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Resilience of large river basins : applying social-ecological systems theory, conflict management, and collaboration on the Mekong and Columbia BasinsMacQuarrie, Patrick R. 11 July 2012 (has links)
River basins provide essential services for both humans and ecosystems. Understanding the connections between ecosystems and society and their function has been at the heart of resilience studies and has become an increasing important endeavor in research and practice. In this dissertation, I define basin resilience as a river basin system's capacity to absorb, manage, and adapt to biophysical, social-economic, and political changes (or stressors) while still maintaining its essential structure, feedbacks, and functional integrity. I address the question of resilience, scale, and development in the Mekong and Columbia River Basins. This dissertation answers the following questions: 1) is systems theory an appropriate model to evaluate basin resilience, 2) is the Mekong Basin resilient, 3) are the Mekong and Columbia River Basins resilient across multiple scales, 4) can conflict management and collaborative learning enhance resilience, 5) can a resilience framework be used for basin comparisons, and 6) what lessons can the Mekong basin take from rapid development in the Columbia basin? In Chapter 2, I create and apply a social-ecological systems (SES) model of the Mekong River Basin to assess resilience at sub-basin (provincial), watershed (national), and basin (regional) scales. Feedbacks, thresholds, vulnerability, and adaptive capacity are determined and used as inputs into an overall basin resilience assessment. Drawing upon field work done in the Mekong Basin, Chapter 3 uses Conflict Management and Collaborative Learning processes to address resilience weaknesses across multiple scales in the Mekong Basin. Chapter 4 uses the basin resilience framework to compare the Mekong and Columbia Basins against physical characteristics, development rate, conflict and cooperation, and institutional responses to development projects. In this dissertation I find the Mekong has medium-low basin resilience and that scale is a critical determinant in basin resilience assessments. I find that in this study, vulnerability is inversely proportional to resilience, and low resilience at one scale, for example fisheries in the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia, decreases resilience for the entire basin. I find that Cambodia and Lao PDR are the least resilience and Thailand the most resilient countries in the Mekong Basin ��� Thailand more resilient in some sectors than the Mekong River Commission (MRC). I find that the MRC's conflict management strategy is hampered by a restrictive mandate and weakness in capacity building at tributary and national scales but that Collaborative Learning processes are effective in enhancing resilience at the sub-basin scale. Finally, I demonstrate through the basin comparison that the Mekong has a highly resilient biophysical system and traditionally a resilient institutional system however, the proposed rate of development is unsustainable with trends indicating a significant erosion of resilience. I find the Columbia Basin lacking resilience in fishing, hydropower, and water quality ��� sectors mitigating the effects of development in the Columbia Basin, manifesting as overall negative trends in cooperation. However, the Columbia shows signs of increasing cooperation due recent inclusion of Tribal Nations in water management. Flexible and inclusive institutional responses to water resource development challenges, in the Mekong to rapid development on the mainstream and in the Columbia to negotiations over renewal of the Columbia River Treaty, are key determinants to whether or not each basin can halt the current negative trends and strengthen basin resilience to face the challenges now and those coming in the future. / Graduation date: 2013
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A river loved : facilitating cooperative negotiation of transboundary water resource management in the Columbia River Basin through documentary filmWatson, Julie Elkins 25 April 2012 (has links)
In transboundary water resources policy and management situations, such as the governance of the Columbia River Basin, complex social, ecological, and economic factors seem to be in irreconcilable competition with one another. However, cooperative negotiation provides an outlet for entities and stakeholders to "expand the pie" and develop creative alternatives for integrated, resilient management. To achieve these goals, it is critical that stakeholders have meaningful dialogue that goes beyond positions to identify the underlying values and interests in the basin. Furthermore, parties must develop a shared understanding of the substantive complexities of the social-ecological system. Collaborative learning allows participants to meet both of these objectives at once, and facilitators can spark collaboration through carefully planned interventions. The goal of this study was to test a carefully crafted "facilitative" documentary film as a facilitation tool to promote dialogue, understanding, and creative scenario development amongst parties. The study has three main components: 1) the resilience and learning analysis of the case study (the Columbia River Treaty) policy situation, 2) the creation of a facilitative film featuring interviews with diverse stakeholders in the basin, and 3) the qualitative and quantitative assessment of the effects of the film in the cooperative negotiation process. The film, A River Loved: A film about the Columbia River and the people invested in its future, premiered at the Universities Consortium Symposium on Columbia River Governance- an informal forum for dialogue held in Kimberley, British Columbia in October 2011. I measured participants' reactions to the film and found substantial support for my hypotheses, concluding that interventions such as facilitative documentary film have great potential to transform complex, multi-stakeholder social-ecological policy situations. / Graduation date: 2012
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