Lisa Henne. 2002. Power and Science in Participatory Watershed Planning.

This morning I read the first chapter of Lisa Henne's PhD dissertation, "Power and Science in Participatory Watershed Planning. A Case Study from Rural Mexico". Henne worked under my PhD adviser, Daniel W. Schneider, so her dissertation serves as a benchmark for expectations from both my adviser and the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. In addition, she provides a good literature review of participatory watershed planning, its advantages and criticisms.

I picked up her dissertation looking for orientation on the latest work in watershed planning. I would like to understand how the planning profession is adopting concepts from watershed planners. Where are the links and what is the trend? Her PhD thesis seemed like a logical starting point.

First, she clarified some jargon by equating "participatory watershed planning" with "integrated watershed planning". Then she explained that her objective was to evaluate the participatory watershed planning process in the Manatlan Reserve in Jalisco, Mexico. There, campesinos were organized into councils by the Manatlan Biosphere Reserve to incorporate their feedback into planning decisions. Henne finds that this participatory process did not result in "meaningful" participation, nor did it help improve the water quality of the river. On the other hand, alliances between the Reserve, research institutions and the campesinos, were able to create political pressure that resulted in increased enforcement of environmental laws, and eventually improved water quality.

So in short, the consensus based participatory planning process was a failure. At the same time, results were achieved through other means. Having lived in Mexico for some time, her dissertation resonated with me. The language was all too familiar: denuncias (complaint), participacion (participation), justicia (justice), oposicion (oposition).

Henne's dissertation forces me to think critically about my own work, and what I expect to achieve through my dissertation. Like Henne, I acknowledge the role of political power in influencing science. My challenge will be combining science and politics, quantitative and qualitative, numbers and ideology. Henne chose to evaluate the participatory planning process qualitatively. I would like to do something similar, but also integrate quantitative work. This integration will be my challenge.

I will judge the success of my dissertation by its ability to influence policy decisions, raise awareness, and provoke discussion. To measure if my work is achieving these goals, I should probably look in newspapers instead of reading academic articles, or checking the author citation index by ISI-Thompson. Of course, both audiences can be reached simultaneously. The best work should hit the press and be published in academic articles. I would like to do both, but also realize that truly great work is rarely done alone.

Dr. Narcis Prat from the University of Barcelona on Water Trading

As I have followed the water crisis in the Barcelona region, I have noticed that suddenly everyone is an expert on water issues. It was refreshing to hear the analysis by Narcís Prat, an aquatic ecologist from the University of Barcelona. You can listen to the interview today on Catalunya Radio here.

Prat recommends water banking, or water trading, as the most viable long term drought management strategy in north eastern Spain. This is the first time that I hear someone make this argument in the media, even though water experts have been discussing the options for years. The surprise is that it has taken so long, and such an extreme crisis, for water banking to get any attention. Prat astutely points out that Catalonia should not endlessly build dams to prevent water shortages every 5 to 10 years. The challenge is to use existing water supplies more efficiently. Some might ask: Will the environment be shafted in a water market? The answer is no. Water banking is compatible with sound ecosystem management as long as minimum instream flows are protected. The Catalan Water Agency (ACA) has already done much of the footwork by determining minimum instream flows for each river in Catalonia across spatial and temporal variance. Once minimium flows are set aside, water users can trade with the rest.

Prat also observes that trading needs to happen between the Segre and Llobregat Watersheds. These watersheds essentially represent a rural-urban divide in Catalonia. In a water trading scheme, urban users would negotiate a higher price for water from rural farmers. To accomplish this, Catalonia would still need to build the water infrastructure to connect these watersheds. Still, the investment could pay for itself if it prevents future water crises. Read more about the potential for water trading in Spain here.

How do we measure sustainability? If not the ecological footprint, then what?

For years I have thought that the ecological footprint was a simple, powerful and accurate measure of sustainability. However a recent discussion has dethroned this concept in my mind. The idea of an ecological footprint makes intuitive sense. It measures the amount of land necessary to support one’s consumption habits. More intense consumers, with super-sized homes, gas guzzling SUVs, and larger lawns, have a larger ecological footprint because they consume more of our Earth’s resources.

The power of the ecological footprint is that it reduces consumption down to one measurable unit, land area, that is physically constrained by the size of our planet. Therefore accepting the ecological footprint also means accepting physical constraints to growth. Accepting the idea of limits to growth is subtly revolutionary and contrary to mainstream thought. For a traditional economist, there is no limit to how high GDP may soar, or how high the Dow Jones can fly, or how much wealth can be accumulated. The ecological footprint shatters this notion. If it requires 8 planet Earth's for global population to maintain the same consumption patterns as the United States, then there simply are not enough resources to go around for everyone.

This has implications for global trade. Proponents of free trade promise developing countries that opening their borders will bring growth and prosperity. The underlying assumption is that there is enough wealth to rise all boats. But the ecological footprint analysis says that this simply is not true. Not everyone can consume the same amount, there just isn’t enough water, iron, copper, fish, timber, or fish in the sea for everyone. Under conditions of scarcity, these resources will go to the highest bidder.

And that is exactly what is happening. Wealthy and developed countries are net importers of natural resources while poorer countries are next exporters of these resources. The question remains: how to break this cycle? How do free trade economists reconcile their promise of future wealth with the existing limitations on natural resources?

The only answer is technology and increased productivity. By producing more with less, so the theory goes, we will be able to satisfy everyone’s needs. In that case, developing countries should be more concerned with increasing productivity than with opening their borders.

The point is that that ecological footprint was a useful way to think about how our consumption impacted the planet, and by extension, how our cumulative consumption patterns could not be exported because we face physical constraints.

Three scientific articles and two conversations have forced me to question all that. Moreover, by questioning the idea of an ecological footprint, my conception of sustainability has begun to crumble – or mature. Three teams of researchers have tried to operationalize the ecological footprint idea. In doing so, they have encountered a complex globalized economy. While they came up with hard numbers, the longer one thinks about how to calculate an ecological footprint, the more one realizes that there are too many variables to take into account. (See articles below).

Furthermore, the environmental historian William Cronon, makes it clear that a city’s impact is goes beyond the needs for its residents, but includes people elsewhere because cities serve as central nodes of repackaging and storage to move elsewhere.

Supporters of the ecological footprint can counter-argue that just because humans do not have the capacity to measure an ecological footprint does not mean that it does not exist. There are different consumption patterns that have different degrees and magnitudes of impact on our planet’s ecosystem.

Still, these readings have thrown a wrench into my conception of sustainability. If an ecological footprint cannot measure sustainability, what can? Sustainability cannot be about creating a 100% efficient metabolic cycle - no perfectly efficient system exists, it would violate the laws of thermodynamics-, so at what rate of efficiency do we agree that the process is “sustainable”?

Perhaps I am conceding that sustainable is not as easily defined as I had once believed. I am also conceding several points in a discussion I had with city planner Josep Anton Acebillo, the director of Barcelona’s urban planning agency Barcelona Regional, who argued that sustainability is not as desirable as believed. My idea of a sustainable city was one in which resources were used efficiently, waste was minimized and any waste emitted could be easily assimilated by our ecosystems. This still may be an ideal, but without a method for measuring sustainability such as the ecological footprint, it will be much more difficult to steer our society toward this goal. If we can’t measure our progress, how do we know if we are getting there?


Eaton R.L, G.P. Hammond and J. Laurie 2007. Footprints on the landscape: An environmental appraisal of urban and rural living in the developed world. Landscape and Urban Planning. (83) 13-27.

Folke C., A. Jannsson, J. Larsson and R. Costanza 1997. Ecosystem Appropriation by Cities. Ambio. (26)3:167-172.

Luck M.A., G.D. Jenerette, J. Wu and N.B. Grimm. 2001. The Urban Funnel Model and the Spatially Heterogenous Ecological Footprint. Ecosystems. 4:782-796.

Francesc Baltasar, Conseller de Medi Ambient i Habitage

Avui, en una entrevista amb Toni Bassas, el Conseller de Medi Ambient i Habitatge, Francesc Baltasar, ha respos a preguntes sobre la sequera a Catalunya.

The drought in Catalonia has been the lead story every day for more than a week. The Catalan government is desperately searching for new water sources to quench the thirst of Barcelona residents. If new sources are not found by October, water restrictions will go into effect in the Fall. Authorities fear that water restrictions could bring economic woes and political headaches. The tourism industry would be especially affected.