Integrating Environmental and Socio-Economic Indicators of a Linked Catchment-Coastal System Using Variable Environmental Intensity

Can we develop land use policy that balances the conflicting views of stakeholders in a catchment while moving toward long term sustainability? Adaptive management provides a strategy for this whereby measures of catchment performance are compared against performance goals in order to progressively...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental management (New York) 2010-09, Vol.46 (3), p.484-493
Main Authors: Dymond, John R, Davie, Tim J. A, Fenemor, Andrew D, Ekanayake, Jagath C, Knight, Ben R, Cole, Anthony O, de Oca Munguia, Oscar Montes, Allen, Will J, Young, Roger G, Basher, Les R, Dresser, Marc, Batstone, Chris J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptive management
Amplification
Aquatic Pollution
Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution
Bacteria
Catchment performance
Catchment vision
Catchments
Coasts
Creeks & streams
E coli
Earth and Environmental Science
Ecology
Economic impact
Economic indicators
Ecosystem
Environment
Environmental impact
Environmental intensity
Environmental Management
Environmental Monitoring - methods
Escherichia coli
Feedback
Forestry Management
Fresh Water
Freshwater
Futures modelling
Horticulture
Integrated modelling
Land use
Low flow
Management
Model coupling
Modelling
Models, Theoretical
Nature Conservation
New Zealand
Oceans and Seas
Policies
Policy development
Socioeconomic Factors
Socioeconomics
Software development
Waste Water Technology
Water Management
Water Movements
Water Pollution Control
Water quality
Water supply
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Summary:Can we develop land use policy that balances the conflicting views of stakeholders in a catchment while moving toward long term sustainability? Adaptive management provides a strategy for this whereby measures of catchment performance are compared against performance goals in order to progressively improve policy. However, the feedback loop of adaptive management is often slow and irreversible impacts may result before policy has been adapted. In contrast, integrated modelling of future land use policy provides rapid feedback and potentially improves the chance of avoiding unwanted collapse events. Replacing measures of catchment performance with modelled catchment performance has usually required the dynamic linking of many models, both biophysical and socio-economic—and this requires much effort in software development. As an alternative, we propose the use of variable environmental intensity (defined as the ratio of environmental impact over economic output) in a loose coupling of models to provide a sufficient level of integration while avoiding significant effort required for software development. This model construct was applied to the Motueka Catchment of New Zealand where several biophysical (riverine water quantity, sediment, E. coli faecal bacteria, trout numbers, nitrogen transport, marine productivity) models, a socio-economic (gross output, gross margin, job numbers) model, and an agent-based model were linked. An extreme set of land use scenarios (historic, present, and intensive) were applied to this modelling framework. Results suggest that the catchment is presently in a near optimal land use configuration that is unlikely to benefit from further intensification. This would quickly put stress on water quantity (at low flow) and water quality (E. coli). To date, this model evaluation is based on a theoretical test that explores the logical implications of intensification at an unlikely extreme in order to assess the implications of likely growth trajectories from present use. While this has largely been a desktop exercise, it would also be possible to use this framework to model and explore the biophysical and economic impacts of individual or collective catchment visions. We are currently investigating the use of the model in this type of application.
ISSN:0364-152X
1432-1009
DOI:10.1007/s00267-010-9539-6