Deciphering Environmental Flows

Jayanta BandyopadhyayJNU New Delhi

Water availability and growing human requirements in South Asia

Rain/snowfall pattern over South Asia is dominated by the monsoon and the mountains, especially the Himalaya. The region is rich in total annual availability of water but that richness is distributed very unevenly in space and time. Water engineering in S Asia has tried to even out that variation by storages and canals

Future demand will further stress ecosystemsSurface water abstraction stress to rivers(Stress is ratio of water use to water

availability)

(World Wildlife Fund: www.feow.org)

Freshwater Ecosystem DegradationSpecies declines in freshwater are twice that

of terrestrial and marine systems

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005

Over-Exploitation

WaterPollution

HabitatDegradation

Species Invasions

Flow Modification

Fig. 1. The five major threat categories and their establishedor potential interactive impacts on freshwater biodiversity.

(Dudgeon et al., 2006)

Many drivers of global biodiversity threat, but flow modification is major cause.

10,000-20,000 freshwater species are extinct or imperiled

Growing Importance of Water in Diplomacy of Future Decades - 1

• The Human Dimension– Key to domestic supplies, food and energy

security in a world with rapidly growing population and economic aspirations.

– More than half of the river basins of the world being international, shared rivers and aquifers will become more critical points of political engagement among users, sectors, countries, etc.

– Diverse human interventions: pollution

• The Ecological Dimension

– The basins being the appropriate spatial-

ecological units for river management,

nation states related by eco-systemic links

need to address basin level decisions that

require new knowledge for diplomats

Growing Importance of Water in Diplomacy of Future Decades - 2

• The emerging field of Water Diplomacy

–Water has become an important limiting

factor for economic growth. Hence, for

share resources, water has emerged as an

important part of diplomatic processes.

–University education in Water Diplomacy

education in University course

Growing Importance of Water in Diplomacy of Future Decades - 3

HAS BECOME URGENT

A Crucial PreconditionIf we wish to gain from functional, self-sustaining water based ecosystems

that provide ecosystem goods/services and maintain biodiversity over an extended period in future, then

we need to understand how these ecosys- tems function and how resilient such functions are to magnitude of current and projected environmental change.

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Economic value of various ecosystems – market failure

Water allocation to support ecosystem services – a necessity

•With growing trend of trans-boundary rivers being the object of negotiated and collaborative management, downstream environmental impacts of infrastructure projects have become a matter of concern. Environmental Flows (Efs) help in arriving at negotiated agreements on allocation of downstream flows in rivers.

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4-dimensional ecological view of rivers as the basis for understanding

EFs

4th dimension: Time!

The Utility of Environmental Flows in river basin negotiations - 1

•With trans-boundary rivers being the object of negotiated and collaborative management, each stakeholder wants to maximize the services gained from the river flows, may it be water supplies, fisheries, clearing of sediments from the riverbeds, biodiversity conservation, navigation, etc.

The Utility of Environmental Flows in river basin negotiations - 2

•In a world where rivers are being diverted right from their origins, and environmental knowledge has grown rapidly, sustainability of ecosystems will be of great concern to a downstream country/State/stakeholder. Scientifically assessed environmental flows can be the basis for negotiated agreement s.

ENVIRONMENTAL FLOWS are“about the equitable distrib-tion of and access to water & services provided by aquatic ecosystems. They refer to the quality, quantity, and timing of water flows required to maintain the components functions, processes, and resilience of aquatic ecosyst-ems that provide goods and services to people.”

Importance of Deciphering Environmental Flows - 1

•In the context of today’s approach to river management, it is important to first tell what is NOT an environmental flow. They are not a set percentage of river flows that will, if left for the part of the river downstream of an engineering intervention, will sustain the aquatic ecosystems in an unharmed state.

Importance of Deciphering Environmental Flows - 2

•Environmental flows are based on the precondition that in managed rivers, human interventions at any point would effect downstrea aquatic ecosystems. A negotiated settlement needs to identify a new flows pattern based on acceptance of pre-determined degradation of the ecosystem services in downstream parts.

Diverse Approaches to the Assessment of Environmental Flows-1•During the past 20 years, there has been a great increase in research on and application of environmental flows. Water experts have tried to create approaches and methods for the assessment of environmental flows, related to specific ecosystem services, like production of specific fish species.

Diverse Approaches to the Assessment of Environmental Flows-2•These methods vary in their levels of accuracy and ability to recognize ecosystem functioning and services. functioning.

•Hence, simple and almost undependable methods co-exist with more scientific and comprehensive methods based on individual ecosystem functions/services

Examples of Hydrological EFR Assessment for Indian Rivers

•Smakhtin and Anputhas (2006) used the ‘Rule of Thumb’ method to arrive at the EFR for the rivers of India. An ad hoc status definition of the status of the rivers was made as Normal, Good, Fair and Poor, purely on hydrological ground. EFR of 25 percent of MAR was enough to give FAIR status of a river, without any data on its ecological status

Environmental Flows is assessment of how much of the original flow regime of a river should continue to flow down and onto its floodplains to maintain specified, valued features of the ecosys- -tem hydrological regimes for rivers, the environmental flow requirements, each linked to a predetermined objective in terms of the ecosystem’s future condition...” (Therme 2003)

Criticism of Smakhtin’s methodology Arthington et al. (2006):

In an effort to provide immediate advice on flows for river ecosystem protection, some scientists are returning to simple hydro-logical ‘‘rules of thumb’’ that purportedly associate degrees of flow modification with likely ecological outcomes. Recent propo-sals include ... environmental flow prescr-iptions for world rivers based on a percent-age of total annual base flow plus a high flow component derived as a percentage of

mean annual runoff. Such simplistic guides have no documented empirical basis &the temptation to adopt them represents a grave risk to future integrity and biodiversity of the world’s riverine ecosystems…Implementing the suggested flow targets to achieve ‘‘fair’’ ecological condition at 20–30% MAR for rivers …would almost certainly cause profound ecological degradation, based on currentscientific knowledge.

Utility of Environmental Flows in Water Diplomacy on S Asian rivers-1

• Better/more realistic knowledge of the upstream-downstream disputes over flows, quite important in India Bangladesh relations or the case of water from Haryana to Delhi

Utility of Environmental Flows in Water Diplomacy on S Asian rivers-2

• Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES), for example, in case of fishery economy.

• Flow allocation during breeding season of economically attractive fish varieties like Hilsha in Padma and Meghna and payment for it.

Utility of Environmental Flows in Water Diplomacy on S Asian rivers-3

• Field research on environmental flows can reduce the upstream downstream conflicts related to dam projects.

• Example: tension between people in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam on loss of fishery income

Approach Needed in Indian Rivers-2

• Conflicts on river waters are so widespread and intense, that simplistic approaches like the hydrological approach may not serve any purpose.

• India needs to enhance knowledge base on ecosystem services provided by rivers, lakes or aquifers, and do some approximate valuation. Ecosystem services in Indian rivers, specially Himalayan, are unique.

Thank You