Elsevier

Environmental Science & Policy

Volume 14, Issue 8, December 2011, Pages 1163-1174
Environmental Science & Policy

Participatory assessment of adaptation strategies to flood risk in the Upper Brahmaputra and Danube river basins

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2011.05.016Get rights and content

Abstract

A methodological proposal aimed at improving the effectiveness of interactions between the scientific community and local actors for decision-making processes in water management was developed and tested to two case studies, in Europe and Asia: the Upper Danube (Danube) and Upper Brahmaputra (Brahmaputra) River Basins. The general objectives of the case studies were about identifying and exploring the potential of adaptation strategies to cope with flood risk in mountain areas. The proposal consists of a sequence of steps including participatory local workshops and the use of a decision support systems (DSS) tool. Workshops allowed for the identification of four categories of possible responses and a set of nine evaluation criteria, three for each of the three pillars of sustainable development: economy, society and the environment. They also led to the ranking of the broad categories of response strategies, according to the expectations and preferences of the workshop participants, with the aim of orienting and targeting further activities by the research consortium. The DSS tool was used to facilitate transparent and robust management of the information, the implementation of multi criteria decision analysis and the communication of the outputs. The outcomes of the implementation of the proposed methods and DSS tool are discussed to assess the potential to support decision-making processes in the field of climate change adaptation (CCA) and integrated water resources management (IWRM).

Introduction

According to the last assessment report released by IPCC in 2007, the climate has been changing over the last decades and will continue to change even if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to meet the targets of the Kyoto Protocol (IPCC, 2007a, Mace, 2005). The environmental, social and economic costs of extreme weather events are already rising in both poor and rich countries.

Climate change impacts are expected to be unevenly distributed across the planet and some areas, like mountains covered by glaciers, will be subjected to major stresses. Projected climate change for the 21st century in the mountains of the world is two to three times greater than the change observed in the 20th century: all mountains are expected to warm significantly (Nogués-Bravo et al., 2007).

There is evidence based on observations that glaciers have been retreating and decreasing in volume, and that mountain snowpack is also decreasing. As a consequence the water storage capacity of the mountains has been decreasing over time (Nogués-Bravo et al., 2007, Stewart, 2009). The hydrologic cycle is thus changing and more dramatic changes are expected (Nogués-Bravo et al., 2007), up-stream and down-stream, with summer droughts which might be longer (Stewart, 2009), together with decreased water availability (Messerli et al., 2004, Viviroli et al., 2007), especially when lowlands are arid, as is the case of systems like the Himalayas (Viviroli and Weingartner, 2004, Messerli et al., 2004). Though physically distant from each other, the populations of different parts of the world will be facing similar problems.

According to the Stern Review (Stern, 2006), it is no longer possible to prevent the climate change that will take place over the next two to three decades, and adaptation to climate change is therefore essential to protect our societies and economies from its impacts. Poor and developing countries in particular, which are only marginally responsible for anthropogenic climate change, will be the most affected by the expected impacts (Heltberg et al., 2009). Climate change is therefore also an equity issue and adaptation policies should continue to have a role in international negotiations and (Mace, 2005) scientific research.

Adaptation has been on the agenda since the Earth Summit in Rio (1992) and reference to adaptation can also be found in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, 1992) and the Kyoto Protocol (1997). According to UNFCCC Annex II, countries that ratified the convention made a legally binding commitment to fund adaptation in developing countries (www.unfccc.int; Mace, 2005). However, it is not until the Marrakech Accords (2001) that adaptation policies and projects have gained importance (Schipper and Lisa, 2006) and in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC (2007a), as well as in the Stern Review (2006), we find reference to a demand for research on adaptation, mitigation, and development.

Adaptation policies, however, can be very challenging, and negating their right importance would imply strengthening inequalities, thus burdening those countries and those sectors that will bear the heaviest impacts of climate change, such as water provisioning in river basins fed by glacier melt (Mace, 2005). Innovative water management approaches are, therefore, urgent and they must involve the study of adaptation to future scenarios (EC, 2009).

Integrated water resources management (IWRM) is the most popular paradigm adopted by legislation and plans in many parts of the world (GWP, 2000). The success of this paradigm is due to the recognition of the need to deal with the impacts of climate change on water resources in a holistic manner. Generally speaking, in fact, when dealing with the social-ecological system, it is often impossible to cope with one impact without affecting the other elements of the system: therefore the solutions are best sought in a holistic framework (Folke et al., 2002). Moreover, since the impacts are felt in a variety of sectors, and the result is bigger than the mere sum of the single impacts, responses can be developed in an integrated manner (Heltberg et al., 2009). Considering specifically water the IPCC acknowledges the fact that climate change will impact water availability, for example because of a reduced flow in watersheds fed by glaciers or snowmelt, which is the situation of the case studies presented in this article (IPCC, 2007b). Water scarcity sparks conflicts, which some think might be better addressed in an IWRM setting, where conflicting uses can find a compromise solution (WWC, 2006).

Participatory processes are one of the prerequisites of IWRM plans and projects. They further mutual learning between scientists and stakeholders, new opinions can be expressed, problems can be addressed, technical expertise shared, agreements reached, and compromise solutions found if all vested interests are voiced (Renn, 2006). Stakeholders’ involvement is essential, because stakeholders hold the necessary information that could facilitate the exploitation of scientific knowledge with high social relevance (de la Vega-Leinert et al., 2008, Griffin, 2007, Reed, 2008).

In parallel to the increasing emphasis on public participation in IWRM, there is also an increasing attention to the need for efficient tools to support the management of those processes and to the role that could be played by information and communication technologies (ICT), mathematical simulation models and decision support system (DSS) tools, in particular. In the context of climate change research the first category of tools may provide scientifically-based scenarios and projections – prerequisites for any planning activity – while DSS tools may provide the ground for bridging the scientific contributions (i.e. by further elaborating model outcomes) and decision/policy-making processes, including managing the participation of different actors (e.g. policy makers, local experts, dwellers, etc.) in a scientifically sound and transparent way. Despite the theoretical potential, traditional modelling techniques have shown limited impacts on policy-making, especially with respect to complex systems such as those involved in natural resource management. DSS tools have quite often performed similarly. One of the problems most often mentioned is the limited or late involvement of stakeholders and potential users (Geurts and Joldersma, 2001), which contributes significantly to the limited uptake of modelling tools and outcomes. The conventional division of roles between the academy and ‘outsiders’, where scientists supply conceptual frameworks, theories, methods which are then available for use by various actors in society, such as politicians, civil society, etc., is not accepted anymore (Scott Cato, 2009) and new relationships between science, politics and society are necessary.

One of the main challenges in attempting to bridge the gap between science and policy in the water management sector nowadays lies in the development of new tools combining the potentials of advanced ICT tools and robust participatory approaches (Mysiak et al., 2005). Such instruments could be identified as decision support methods and tools providing participatory modelling functionality, in which the exploration of the problem and the formulation of a conceptual model and its formalisation are carried out by disciplinary experts with the direct involvement of stakeholders in a way that is coherent with the so-called “hard science” modelling approaches to be adopted (Sgobbi and Giupponi, 2007). The computer-based tool is surely one important component, but, as recently pointed out in a comprehensive review and survey on this topic (Giupponi et al., 2011) the future of DSS should envisage a broader and more robust combination of the tool(s) and the process of structuring problems and aiding decisions, including adequate instruments for dissemination and training. In an idealized view DSS should thus act as mediators between science and policy/decision making and as catalysts of trans-disciplinary research.

This article illustrates some of the methods and findings of the Brahmatwinn Project,1 with a specific focus on the approach developed for demonstrating the potentials of innovative decision support processes and tools.2 They are presented for their potential as a methodological and operational reference for the management of decision processes in a participatory context for the development of IWRM plans, including climate change perspectives and adaptation needs.

The project was carried out through the collaboration of an international research consortium of European and Asian institutions and it focused on two – “twinned” – river basins in the two continents: the Danube and the Brahmaputra. The choice of these study areas stemmed from the idea, later confirmed by the research results, that the two upper river basins, even if very distant from geographical and socio-economic viewpoints, would have commonalities, since they are both fed by glaciers potentially impacted by climate change. This hypothesis was confirmed during the project, which showed how climate change (CC) scenarios downscaled for the case studies (Dobler et al., 2011), point out how intensified weather events in both areas are expected to cause an increase in rainfall in the wet season and of droughts during the dry periods. Climate change could thus exacerbate the uncertainty of water availability and quality, and the occurrence of extreme events, as Brahmatwinn climatologists have suggested.

For the purposes of the project, five case studies have been analysed: two in the Upper Danube River Basin (Danube) – the Lech RB and the Salzach RB (Austria and Germany) – and three in the Upper Brahmaputra River Basin (Brahmaputra) – the Assam State of India, the Wang Chu RB (Bhutan) and the Lhasa RB (Tibet, China).

The FEEM3 research group – to which the authors of this paper belong – developed a methodological proposal aimed at strengthening the communication and collaboration within the research consortium and with local communities of the end users of project outcomes. The proposal enabled exchange of knowledge and feedbacks between the twinned river basins, and among scientists and local actors4 (LAs). A programme of local workshops in the two river basins was thus defined in parallel to the other research activities in various disciplinary fields (dynamic climatology, hydrology, sociology, economics, etc.) relevant for the integrated assessment of climate change impacts and the development of adaptation strategies.

The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the methodological framework adopted, the information base and the DSS design. Section 3 presents the results of the application to the Brahmatwinn project. Section 4 discusses the outcomes achieved and draws some conclusive remarks.

Section snippets

The methodological framework

The approach adopted for the analysis of alternative adaptation responses is developed upon the NetSyMoD5 methodological framework (Giupponi et al., 2008) for the management of participatory modelling and decision processes in the field of environmental management.

NetSyMoD is organised in six main phases. The first three (Actors’ Analysis, Problem Analysis, Creative System Modelling) were

Results

The two workshops in the Danube and Brahmaputra were conducted in parallel without exchanges of information between the two communities of LAs. Even so, five out of nine selected criteria are common to the two cases revealing that in the two river basins, though characterised by different geographical locations, ecological, social and economic dimensions, LAs approach decisions about future strategies in a similar way, i.e. by basing the decision upon a similar set of criteria.

A valuable

Discussion and conclusions

The NetSyMoD methodological framework developed for the integrated participative activities of the Brahmatwinn Project, with the involvement of both researchers and local actors, facilitated in general communication and exchanges of experiences between the twinned river basins, and among scientists of different disciplines and local actors, through a continuous interaction and feedback process. In particular, the participative process proposed contributed significantly to ensuring that the

Acknowledgements

We would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work carried out by other colleagues at FEEM: Jacopo Crimi, Alessandra Sgobbi, Yaella Depietri, and also the contribution given by the Brahmatwinn consortium of European and Asian institutions led by Prof. W. Flugel, Geoinformatik Department, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena (Germany), the Local Actors and the reviewers. The financial support of the European Commission is gratefully acknowledged through contract 036592 (GOCE).

Lucia Ceccato is a PhD candidate in the program of “Analysis and Governance of Sustainable Development” at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy) and researcher in the field of water management at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Department of Environmental Engineering (Brasil). She holds a Master degree in “Non-profit Economics, Cooperation and Development” and a degree in Economics from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

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    Lucia Ceccato is a PhD candidate in the program of “Analysis and Governance of Sustainable Development” at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy) and researcher in the field of water management at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Department of Environmental Engineering (Brasil). She holds a Master degree in “Non-profit Economics, Cooperation and Development” and a degree in Economics from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

    Valentina Giannini is a PhD candidate at the University of Venice (Italy) in “Science and Management of Climate Change”. She holds a Masters of Environmental Management from the Yale University, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (USA), and a MSc in Architecture & Planning from the Politecnico di Milano (Italy). She is a researcher at FEEM in the field of Natural Resources Management.

    Carlo Giupponi is an associate professor at the Department of Economics and is the Director of the Inter-university Doctoral School ChangeS on Global Change Science and Policy of the University of Venice (Italy). He is an affiliate scientist at the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change (CMCC), and at the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM), Water topic leader. He has coordinated research activities at FEEM over the 3.5 years of the Brahmatwinn project.

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