CAPRi technical workshop on Watershed Management Institutions: a summary paper

The System-wide Program for Collective Action and Property Rights (CAPRi) sponsored a workshop on Watershed Management Institutions, March 13-16, 1999 in Managua, Nicaragua. The workshop focused on methodologies for undertaking research on watersheds, particularly those issues and tools that enable a more thorough understanding of the complex interactions between the biophysical factors and socioeconomic institutions of watersheds. Both social and biophysical scientists from CGIAR and other research institutions were brought together to present research and participate in focused discussions on methodologies for addressing collective action and property rights, scale, participation, and impact assessment. The forum also provided an opportunity for participants to visit and learn from a watershed project being implemented by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), and to discuss one another's ongoing watershed research project experience and explore opportunities for collaboration.International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Impact assessment,

Panama City Fisheries Resources Office: FY 2003 Annual Report

HIGHLIGHTS FOR FY 2003 1. Continued a 3-year threatened Gulf sturgeon population estimate in the Escambia River, Florida and conducted presence-absence surveys in 4 other Florida river systems and 1 bay. 2. Five juvenile Gulf sturgeon collected, near the mouth of the Choctawhatchee River, Florida, were equipped with sonic tags and monitored while over-wintering in Choctawhatchee Bay. 3. Continued to examine Gulf sturgeon marine habitat use. 4. Implemented Gulf Striped Bass Restoration Plan by coordinating the 20th Annual Morone Workshop, leading the technical committee, transporting broodfish, and coordinating the stocking on the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) river system. 5. Over 73,000 Phase II Gulf striped bass were marked with sequential coded wire tags and stocked in the Apalachicola River. Post-stocking evaluations were conducted at 31 sites. 6. Three stream fisheries assessment s were completed to evaluate the fish community at sites slated for habitat restoration by the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program (PFW). 7. PFW program identified restoration needs and opportunities for 10 areas. 8. Developed an Unpaved Road Evaluation Handbook. 9. Completed restoration of Chipola River Greenway, Seibenhener Streambank Restoration, Blackwater River State Forest, and Anderson Property. 10. Assessments for fluvial geomorphic conditions for design criteria were completed for 3 projects. 11. Geomorphology in Florida streams initiated development of Rosgen regional curves for Northwest Florida for use by the Florida Department of Transportation. 12. Developed a Memorandum of Understanding between partners for enhancing, protecting, and restoring stream, wetland, and upland habitat in northwest Florida 13. Completed aquatic fauna and fish surveys with new emphasis on integration of data from reach level into watershed and landscape scale and keeping database current. 14. Compliance based sampling of impaired waterbodies on Eglin Air Force Base in conjunction with Florida Department of Environmental Protection for Total Maximum Daily Load development support. 15. Surveyed 20 sites for the federally endangered Okaloosa darter, provided habitat descriptions, worked with partners to implement key recovery tasks and set priorities for restoration. 16. Worked with partners to develop a freshwater mussel survey protocol to provide standard operating procedures for establishing the presence/absence of federally listed mussel species within a Federal project area. 17. GIS database was created to identify all known freshwater mussel records from the northeast Gulf ecosystem. 18. Completed recovery plan for seven freshwater mussels and drafted candidate elevation package for seven additional mussels. Developed proposals to implement recovery plan. 19. Worked with Corps of Engineers and State partners to develop improved reservoir operating policies to benefit both riverine and reservoir fisheries for the ACF river system. 20. Multiple outreach projects were completed to detail aquatic resources conservation opportunities. 21. Multiple stream restoration and watershed management projects initiated or completed (see Appendix A)

Seafloor characterization using airborne hyperspectral co-registration procedures independent from attitude and positioning sensors

The advance of remote-sensing technology and data-storage capabilities has progressed in the last decade to commercial multi-sensor data collection. There is a constant need to characterize, quantify and monitor the coastal areas for habitat research and coastal management. In this paper, we present work on seafloor characterization that uses hyperspectral imagery (HSI). The HSI data allows the operator to extend seafloor characterization from multibeam backscatter towards land and thus creates a seamless ocean-to-land characterization of the littoral zone

Review of Methodologies for Land Degradation Neutrality Baselines: Sub-National case studies from Costa Rica and Namibia

The objective of this report is to identify entry points and challenges for subnational LDN baselines in order to inform subnational planning processes as potential vehicle for the implementation of LDN targets on the ground. For this purpose two focus regions were chosen within two of the countries – namely Namibia and Costa Rica – that participated in the first LDN pilot phase. The focus areas in Namibia and Costa Rica are the regions of Otjozondjupa and Rio Jesus Maria watershed respectively. Both Namibia and Costa Rica provide interesting case studies given the differences in types of land degradation, national capacities, and land resources

Assessing the freshwater quality of a large-scale mining watershed : the need for integrated approaches

Water quality assessments provide essential information for protecting aquatic habitats and stakeholders downstream of mining sites. Moreover, mining companies must comply with environmental quality standards and include public participation in water quality monitoring (WQM) practices. However, overarching challenges beyond corporate environmental responsibility are the scientific soundness, political relevance and harmonization of WQM practices. In this study, a mountainous watershed supporting large-scale gold mining in the headwaters, besides urban and agricultural landuses at lower altitudes, is assessed in the dry season. Conventional physicochemical and biological (Biological Monitoring Water Party-Colombia index) freshwater quality parameters were evaluated, including hydromorphological and land-use characteristics. According to the indicators used, water quality deterioration by mining was absent, in contrast to the effects of urban economic activities, hydromorphological alterations and (less important) agricultural pollutants. We argue that mining impacts are hardly captured due to the limited ecological knowledge of high-mountain freshwaters, including uncharacterized mining-specific bioindicators, environmental baselines and groundwater processes, as well as ecotoxicological and microbial freshwater quality components. Lessons for overcoming scientific and operational challenges are drawn from joint efforts among governments, academia and green economy competitiveness. Facing a rapid development of extractive industries, interinstitutional and multidisciplinary collaborations are urgently needed to implement more integrated freshwater quality indicators of complex mining impacts

Addressing Uncertainty in TMDLS: Short Course at Arkansas Water Resources Center 2001 Annual Conference

Management of a critical natural resource like water requires information on the status of that resource. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported in the 1998 National Water Quality Inventory that more than 291,000 miles of assessed rivers and streams and 5 million acres of lakes do not meet State water quality standards. This inventory represents a compilation of State assessments of 840,000 miles of rivers and 17.4 million acres of lakes; a 22 percent increase in river miles and 4 percent increase in lake acres over their 1996 reports. Siltation, bacteria, nutrients and metals were the leading pollutants of impaired waters, according to EPA. The sources of these pollutants were presumed to be runoff from agricultural lands and urban areas. EPA suggests that the majority of Americans-over 218 million-live within ten miles of a polluted waterbody. This seems to contradict the recent proclamations of the success of the Clean Water Act, the Nation\u27s water pollution control law. EPA also claims that, while water quality is still threatened in the US, the amount of water safe for fishing and swimming has doubled since 1972, and that the number of people served by sewage treatment plants has more than doubled

Shipbuilders Creek Stormwater and Assessment and Action Plan

The Shipbuilders Creek Stormwater Assessment and Action Plan is a first step in the process to improve water quality and drainage as well as restoring stream habitat and riparian areas. The Plan provides a baseline of existing conditions, a list of potential restoration practices as well as a series of recommendations for future stakeholders to consider. Planning-level cost estimates are provided for restoration that, if funded, should meet human and aquatic needs as well as address State and Federal water quality standards being imposed

Improving Detection And Prediction Of Bridge Scour Damage And Vulnerability Under Extreme Flood Events Using Geomorphic And Watershed Data

Bridge scour is the leading cause of bridge damage nationwide. Successfully mitigating bridge scour problems depends on our ability to reliably estimate scour potential, design safe and economical foundation elements that account for scour potential, identify vulnerabilities related to extreme events, and recognize changes to the environmental setting that increase risk at existing bridges. This study leverages available information, gathered from several statewide resources, and adds watershed metrics to create a comprehensive, georeferenced dataset to identify parameters that correlate to bridges damaged in an extreme flood event. Understanding the underlying relationships between existing bridge condition, fluvial stresses, and geomorphological changes is key to identifying vulnerabilities in both existing and future bridge infrastructure. In creating this comprehensive database of bridge inspection records and associated damage characterization, features were identified that correlate to and discriminate between levels of bridge damage. Stream geomorphic assessment features were spatially joined to every bridge, marking the first time that geomorphic assessments have been broadly used for estimating bridge vulnerability. Stream power assessments and watershed delineations for every bridge and stream reach were generated to supplement the comprehensive database. Individual features were tested for their significance to discriminate bridge damage, and then used to create empirical fragility curves and probabilistic predictions maps to aid in future bridge vulnerability detection. Damage to over 300 Vermont bridges from a single extreme flood event, the August 28, 2011 Tropical Storm Irene, was used as the basis for this study. Damage to historic bridges was also summarized and tabulated. In some areas of Vermont, the storm rainfall recurrence interval exceeded 500 years, causing widespread flooding and damaging over 300 bridges. With a dataset of over 330 features for more than 2,000 observations to bridges that were damaged as well as not damaged in the storm, an advanced evolutionary algorithm performed multivariate feature selection to overcome the shortfalls of traditional logistic regression analysis. The analysis identified distinct combinations of variables that correlate to the observed bridge damage under extreme food events

Building Climate Resilience in the Blue Nile/Abay Highlands: A Role for Earth System Sciences

The Blue Nile (Abay) Highlands of Ethiopia are characterized by significant interannual climate variability, complex topography and associated local climate contrasts, erosive rains and erodible soils, and intense land pressure due to an increasing population and an economy that is almost entirely dependent on smallholder, low-input agriculture. As a result, these highland zones are highly vulnerable to negative impacts of climate variability. As patterns of variability and precipitation intensity alter under anthropogenic climate change, there is concern that this vulnerability will increase, threatening economic development and food security in the region. In order to overcome these challenges and to enhance sustainable development in the context of climate change, it is necessary to establish climate resilient development strategies that are informed by best-available Earth System Science (ESS) information. This requirement is complicated by the fact that climate projections for the Abay Highlands contain significant and perhaps irreducible uncertainties. A critical challenge for ESS, then, is to generate and to communicate meaningful information for climate resilient development in the context of a highly uncertain climate forecast. Here we report on a framework for applying ESS to climate resilient development in the Abay Highlands, with a focus on the challenge of reducing land degradation

Smart Classifiers and Bayesian Inference for Evaluating River Sensitivity to Natural and Human Disturbances: A Data Science Approach

Excessive rates of channel adjustment and riverine sediment export represent societal challenges; impacts include: degraded water quality and ecological integrity, erosion hazards to infrastructure, and compromised public safety. The nonlinear nature of sediment erosion and deposition within a watershed and the variable patterns in riverine sediment export over a defined timeframe of interest are governed by many interrelated factors, including geology, climate and hydrology, vegetation, and land use. Human disturbances to the landscape and river networks have further altered these patterns of water and sediment routing. An enhanced understanding of river sediment sources and dynamics is important for stakeholders, and will become more critical under a nonstationary climate, as sediment yields are expected to increase in regions of the world that will experience increased frequency, persistence, and intensity of storm events. Practical tools are needed to predict sediment erosion, transport and deposition and to characterize sediment sources within a reasonable measure of uncertainty. Water resource scientists and engineers use multidimensional data sets of varying types and quality to answer management-related questions, and the temporal and spatial resolution of these data are growing exponentially with the advent of automated samplers and in situ sensors (i.e., “big data”). Data-driven statistics and classifiers have great utility for representing system complexity and can often be more readily implemented in an adaptive management context than process-based models. Parametric statistics are often of limited efficacy when applied to data of varying quality, mixed types (continuous, ordinal, nominal), censored or sparse data, or when model residuals do not conform to Gaussian distributions. Data-driven machine-learning algorithms and Bayesian statistics have advantages over Frequentist approaches for data reduction and visualization; they allow for non-normal distribution of residuals and greater robustness to outliers. This research applied machine-learning classifiers and Bayesian statistical techniques to multidimensional data sets to characterize sediment source and flux at basin, catchment, and reach scales. These data-driven tools enabled better understanding of: (1) basin-scale spatial variability in concentration-discharge patterns of instream suspended sediment and nutrients; (2) catchment-scale sourcing of suspended sediments; and (3) reach-scale sediment process domains. The developed tools have broad management application and provide insights into landscape drivers of channel dynamics and riverine solute and sediment export