Water is a constantly changing resource by way of the hydrological cycle. It is unevenly distributed and crosses boundaries of all kinds i.e. political, social, cultural and natural. Samoa is a small developing state in the Pacific Region that is facing rapid pressure with its water resource availability. Consequently, access to and use of water resources has created tensions between water resources regulators, water utilities and villages. Therefore, managing and governing of water becomes a challenging process that has to take into account the complexity of both nature and society. With the emergence of the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) framework, a greater social acceptance and importance has been given to catchment scale management and governance. Nowadays, many countries including Samoa, have embraced this appealing concept where catchments are seen as natural units for water governance and management. This study used a social qualitative approach, aimed to investigate the implementation of catchment management and examine local community perceptions of catchment management, using Apia Catchment as case study. It is based on a conceptual framework of the concept of scale i.e. set out in recent debates and ideas in the arena of catchment scale water governance and management. The primary data was collected from community focus groups within two villages of Apia Catchment, and semi-structured interviews with government agencies involved in the Water and Sanitation Sector programmes. The findings revealed a shift in water resources management and governance and a spatial scale mismatch in Apia Catchment management. According to government officials, the catchment approach is a ‘management tool’ adopted to improve the coordination between water users and to promote local ownership of catchment activities amongst individual villages. However, several challenges arose around land ownership, monetary cost, community resistance and issues outside of catchment areas when implementing catchment management. Despite the challenges that government officials encountered and the concerns raised by the communities, catchment scale management is still being adopted in Samoa. With the adoption of catchment management, many individual villages within Apia Catchment are expected to make decisions collectively. However, some local groups have concerns about the use of the term ‘boundary’, the possibility of the government taking over their land and the proposed catchment-based authority taking precedence over pre-existing cultural hierarchy. Overall, this research reveals that catchment management is often viewed or seen by government as a ‘one size fits all’ notion that ignores the range of the socio-ecological realities on the ground. This study shows that in order to design better water resources policies and strategies that are fully applicable and workable for Samoa, it is very important to identify these mismatches in scales (e.g. spatial and administrative) and levels (e.g. national and local). Understanding scales and associated levels is critical to understanding the whole system and can reduce possible consequences of mismatches due to lack of interaction and collaboration between levels and scales. Local villages have expressed their opinions on how to enhance catchment management and this could perhaps be useful for government in terms of implementation. Based on the results, recommendations are made for water resources managers to assess the importance of different levels and their interactions but, more importantly, to consider how local communities perceive catchment management.

<p>Water is a basic necessity for sustaining life and development of society. Proper management, protection and exploitation of water resources are the challenges imposed by population growth, increasing pressure on the water and land resources by competing usage. A good amount of clean water exists on Earth although it is normally inadequate in supply because of anthropogenic activities such as deforestation and land use change. Like many other catchments that provide economic activities for the community’s livelihood, the Chalimbana river catchment in Zambia has been deforested heavily and most of the local communities believe that deforestation could be the main contributing factor to the drying up of Chalimbana River. The objective of this study was to analyse the impact of deforestation on the stream flow of Chalimbana River Catchment with the help of a conceptual hydrological model, HBV. There was a 24% reduction in the annual average rainfall amounts for the deforested period as compared to the period before deforestation. The Qrec/Qsim ratios had revealed that the annual stream flow generation for the period after deforestation (1987 to 1996) for the Chalimbana River had decreased by about 12% as compared to the period with enough forest cover (1975 to 1985). The ratio of annual Qrec/P had indicated that after a 30% forest loss in Chalimbana catchment, there was a 33% increase in the generation of the stream flow. Based on the results that were obtained, a number of recommendations aiming at improving the catchment management were made.</p>

Water companies are continually adopting catchment management as a way of improving the quality of raw water prior to treatment. The catchments from which raw water is abstracted are often heterogeneous which regularly presents multiple pollutant issues and variability in the spatial distribution of pollutant-contributing areas. For catchment management to be effective, it is crucial that water companies select and target appropriate interventions at multi-pollutant high risk areas. Within this thesis a conceptual framework is developed to disaggregate and compare multiple pollutant risks in drinking water catchments to aid water companies in this decision making process. A review of pollutant processes highlights links between pollutants often mitigated using catchment management and therefore confirms the feasibility for a multi- pollutant framework. Criteria were developed with water industry catchment management professionals to determine framework requirements. No current framework or model fully meets these criteria.

This study investigates provisions made within institutional and regulatory frameworks of water resources management to enhance multi-stakeholder relationships and the challenges of maintaining those relationships, and implications of water resources management for rural communities in the Densu River basin, Ghana. The primary objectives of this study were four fold, these are to: i) review the existing regulatory framework and how it promotes or hinders multi-stakeholder relationships within the catchment area; ii) examine multi-stakeholder relationships to identify challenges in promoting effective collaboration in water resources management; iii) explore the impacts of catchment management on the livelihoods of rural communities; and iv) generate a model that best or appropriately conceptualizes relationship mechanisms within the framework of water governance. The study employed a mixed methods approach which included data collected through reviewing regulatory and policy documents, key informant interviews, observation, and a household survey of 327 respondents. The results indicate that provisions are made within the existing institutional and regulatory framework to foster multi-stakeholder inter-relationships in the water resources management in the Densu River basin. The management of the Densu River basin is guided by a number of regulatory mechanisms that are scattered within different institutions. The regulatory mechanisms are seen as the instruments for building and maintaining multi-stakeholder relationships, but some have become a source of conflict among stakeholders, posing threats to water resources management in the Densu basin. The findings show that several issues hinder effective multi-stakeholder inter-relationships in water resources management in the Densu River basin. These issues include colonial legacies embedded within institutions, institutional challenges, and political processes. Despite the adoption of integrated water resources management (IWRM) some institutions still hold on to the old water resources management arrangements instituted during the colonial era, creating challenges for effective institutional collaboration. Additionally, institutional challenges such as limited financial and human resources, corruption, high attrition rate, and lack of integration of projects and programs are also threatening multi-stakeholder inter-relationships. The political processes at the district assemblies that determine representatives on the Densu Basin Board were also identified as posing significant threat to building effective multi-stakeholder inter-relationship for water resources management in the Densu River basin. The findings further indicate that a number of uncoordinated catchment management strategies such as restrictions on farming areas, bans on illegal mining and logging, and others strategies have been instituted in the upper Densu basin to prevent degradation of the river. However, these strategies are having significant socioeconomic impacts on the local communities. A majority of residents are aware and comply with the enforcement of the strategies, but some are quite reluctant to adhere to them because of increasing economic hardships. This situation threatens the successful implementation of the strategies and the overall protection of the river. Other residents, however, have adopted alternative strategies (expanding petty trading, farming improvement, multiple jobs and others) to cope with the increasing economic hardships as a result of the enforcement of the catchment management strategies by the government.

Catchment management organisations often use computer-based water quality models to support their decision-making needs. However, literature suggests that model use by catchment managers can be highly problematical. Commonly reported issues that negatively impact upon the effectiveness of modelling for decision-making are data quality and availability, miscommunication between analysts and decision-makers, inappropriate treatment of uncertainty, excessive model complexity (‘sophistication’) or simplicity and poor modelling practice. The challenges that beset catchment managers are usually framed as technical problems that can be overcome by using or communicating the science that underlies the models more effectively. As a result, many of the problems associated with the use of models by catchment managers have not been adequately elucidated from the standpoint of a manager. This thesis examines the problem of modelling for decision-making from a fresh perspective. Systemic approaches to research are commonly used where the research problem is ill-defined, as it is here. ‘Action research’ is one qualitative, systemic methodology, and was used here as the guiding methodology to explore the model related problems faced by catchment managers. Action research involves recurrent cycles of planning, action, observation and reflection. The research was undertaken with the Sydney Catchment Authority (SCA), a New South Wales government agency responsible for water quality and catchment health in the drinking water catchments of Sydney, Australia. The SCA had expressed a particular need for tools to support the assessment of development applications with respect to potential impacts on water quality, and to prioritise rural land for remedial action to improve water quality in the drinking water catchments. The research had two broad aims that were:1.to develop two models differing in sophistication, and to use them to prioritise nutrient pollution sources and calculate nutrient loads; And, through the participatory development of the models, 2.to learn methodological lessons that catchment managers can apply to choose and use models more effectively. In this research, action was in the form of five planned activities, including: i. a review of relevant literature from diverse disciplines; ii. the holding of two workshops; the first exclusively involving SCA managers to identify their modelling needs, and the second involving water quality scientists and modelers to discuss methods for meeting the modelling needs; iii. the development and use of two export coefficient nutrient models; iv. a focus group discussion involving key staff in the SCA; and v. a review of published guidelines for good modelling practice in environmental management. Note was also taken of statements or behaviour at numerous meetings and seminars, mostly with SCA staff, that were relevant to the research questions. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>The aim of the study is to understand the level of co-operation between emerging and commercial farmers in a Water User Associations. The effort is expected to inform policy and improve practice in the building of new water institutions as government strives to implement IWRM.</p>

<p>The aim of the study is to understand the level of co-operation between emerging and commercial farmers in a Water User Associations. The effort is expected to inform policy and improve practice in the building of new water institutions as government strives to implement IWRM.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D) -- University of Western Sydney, 2007. / A thesis submitted to the University of Western Sydney, College of Health and Science, School of Natural Sciences, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Includes bibliography.

Water is a basic necessity for sustaining life and development of society. Proper management, protection and exploitation of water resources are the challenges imposed by population growth, increasing pressure on the water and land resources by competing usage. A good amount of clean water exists on Earth although it is normally inadequate in supply because of anthropogenic activities such as deforestation and land use change. Like many other catchments that provide economic activities for the community’s livelihood, the Chalimbana river catchment in Zambia has been deforested heavily and most of the local communities believe that deforestation could be the main contributing factor to the drying up of Chalimbana River. The objective of this study was to analyse the impact of deforestation on the stream flow of Chalimbana River Catchment with the help of a conceptual hydrological model, HBV. There was a 24% reduction in the annual average rainfall amounts for the deforested period as compared to the period before deforestation. The Qrec/Qsim ratios had revealed that the annual stream flow generation for the period after deforestation (1987 to 1996) for the Chalimbana River had decreased by about 12% as compared to the period with enough forest cover (1975 to 1985). The ratio of annual Qrec/P had indicated that after a 30% forest loss in Chalimbana catchment, there was a 33% increase in the generation of the stream flow. Based on the results that were obtained, a number of recommendations aiming at improving the catchment management were made.

This PhD thesis was developed in the context of contemporary challenges within water policy and governance; specifically the issue of managing diffuse pollution risk in fresh water catchments. As highlighted in the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) diffuse pollution poses a major risk in many European catchments where the sustainability of the ecosystems and water uses is compromised by intensive agriculture. The challenge for catchment management is the tricky nature of diffuse pollution. It is what you would term a ‘wicked problem’ or ‘Post Normal Science’ wherein the facts are uncertain, values are in dispute, stakes are high and decision-making is urgent (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1993; Patterson et al., 2013). In response to the WFD the UK Government have proposed the Catchment Based Approach (CaBA) which represents a paradigmatic shift in approaches to water management; from a ‘command and control’ approach (i.e. the historic practice of direct regulation) to a participatory governance approach (i.e. devolution of power and involvement local stakeholders) (Dryzek, 2005; Müller-Grabherr et al., 2014). The project had two aims. The practical aim was to identify the drivers and barriers to delivering the CaBA. The academic aim was to employ the relational concept of ambiguity to explore why and how catchment stakeholders understand, frame and respond to diffuse pollution risk differently. In order to address these aims Timothy embedded himself in Loe Pool Forum (www.loepool.org) for four years. Loe Pool Forum (LPF) are a voluntary catchment partnership, based in West Cornwall, working to address the risk of diffuse pollution through taking a CaBA at the WFD waterbody scale. The methodology was directed by Participatory Action Research (PAR) and underpinned by ethnography. PAR enabled Timothy to work collaboratively to engender positive change within LPF while ethnography generated data upon how partnership and participatory working happens in practice. New insights into the geographies of risk stemmed from the application of ambiguity as the conceptual lever. Ambiguity is a dimension of uncertainty which accounts for the relational properties of risk. Ambiguity is defined as the simultaneous presence of multiple frames of reference about a certain phenomenon (Brugnach et al., 2007). Timothy examined ambiguity from three different directions. Firstly, where the ambiguities are in catchment management and how local partnerships negotiate them. Secondly, how risk frames are produced by both water scientists and the agricultural community. Thirdly, what the drivers and barriers are to delivering the CaBA. By thinking through risk relationally this thesis provides new insights into the practice of catchment management and the socio-cultural geographies around the water-environment.