Ecosystem Management in Transboundary River Basins: Opportunities and Challenges
Ecosystem services are the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment conducted in 2005 analyzed 24 ecosystem services and found that 15 of these were being degraded or used unsustainably. Globally, this decline affects quality of life and economic well-being, and impedes sustainable development. The decline in services affects the world's disadvantaged people most strongly due to their heavier reliance on these services for basic needs and represents a considerable barrier to achieving the UN's Millennium Development Goals of reducing poverty and hunger and achieving environmental sustainability.
Integrated water resources management (IWRM) can be described as the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources in order to maximize the resultant economic and social welfare benefits in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems. The concept, popularized by the Dublin Principles, promotes a participatory approach to integrated management of resources on a watershed basis and promotes the recognition of the economic benefits of management of water and related resources.
In principle, most river basin organizations (RBOs) recognize the need to adopt ecosystem-based approaches to basin management, acknowledging that rivers and wetlands provide important ecological services such as waste assimilation, floodwater storage, and erosion control. There is also an increasing acceptance of the role of ecosystem management in providing additional social and economic benefits, including local livelihoods and alleviating poverty within river basins.
While the rationale for such synergistic use of IWRM and ES paradigms is conceptually clear, most transboundary watershed managers focus on an IWRM framework that looks at traditional water resources such as water quantity, navigation, and hydropower. With this in mind, IISD conducted research to explore the use of Ecosystem Approaches in IWRM.
This research, in partnership with United Nations Environment Programme–DHI, includes a review of selected transboundary basins representative of UNEP regions to ascertain the application of ecosystem-based approaches and provide recommendations to forward the development and implementation of IWRM planning. Recommendations will enable the use of specific tools such as ecosystem services valuation, and assist in the realization of co-benefits through transboundary basin organizations.
