Developing Participatory And Integrated Watershed Management

On the occasion of the International Year of Mountains-2002, FAO and its partners undertook a large-scale assessment and global review of the current status and future trends of integrated and participatory watershed management. The overall objectives were to promote the exchange and dissemination of experiences in implementing watershed management projects in the decade from 1990 to 2000 and to identify the vision for a new generation of watershed management programmes and projects. This resource book represents a summary and critical analysis of the rich discussions and vast materials that emerged during the review, as well as the review's findings and recommendations. It presents the state of the art in watershed management, promotes further reflection and creative thinking and proposes new ideas and approaches for future watershed management programmes and projects. This publication has been written primarily for field-level watershed management practitioners and local decision-makers involved in watershed management at the district or municipality level. It will also be a useful source of information for other readers such as senior officers and consultants specialized in other areas, evaluators, policy-makers and students of watershed management

Efforts have long been made in India to improve the management of major watersheds for ecological reasons - such as reducing the siltation of reservoirs. The management of micro-watersheds (of around 500 hectares) is a more recent focus of policy and has both ecology and livelihoods as itsobjectives. Experiments have shown that, in some areas, more than a doubling of resource productivity can be achieved by careful rehablitation. Many watersheds contain both private and common land. It is already clear from a number a efforts led by NGOs that, to be equitable and institutionally sustainable, the rehabilitation of both common and private lands needs action rooted in strong resource user-groups capable of taking decisions ina participatory way and resolving conflict. To build up groups in this way requires both time and skills, both of which have proved elusive in government projects and programmes. The key question addressed in this book is how far the approaches developed by NGOs can be adopted (or adapted) by the public sector and applied on a wide scale,for, without such approaches, neither the ecological nor the livelihood benefits of watershed rehabilitation will be achieved.

Land and water management is especially critical as the use of upstream watersheds can drastically affect large numbers of people living in downstream watersheds. This work examines the institutional and technical context for managing watersheds and river basins, including the involvement of both the public and private sectors.

Effective watershed planning and management This book presents a flexible, integrated framework for watershed management that addresses the biophysical, social, and economic issues affecting water resources and their use. Comprehensive in scope and multidisciplinary in approach, it equips you with the necessary tools and techniques to develop sound watershed management policy and practice-from problem definition and goal setting to electing management strategies and procedures for monitoring implementation. Topics include: * Watershed components and processes * Establishing management plan parameters and objectives * Stakeholder identification and consultation * Development of practical management options * Both simple and detailed methods for the assessment of management alternatives * Techniques for determining the legal implications and the environmental, economic, and social impact of a management plan * Choosing the best plan and putting it into action Supplemented with case studies and examples, Integrated Watershed Management is an ideal resource for upper-level students and professionals in environmental science, natural resource management, and environmental engineering.

This book provides diverse information and critical know-how to implement appropriate methodology and cost-efficient monitoring and evaluation systems better suited to assess the impacts of soil conservation and wastershed multi-sectoral development activities. It draws on a worldwide experience of specialists and a large array of ground-truthing projects and programmes. This book will meet its objective if it contributes to convince financing institutions and project managers that integrated watershed management activities have the potential to generate highly desirable impacts for the society at large, which have to be accurately measured by adequate M&E systems.

A five-country river basin study in Asia used a participatory method for diagnostic investigations to learn about contextual processes, as well as for stakeholder consultation to develop action plans. The use of this methodology was encouraged by the positive results of an earlier action research program conducted in Pakistan for mobilizing farmers to form their own organizations. The method was found to be exceptionally effective, and had many advantages over the conventional methodsof field research and action planning where the stakeholders are treated as objects of research and passive recipients of development messages. The contribution of participatory learning and action in developing institutions appeared to vary across the five selected river basins, depending on thedegree to which stakeholder participation was forthcoming. This variation could be attributed to study constraints in terms of time and other resources, which acted differently on the five study teams. In some cases, conducting full-fledged participatory methods was not possible due to sociopolitical constraints, and in some others, time was too short to build sufficient awareness among the large number of stakeholders for meaningful participation. Of the five river basin case studies in China, Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines and Sri Lanka, satisfactory participation levels achieved in the cases of Sri Lanka, Philippines and Indonesia generated a momentum on their own, which helped them to initiate action plans for further institutional development.

This volume provides readers with an opportunity to learn from front line water managers of watershed-based agencies across Canada about integrated water management (or integrated water resource management). In common with practice in much of the world, the responsibility for implementing integrated watershed management in Canada is fragmented. Each province and territory in Canada has developed unique approaches or governance models to guide decision making in that regard. Thus, this edited volume enables readers from around the world to gain insight on the best practices in Canada for achieving success and addressing barriers to implement IWM. Although there remains non consensus about how to "best" approach river basin management, some of the main observations include: There is a need to balance a focus on "the big picture", with scoping the scale and scope of planning activities in order that feasible and effective solutions can be implemented Three types of integration are popular among the agencies included in the book: (i) among environment, economy and society, (ii) interactions between people and the environment and (iii) integration (or coordination) of administrative activities. Much more attention is required to achieving effective engagement from Indigenous communities The chapters were originally published in a special issue of the International Journal of Water Resources Development.