avalanches and slope failures, together with the problems of their maintenance. However, they then focus on the less complex issue of designing a multi-criteriabased model for decision-making about torrent control engineering structures. Their criteria include the efficacy of the structure’s form and
Scientific research provides the essential foundation for effective land use policy formulation in headwaters regions. Davies and Mazumder (2003) emphasise that water resource management must be based on sound science: environmental, socio-political and economic, as well as on strong policy and effective implementation. The focus of this section is the problem of providing the necessary strong scientific base in a world that demands quick answers. Haigh (2018) points out the problems caused by short-term thinking in environmental research and planning. Two case studies are used to highlight how sustained ‘slow’ research can reveal insights that would be missed or even contradicted by one-off, ‘snapshot’ studies of the same phenomena, in this case, landslide generation in the Himalaya and the growth of trees after fertiliser application in upland Wales. Dimelisová (2018) goes further, contradicting the old adage about no-one learning anything from history, to show what may be learnt from the circumstances surrounding the collapse of the pre-Columbian Mayan urban civilisation of Central America. The point highlighted by Haigh (2018) concerns the way in which scientific research is funded and assessed. He points out that land use change in headwaters and its consequences do not respect the 1–5 year cycles of research review and research grants. Environmental and, equally, social, cultural and economic transitions have their own, much longer timescales. Current UK policy-making on ‘Upper Catchment’ (i.e. headwater) management involves 25-year planning; this is a reaction to the failure of projects based on short-term thinking. Introducing ideas from the larger ‘Slow Movement’, Haigh (2018) suggests that a more considered, more reflective, and less hectic approach to research planning is required. In support, results from 2 case studies are considered. In the first, the findings of a 25-year investigation of landslide generation on two new roads, constructed on the outskirts of two townships in Uttarakhand, was contrasted with the litany of knee-jerk reports published after each extreme event in the Himalaya. The study showed that, while the number of landslides has declined to almost nothing on the road that ran through forest, those on the road that ran through rapid suburban development, have remained remarkably constant, despite great differences in the amount of landslide outfall. The study showed that increased landslide volume in extreme events was caused by the same landslide zones producing more debris rather than by new landslides. It also connected landslide incidence to land use. The second case study explored the effects of an initial dose of fertiliser on the growth of trees used to reclaim former coal-lands in South Wales. This showed, simply, that statistically significant negative results, recorded in the first years after plantation, were contradicted by statistically significant positive results recorded in the tenth year after planting. Research based on shorter duration studies would have produced conclusions and recommendations that would have proved inappropriate in the long term. The only solution was to create research projects that respect the timescales of the objects being studied be that landslide generation or the growth of trees. Dimelisová (2018), however, demonstrates that there is another way. Not every process or every event is unique. History is apt to repeat itself, so it is sensible to learn from the historical record. This study examined the development of three Mayan centres in relation to their 412
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management of water. At Copan, the control of flood waters was the priority while at Kaminaljuyu and Tikal the aim was water harvesting and storage in the face of a long dry season. All three centres demonstrated great skill in hydraulic engineering and the organisation of public water supply projects, which sustained them for centuries but this was less supported by knowledge of watershed management. The crisis that, finally, destroyed of these systems was caused by the gradual build-up of stress factors including natural resource over-exploitation and population expansion beyond the sustainable carrying capacity of the land. However, the final collapse of these increasingly over-stretched systems was triggered by a series of extreme droughts. The author resists drawing the obvious comparisons with current conditions in the modern world, much of which is threatened by desertification, population growth and environmental degradation.
2011). However, the efficacy of any new approaches will still depend on the availability of better information on changes in land use and their effects and on a more sensitive approach towards intervention that is better grounded in local context and community. In sum, land use policy formulation needs to expand its focus from local needs and the provision of individual resources towards addressing the system as a whole, including both its endogenous potentials, risks and tolerances and the impacts of exogenous processes such as: climate change, human migration, demand expectations, and economic conditions. Headwater research must remain focused on the tolerances, exchanges, checks and balances within headwater landscapes and the impact of changes in the headwater system on those downstream. Lessons from the past need to be learnt (e.g. Dimelisová, 2018). 6. Conclusions: Headwater control and ecosystem services
5. Discussion This headwater themed issue explores relationships between the endogenous and external drivers of land use change and shows how out of date policy frameworks can contribute to deficiencies in land use management (Křeček et al., 2018; Haigh, 2018). It has shown how headwaters services, especially the provision of waters, become major sources of environmental stress when they are overexploited or mismanaged, leading to conflict and land abandonment (Gophen, 2018; Dimelisová 2018). Of course, land abandonment, a common feature of headwaters across Europe, whatever its social consequences, may actually benefit ecosystem services (Kertesz et al., 2018). This headwater collection also highlights how present short-termism and tunnel vision are not well suited to the management of headwaters at the landscape scale (Haigh, 2018; Carladous, 2018). It illustrates solutions to the problem, like those based on conative water-foot-printing education of future generations (Haida, 2018); and shows that much remains to be learnt from past experience and history (Dimelisová, 2018). There are still large gaps in the understanding of the workings of headwater environmental systems for research to address, as these papers demonstrate. Meanwhile, problems from the past continue to obstruct effective land use policy in headwaters. These include short-term thinking in policy formulation including the continuing conceptual mismatch between the short-term time-frames used for economic analysis and the longer perspectives needed for effective environmental management. They also include the tunnel vision of those focused, exclusively, on the exploitation or development of an individual resource or the control of a particular hazard. Effective headwater management and the sustainable development of headwater services is a long term, whole system, whole landscape process.
Headwater Control has always aimed to promote more grounded, integrated and self-sustainable environment management. However, the needs assessments for headwater land use policy are changing. Haigh (2010) proposed a future agenda for headwater control and it is worthwhile reassessing its prescriptions. Some things have changed. Today, there is no longer a need for further proof that global climate change, not only local human impacts, is responsible for the development of adverse circumstances in headwaters. However, the need for a better appreciation of the value of long-term environmental monitoring and research has become, if anything, more acute. Some things have remained the same. The problems caused by poor access to data and data-sharing remain as do those obstacles to effective environmental management caused by obsolete or inappropriately defined institutional, legislative and policy-making frameworks. Similarly, many of the ‘tasks for the future’ persist. These include the more effective integration of the environment, social science and cultural aspects of policy formulation; greater consideration of ethics in environmental decision making; and better communication of the headwater management message through education and community engagement. At least, here, some progress is being made (e.g. Poudrier, 2017, Haida, 2018). Forests are a special focus. Many headwaters are given over to forests and forest management is critical to the provision of many of the ecosystem services provided by headwaters, especially the service most often given priority, water supply (FAO, 2006; Křeček et al., 2017). However, forests also affect water quality, hydro-electric power generation, wildlife (including fisheries) and have recreational uses (Willis, 2002). To this list may be added their role in flood management, water storage against droughts, slope stabilisation, biodiversity conservation and recreation. Certainly, they also produce timber but this is very far from being their only ecosystem service; thankfully, this fact is becoming more widely accepted. Forests are also vulnerable to external pressures such as the demand for land for the development of infrastructure and homes. It is not unusual for short-term pressures for development to overwhelm the longer term arguments for conservation or hazard management. This is why, like headwater research, land use policy and planning in headwaters has to take the long view. Effective land use planning and policy making is essential for maximising the environmental capital and services of headwater catchments. There remains the need for better land use policy supported by better administrative and legal frameworks. These should be informed by longer time frames and longer-term environmental monitoring as well as a new generation of holistic, more environmentally conscious, models for headwater management (FAO, 2006). In particular, there is work to be done to redress the conceptual mismatch between the relatively short-term time-frames used for economic analysis and those longer perspectives needed for effective environmental management. Current economic-evaluation models still do not adequately value environmental services (MEA, 2005; TEEB, 2010; Spash,
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