Problem Solving

Where does our drinking water come from? (Canada)

2011-11-15T08:24:00.001-08:00

The team at Thought Bubble have done an excellent job in communicating where drinking water comes from in British Columbia. Snazzy, clear, well-substantiated, and realistic. Excellent work.

Llobregat Field Work & Identification of Eligible Restoration Areas

2010-10-20T03:51:00.000-07:00

This weekend I explored a segment of the Llobregat that I had skipped in my original trek down the river in 2008. In my original field survey I decided to visit Manresa, which lies on the Cardener river, not the Llobregat, but a main tributary. This detour took me West of the Llobregat for a morning, and then South, downstream the Cardener until the two waterbodies meet in Castellgalí. This weekend I returned to see the segment I missed, between the confluence of the Llobregat and Cardener rivers, until the monastery of Sant Benet del Bages further upstream.

In the last few months, I have been learning the Stream Network Temperature Model (SNTEMP) developed by the United States Geological Service (Bartholow 2000). The model support is strong and there is helpful guidance for collecting field data to feed the model (Bartholow 1989). Therefore during the field exploration I had a few questions on my mind:

 What does the riparian vegetation look like? What is the species composition? How much shading does it provide?
 How difficult will it be to gather the field data on topography and vegetation for the temperature model as outlined by Bartholow (2000)?
 Are there any segments that might be deemed appropriate as a reference segments?

Returning to the river made me re-think how I should be collecting data for the model. The SNTEMP model allows users to divide the stream segment into various regions based on topographic and vegetative features. I had initially done this based on general stream characteristics between the Baells to Abrera:

Zone 1. Pre-Pyrenees segment. Baells to Can Rosal.
Zone 2. Industrial Colonies. Can Rosal to Sallent.
Zone 3. Central Bages. Sallent to Castellbell i el Vilar.
Zone 4. Montserrat. Castellbell i el Vilar to Olesa.
Zone 5. Final reach. Olesa to Abrera Water Treatment Plant.

To get a sense of how these geographic features fit in with the tributaries, point sources and other critical points you can look at the Skeleton Network that I have developed for the model.

My current endpoint is the Abrera treatment facility, but eventually, I would like to extend the model to Sant Joan Despí. Until this weekend, I was confident that this organization would be appropriate.

However my field work suggested that I may need to break up the stream features to smaller sub-segments and focus on a smaller segment first. Not only will this help me gradually build up to a larger model, but focusing on a smaller segment would also allow me to more clearly answer my research question that concerns vegetation. Recall that my question is: Can ecosystem services related to temperature maintain stream temperatures remain below critical threshold values?

Since stream shade plays such a key role in regulating stream temperature, I need to compare conditions with and without stream shading functions. Therefore I would like to identify eligible restoration areas, ie. segments where the shading function does not exist now, but could in the future. As my field work showed, not all areas are equally in need of river bank restoration. Some areas are in good shape, some areas have no vegetation at all, and some places are somewhere in between. My ideas is to first look at those stream segments in the worst shape, and then model what it would look like if those areas were improved. The most degraded areas would be my eligible restoration areas, defined as a stream segment with less than 20% of its riparian vegetation. Since my broad topographic areas have already been defined, these areas will only differ with respect to their vegetative conditions. I will then be able to model the impact of moving these areas from 20% vegetation cover to 70% vegetation cover.

This approach would imply that I identify the eligible restoration areas on a relatively fine scale. Conveniently, there are several eligible restoration areas in the last part of the river between Abrera and Olesa de Montserrat. Therefore my sense is that I should begin by focusing on that segment first.

References
Bartholow, J.M. 2000. The Stream Segment and Stream Network Temperature Models: A Self-Study Guide. US. Geological Survey. US Department of the Interior. Version 2.0 March 2000. Open File Report 99-112.

Bartholow, J.M. 1989. Stream Temperature Investigations: field and analytic methods. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Washington D.C. Instream Paper No. 13. Biological Report (89) 17.

Temperature Modeling

2010-10-05T06:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had the opportunity to met Sherri Johnson from the US Forest Service who gave an excellent presentation on stream temperature at the University of Girona. Her presentation reinforced the ecological significance of stream temperature. We discussed the SNTEMP model developed by USGS that I will apply in my dissertation to study stream temperature of the Llobregat River. She mentioned other models, such as WET-temp. Overall, it was an inspiring conversation that has motivated me to continue exploring stream temperature dynamics.

Un Riu Brut Ens Surt Car

2010-06-30T05:52:00.000-07:00

Llobregat river restoration CATALAN version from Eric.T on Vimeo.

My Dissertation Proposal in Three Minutes

2010-06-30T05:50:00.000-07:00

Llobregat river restoration ENGLISH version from Eric.T on Vimeo.

Innaguration of the Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA) H20 Building

2009-10-08T11:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to Girona for the innaguration of the H2O building which will host the Catalan Institute for Water Research, or Institut Catala de Recerca de l'Aigua (ICRA). The institute was founded in 2006, and only three years later, they are now moving into to a new facility decked out with plenty of laboratory and office space. The initiative shows a clear commitment on behalf of the Catalan Government to promote and support water related research. The speaches by the public officials, including the Catalan Minister Josep Huguet, emphasized that Catalonia needs to reorient itself toward a knowledge based economy, driven by innovation and technology. The speed at which they have build ICRA demonstrates that the money is where their mouth is. And ICRA is likely to hire many more researchers in the upcomming year. I was able to briefly meet one of these researchers working on ecosystem services, Vicenç Acuña. It was encouraging to meet other people doing similar work, and I hope to develop some sort of intellectual exchange with them, since no doubt they are more familiar with the Mediterranean ecosystems than I am, and have much to teach me. Overall, ICRA shows tremendous promise as a cutting edge research center.

Aigua, Rius i Pobles / Agua, Rios, Pueblos / Water, Rivers, Communities

2009-09-17T03:32:00.001-07:00

This week I had the opportunity to have lunch with Dr. Pedro Arrojo, from the University of Zaragoza. He has graciously accepted my invitation to become a member of my PhD dissertation committee, and I look forward to his input on my research.

During our lunch, I learned that Pedro Arrojo and several of his colleagues are currently organizing a first-class exhibit called Agua, Rios, Pueblos, which translates as Water, Rivers and Communities. The exhibit has already been presented successfully in Malaga, Spain and Mexico City, Mexico. Now it is comming to Barcelona in May 2010. The exhibit shows how different communities have managed water conflicts around the globe. In the next few months, local organizations in Catalunya will be invited to participate, and create case studies surrounding local water conflicts. The issues in the Llobregat river basin are likely to appear as one of the case studies. I look forward to helping, even if in a small way.

This event promises to have a considerable number of visitors. It should attract the attention of the press and the public on river management problems both locally and around the world. More later...

Desalination Plant for Barcelona's Drinking Water

2009-07-02T15:33:00.000-07:00

This month, Barcelona residents may begin to notice their tap water tastes better. On July 20th, the Catalan government will begin to supply their municipal network with desalinated water from the Mediterranean. This will improve drinking water quality, but also increase treatment costs. Their goal is to rely on desalinated water only during water shortages. In the radio interview below, a representative from the treatment facility acknowledged that the treatment cost per cubic meter is between 0.3-0.45 Euros per cubic meter. Based on the literature review I have conducted, the desalination treatment plants I am studying upstream, in Sant Joan Despi and Abrera, probably also have simliar treatment costs. Next week I move to the Barcelona Metropolitan Region with the hopes of working with the water treatment managers in order to find creative ways to bring these costs down, and simultaneously generate environmental benefits in the Llobregat River as well.

Listen to the tour of the desalination facility here. [in Catalan]

Managing Nonlinear Ecosystem Services

2009-05-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

Research Objective
A great deal of attention has been directed at ecosystem services and their potential to improve natural resource management (Daily et al. 1997, MA 2005, NRC 2005). By understanding how human populations benefit from ecosystems, we can more strategically protect valuable ecosystem functions. Yet despite the burst of enthusiasm for research on ecosystem services, the significant spatial and temporal variation in ecosystems themselves and the services they provide have prevented the successful integration of ecologic and economic systems into a coherent framework for decision-making. For example, the capacity of wetlands to treat sewage, mitigate floods, or purify water, often depends on their proximity to human populations as well as seasonal fluctuations. Researchers agree that ecosystem services fluctuate across space and time, and yet surprisingly little research has examined the management implications of non-linear ecosystem service provision (Costanza et al. 2001, Koch et al. 2009). As a result, researchers studying ecosystem services still confront a fundamental challenge: How to integrate highly variable and non-linear ecosystem services into decision making.

To answer this question we propose a two step approach. First we must adequately describe the variability in ecosystem service provision within our area of interest. Second, once equipped with a more realistic understanding of ecosystem service provision across space and time, we will then test the impact of various management decisions on the watershed and observe how the value of ecosystem services varies non-linearly or with sensitivity to particular thresholds. As a case study, we will examine the ecosystem services related to drinking water supplies in the Llobregat watershed. Thresholds and non-linearity have important implications for how ecosystem services can be exploited to meet drinking water objectives. This research should contribute to our understanding of non-linear ecosystem service provision, as well as provide a specific example of integrating non-linear ecosystem services into decision-making.

We begin with a provocative hypothesis: recent changes in water treatment technology have helped realign environmental and economic interests in the watershed so that these goals have become mutually reinforcing. Furthermore, understanding the spatial and seasonal fluctuation in ecosystem service provision will be essential to accurately exploit ecosystem service provision. The Llobregat watershed near Barcelona, Spain provides an ideal location in which to study non-linear ecosystem service provision due to the natural variability in Mediterranean climates and the explicit and measurable links between river water quality, ecosystem services and treatment costs.

Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem services are the benefits that people derive from ecosystems (MA 2005). It is the natural capital that we rely on for food production, climate stabilization, pollination and drinking water. Research on ecosystem services has exploded as academics and practitioners alike search for more explicit connections between ecosystems and human well being. And while much has been written about integrating ecosystem services into decision making, there are few examples to draw from. The noteworthy exception is the case of New York City’s drinking water supply, which proponents of ecosystem services repeatedly cite as a success adoption of the ecosystem services framework. There, water managers found that investments in watershed protection in the Catskill Mountains provided equivalent water quality at only a fraction of the cost of building a new filtration plant (Chichilnisky & Heal 1998, NRC 2000). The city saved millions of dollars through investments in upstream land conservation that maintained high drinking water quality at the source. The innovative management of New York City’s drinking water provides a concrete example of how policy makers can use knowledge about ecosystem services to direct future investments. Over a decade later, however, few additional examples have surfaced. Some have begun to question whether the case of New York City’s drinking water was an anomaly rather than a replicable strategy (McCauley 2006). Pressure is building to move ecosystem services from theory to practice (Daily et al. 2009). In particular, we need cases that show how resource managers can successfully integrate ecosystem services into decision-making despite their non-linear qualities (Koch et al. 2009).

Researchers have only recently attempted to understand the stochastic qualities of ecosystem services. Aburto-Oropeza et al. (2008) studied the spatial and temporal fluctuations of fish catch as they related to mangrove conditions, while Koch et al. (2009) studied the irregular protection of coastal property provided by marine vegetation. The paucity of studies on non-linear ecosystem service provision has generated calls for improving our understanding of how ecosystem services fluctuate across space and time (Kremen and Ostfeld 2005, Koch et al. 2009). Studying ecosystem services under these more realistic assumptions will improve our ability to operationalize this attractive conceptual framework for resource management. Furthermore, our focus on meeting regulatory objectives allows us to sidestep controversial questions pertaining to valuation and instead concentrate on how ecosystem services can make tangible contributions to meeting water management objectives.

Valuation approaches remains highly controversial because of technical difficulties in obtaining willingness to pay values, and because they generally assume a linear or monotonic relationship between the ecosystem’s condition and the value of the service provided. This linearity does not hold for either the ecosystem conditions or for the services provided. Ecologists have documented that ecosystems can fluctuate between states where marginal changes have no impact if thresholds have been passed (Holling 1978). Economic systems also have thresholds whereby costs kick in after certain points. Thus assuming linearity in our study of ecosystem services is likely to provide misleading information. A new consensus is emerging that research on ecosystem services must consider the inherent variability and thresholds that are characteristic of both ecological and economic systems (Barbier et al. 2008, Koch et al. 2009).

Research Site: The Llobregat Watershed
The Llobregat Watershed provides an ideal site for examining non-linearity and thresholds in ecosystem service provision because it combines high ecosystem variability, plus human dependency . The Llobregat River flows 145 kilometers from the Pyrenees Mountains to the Mediterranean Sea and provides the city of Barcelona with its drinking water. At the same time Mediterranean rivers experience extreme seasonal fluctuations. Barcelona depends on the highly variable and polluted waters from the Llobregat for industrial, agricultural and domestic uses, and water managers at the two treatment facilities in the lower watershed have been dealing with contaminants dumped into the Llobregat for decades. In particular, mine tailings upstream release sodium chloride (NaCl) into the river. For years, addressing the source of this pollution has been deemed financially prohibitive (ACA 2006). The salts and bromides from the mine tailings react with disinfectants, such as chlorine, to form carcinogenic compounds known as trihalomethanes (THMs). These contaminants have plagued the region’s drinking water supply and generated incompliance with European public health standards for drinking water quality.

To address this challenge, the two major drinking water facilities in the Llobregat recently installed desalination systems. The publically owned water treatment facility managed by Aigües Ter-Llobregat (ATLL) installed a reversible electrodialysis system, while further downstream, the private water company Aigües de Barcelona (AGBAR) installed a reverse osmosis system. Both water treatment plants are regulated by the regional Catalan Water Agency, Agència Catalana de l’Aigua (ACA). Thus in this case, the scale of the management institutions—the water providers and the regulatory agency—closely match the scale of the ecosystem services, allowing for the value of the ecosystem services to be taken into account by decision making authorities. The AGBAR treatment plant also extracts groundwater from a coastal aquifer that is experiencing seawater intrusion, and further compounding the salinity problem in its water supply.

Now treatment managers are confident that they will comply with European public health standards, but at a cost. The new treatment technology consumes vast amounts of energy and is expensive to operate. Now more than ever, the cost of water treatment will depend on water quality (Fig. 1). This creates an explicit link between economic costs and the ecological

integrity of the river ecosystem. Since various ecosystem functions provide services that potentially can reduce treatment costs, the challenge is to understand the spatial and temporal variations of these ecosystem services so as to take full advantage of their provision. If ecosystem services are integrated into water treatment decisions, it will be possible to meet the same water quality standards at much lower costs because we can rely on the ecosystem services instead of energy intensive treatment. Furthermore, investments in ecosystem management can help restore the ecological integrity of the watershed, in addition to

potentially generating financial benefits.

Figure 1. Prior to the adoption of desalination

water treatment, fluctuations in salinity did not

influence water treatment costs. As of 2009, two treatment plants installed membrane desalination plants. This has significantly increased the cost of treatment. Future fluctuations in salinity will be directly correlated with treatment costs (left panel). This creates a new explicit link between ecosystem conditions and economic costs. It also provides a useful analytical framework with which to study the benefits of ecosystem service

provision. Depending on the relation between ecosystem variability and treatment costs, the response to changed water quality in the future may be highly non-linear with significant threshold effects (right panel)

As mentioned, this research is inspired by the experience in New York City where water managers saved millions by investing in strategic land use management in the Catskill watershed. While this research follows the spirit of the New York case, it adds three important features that may contribute to more valuable or generalizable results. First, the technological context is vastly different. New York did not have a filtration plant to begin with, and knowledge about ecosystem services was used to avoid the construction of such a system. In contrast, our research examines the management of ecosystem services when water managers are already using the most advanced treatment technology available. Second, we will study ecosystem services in the context of restoration, not conservation. This allows us to quantify the tangible savings derived from improving surface water quality instead of speculating on the avoided costs that resulted from land conservation. Lastly, the technological and environmental conditions at our research site are more representative of urban water challenges globally. Most treatment facilities have already installed the filtration systems that New York avoided. This led to criticisms that the New York model was not replicable. Our research site reflects conditions that water managers are likely to face in the future, whereby poor water sources will be treated with newer and more costly technologies. In this respect, our case study should be more valuable to a wider audience of researchers interested in both in ecosystem services and municipal water treatment.

Learning Excel Plug-ins for Data Analysis

2009-04-26T09:14:00.000-07:00

This weekend I read through "Statistics, Data Analysis and Decision Modeling" by James R. Evans and David L. Olson. The book caught my attention because of its emphasis on Excel. The authors review Excel plug-ins that are particularly helpful and easy to use.

I recently obtained more data on salinity in the Llobregat River, and would like to start analyzing the data in Excel before moving onto other software. While my most recent statistics course has made me more comfortable in R, I would like to max out Excel first. Everyone has Excel on their computers, and if I want to communicate my analysis, or facilitate collaborative learning with others, it makes sense to work on a platform that everyone is familiar with.

I took a special look at the chapters on forecasting and optimization. The plug-in "solver" can compute some simple linear and non-linear optimization problems. Going over the examples gave me some ideas about how to set up an optimization problem relevant to my dissertation, with simple constraints. Over time, my work may evolve into something more complex, but it makes sense to start with something straightforward. At the same time, there is no need to go over the top with mathematical complexity. As demonstrated by this book, programmers have developed impressive tools that are easy to use and communicate.

Presentation by Dr. Narcis Prat on Water Management in Barcelona

2009-04-22T11:43:00.000-07:00

Dr. Narcis Prat from the University of Barcelona has recently posted an excellent power point presentation concerning water management in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region. The presentation comes precisely one year after a major drought in Catalonia, which threatened to generate severe water restrictions. The government imported freshwater on ships and trains in preparation of the drought. Then, in May 2008, it started to rain and the drought was called off.

For a visually powerful description of how water is managed in Catalonia, check out his presentation here.

Environmental modelling

2009-03-23T09:02:00.001-07:00

This weekend I started to read Environmental Modeling: An introduction by Jo Smith and Pete Smith. I picked up at the library when I was looking for a book by Carl Walters, on adaptive management, which I also hope to read this week. It caught my attention for being straightforward and easy to digest. So far I have enjoyed it very much, since it has given me new ideas about how to approach my dissertation on the Llobregat River. The material is clearly explained, and the examples provide intuition for the statistical calculations made. The authors also point out the problems, biases or misinterpretations that frequently are made when using environmental models to address real world problems.

PhD Qualifying Exam: Area of Specialty (Question 6)

2009-03-15T20:15:00.000-07:00

How might restoration endpoints be identified and what are the political implications for using different methods for identifying and choosing those endpoints?

The selection of restoration endpoints is inherently a political exercise. Some restoration ecologists resist this political interpretation (Packard), and instead argue that their selections are grounded in science. However our understanding of ecosystem fluctuation, evolution and non-equilibrium ecology, suggest that the selection of any particular reference condition is simply the outcome of some political process.

In the United States, restoration movements have sought to restore disturbed sites to their ecological conditions found prior to European settlement. A purely scientific approach to restoration uses apolitical tools from the natural sciences to reconstruct what ecosystems were like in the past. This reconstruction of ecosystems has been the specialty of the field of historical ecology (Eagan & Howell).

This selection of “pre-European settlement” as an endpoint obviates the impacts of native peoples on this continent, but more fundamentally, it ignores that ecosystems are in constant flux and change. The choice to restore a prairie to its conditions in 1800 have no greater scientific merit that the selection of the year 1700, 1500 or 500. Plus, this selection of a particular endpoint implies a desire to freeze time. As if the year in which humans began to modify the ecosystem, coincidentally, Nature had already found its ideal state.

Already, conservation biology is moving away from static ideas and instead framing their work context of evolution and change (Meffe). This more nuanced ecological understanding is common among scholars despite the simple messaging from environmental groups that reinforce static ecological pictures. “Save the rainforests” implies we aim to prevent any change at all. Similarly, the restoration of a habitat to its pre-European conditions suggests that we would have preferred that the ecosystem remained unchanged for 200 or 300 years.

Non-equilibrium ecology has also seriously challenged assumptions about equilibrium states (Neumann) and these ideas are being substituted with theories of sudden changes or punctuated equilibrium (Gould). These new ideas within the field of ecology further destabilize simplistic ideas about finding singular restoration endpoints because there is no stable equilibrium to which any system should return.

Recognizing that no scientifically defensible restoration endpoint exists, suddenly throws questions about restoration into the political realm. Science can still be used to weigh the advantages and disadvantages to different scenarios, but science will not reveal answers about what the ecosystem should look like in the future. Restoration science becomes descriptive, not normative. The normative decisions about what should be are devolved to the users and inhabitants of that ecosystem. No doubt this observation can be disturbing for ecologists since it places them in an unfamiliar position of not finding the “right” answer about what an ecosystem should look like. It may be even more troubling that the future of a place ecologists care about would be determined by the collective will of individuals that may include those who ‘do not care’ or at least have very different values with respect to an ecosystem’s future.

An openly political approach to identifying restoration endpoints dethrones the physical sciences, and elevates the social sciences. No doubt, historical ecology remains useful for informing decisions about restoration, but it is equally important to understand the environmental history of the site, since it is environmental history which explains how politics has shape resource use.

Environmental historians describe how landscape changes are the outcomes of historical struggles between competing resource users. Furthermore, the victors in these resource struggles often succeed in rewriting the ecological narrative of how a particular ecosystem operates or what has ‘always been’. This revisionist history gives existing resource users disproportionate power, especially if ecosystem managers rely on apolitical strategies to make restoration choices.

Environmental history can provide critical insight to help managers and the public make more informed decisions about what the ecosystems should look like in the future. For example, following the Mississippi floods of 1993, agricultural interests lobbied to rebuild levees and restore floodplain agricultural. In this context ‘restoration’ meant the farmers would re-appropriate agricultural rights on the floodplain. However a careful look into the environmental history of Mississippi River reveals that fishers had used the natural lakes along the floodplain long before levee agriculture. Furthermore, the fishing communities were violently removed from these lakes by agricultural interests who had stronger financial and political influences (Schneider). This case reveals how different restoration endpoints often are the reflection of political interests rather than an unbiased scientific truth. Other authors have similarly found that environmental narratives can dominate discourse and decisions about restoration. Cronon is well known for his description of wilderness in the American West and Spirn describes the competing narratives that argued for ‘restoring’ Olmstead’s Emerald Necklace in Boston, which was an a human constructed park built on narratives of its own. Given that particular stories about the past can dominate the public psyche, we should be suspect of assertions about restoration that claim to be objective or unbiased.

Adopting an apolitical or scientific approach for selecting restoration endpoints risks reinforcing existing patterns of resource use that probably benefit historical victors of resource struggle. Instead of relying on the scientific or apolitical approach, we should acknowledge that ecological restoration is fundamentally about human choices. Both natural science and social science should be used to inform our decisions. The inhabitants and neighbors of each site should decide what type of ecosystem they would like to co-exist with. Certainly, the science can help orient our decision making because some species probably will not survive in all climates. But fundamentally, it is a political decision.

Finally, understanding restoration as a political issue raises important questions about process and participation. This makes the work on participatory watershed management (Henne, Sabatier) even more critical for watershed managers, since the science alone will not reveal what watershed conditions should look like, rather these decisions should be the outcomes of democratic processes.

PhD Qualifying Exam: Area of Specialty (Question 5)

2009-03-15T20:14:00.000-07:00

Researchers studying urban ecology have made the distinction between ecology in the city vs. ecology of the city. Do you consider this a useful distinction? In which of these areas would your proposed study fall?

Ecology is the study of biota and its biophysical environment. The field is young in comparison to its older sibling, Biology, which studies the behavior of species or cells. Ecology takes a step back to observe how species are interacting with each other and their habitat.

Ecology in Cities
In recent decades, a small group of rogue ecologists have chosen to practice ecology in urban environments. Roads, bridges, parking lots, abandoned mills, business districts and rail lines may sound like peculiar sites for ecological praxis. Yet these built environments have harnessed a devout following of urban ecologists, undeterred by rust, concrete, smog, or city sounds. These vanguard urban ecologists have generated a new sub-field in ecology that seeks to understand how species survive, behave, and reproduce in urban landscapes. They apply core principles from the natural sciences to study urban ecosystems and their practice can be understood as Ecology in Cities.

There are several good reasons why we need to understand species behavior in urban environments. In the summer, trees provide shade and reduce the heat island effect. They also are aesthetically pleasing, and if disease were to wipe them out, surly local residents would be upset about losing this amenity (and property values). Similarly, birds are great to hear in the morning, and squirrels are an entertaining feeding attraction.

The urban environment has also offered opportunities to test ecological theories. Landscape ecologists such as Forman and Mendelson have tested Wilson & MacAurthur’s theory of island biogeography. And the insight from landscape ecology provides practical guidance for urban ecosystem management. Urban ecologists have also observed how theories of adaptation and selection are reinforced. Pigeons are very successful urban species, and ecologists have found that they are related to bird species that previously inhabited cliffs. This partially explains why they have adapted well to cities, since tall buildings provide precisely the urban form/habitat they prefer.

Urban ecologists who practice Ecology in Cities are more likely to appreciate the impacts of humans on their study site, but there remains a degree of separation between the social and biophysical worlds. These urban ecologists still seek to understand the basic laws that govern urban species. Nature is still “out there” somewhere.

And yet the findings offered by this school of urban ecologists raises additional questions about the co-evolution of ecological and human species. In the pigeon example, human environments became the ideal habitat for a particular species. Humans in essence, helped the selection of pigeons over other bird species. Therefore in urban environments, and potentially elsewhere too, our ecological companions are products of human choices. If humans are the drivers of selection, then is it accurate to distinguish ecological systems from human systems? While not their intention, the urban ecologists that study Ecology in Cities
illustrated how species co-evolve with cities and human modified environments, and helped question the divide that they still respect.

Ecology of Cities
Social scientists from geography, environmental history and political ecology have blurred the nature vs human divide even further. Cronon deconstructed the concept of wilderness, and other geographers and political ecologists have followed suit by arguing that the no place on planet earth is unaffected by human influences. As such, “Nature is dead” (Castree).

This fusion of human and ecological systems into a singular unit of analysis gave birth to a form of Urban Ecology that studies the Ecology of Cities. Similar to how Ecology broke from Biology by broadening its scope of analysis, practitioners of Ecology of Cities took a step back even further by incorporating human systems as part of the socio-ecological environment. The city is studied as if were its own organism that consumes energy, materials, and water. The city has its own metabolism and excretes waste.

The Ecology of the City takes additional steps in breaking down the divisions between the human and biophysical environments by studying them in unison. This holistic approach is familiar to environmental historians. For example, in Grey Brechin’s historical account of urban growth in San Francisco he describes the flows of money, gold, and water that fed the growth of the City by the Bay. Even more eloquently, William Cronon observed how the agricultural and transportation pattern the Midwest, including the types of seed planted, was determined by the rise of Chicago.

The geographer Paul Robbins offers another example of Ecology of Cities in his study of the suburban lawn. Robbins boldly melds ecological and human systems by suggesting that the lawns themselves control human behavior. While his argument is counter-intuitive at first, he convincingly shows that the biological characteristics of turf grass, ie. the chemicals it needs and the cutting care it relies upon -- ultimately dictates how humans interact with the lawn and their neighborhood. The lawn calls out to be mowed. And people respond, dutifully mowing their lawns on weekends in the late Spring, precisely when the lawn wants to be trimmed.

Ecology in Cities & Ecology of Cities
The distinction between the Ecology in Cities and the Ecology of Cities is useful because it helps break down disciplinary barriers. It is a step toward integration and a movement away from reductionism. The Ecology of Cities adds intriguing complexity to our analysis of urban ecosystems and helps us see that biophysical systems are not independent from historical decisions, human choices or cultural perceptions.

Appreciating this distinction is especially important in an era of interdisciplinarity and sustainability. Everywhere there are calls for improved integration across fields. There is strong impulse to generate new understanding by overlapping and combining knowledge from different arenas. There is a pressure to be more integrative and holistic.

This call for integration and appreciation of the integral role of humans in ecosystems has been well received by some conservation biologists (Armsworth et al. 2007). They are starting to recognize that it is time to include humans into their analysis of ecosystems. For too long conservation biology has focused narrowly on their favorite species or ecosystem and only referred to humans in passing, or as the source of destruction. Armsworth et al (2007) suggested that conservation biologists incorporate humans into the ecosystem, and therefore make the move from Ecology in Cities to Ecology of Cities.

And while most agree that the synthesis proposed by practitioners of Ecology of Cities is valuable, I am humbled by the implications of this daunting task. Meaningful integration of human and biophysical systems is an enormous undertaking. The assumption is that it will provide more clarity into the phenomenon observed. However more clarity is not guaranteed. While I agree that this integration is useful and necessary, I am wary of how it will materialize.

To appreciate the complexity implicit with this integration, we can look to the difficulties ecologists have encountered when combining physical and ecological models. These difficulties persist despite the rigidity of the physical laws and relationships more common in the physical sciences.

Carl Walters from the University of British Columbia has studied ecological modeling and adaptive management in coastal and river ecosystems and he provides an excellent review of the difficulties associated with modeling the biophysical world. He points out that river manager’s need four types of models to understand river systems: a geomorphologic model, a hydrological model, a physical-chemical model for water quality, and an ecological model. Each model operates different time and spatial scales, with different resolutions, units of analysis and degrees of uncertainty. Adding new parameters often leads to compounding errors multiplicatively, and therefore decreasing the utility of the model. Thus Walters is skeptical that these models can be meaningfully integrated without field experimentation. He warns that researchers trust their models too much, and they are over ambitious in what they think they can achieve. Walters laments that for every complex relationship that is nearly impossible to explain, there is a researcher who will claim the capacity to model the relationship if only granted enough money. Walter’s observations about the difficulty in combining different biophysical models is useful warning for interdisciplinary graduate students who may underestimate the difficulty in integrating knowledges from the biophysical world with the social sciences.

Where does my research fall?
I will draw from the knowledge generated by both types of Urban Ecologists, but the direction I will pursue follows the spirit of those who study the Ecology of the City. My dissertation will have at least two components. I expect to begin with an environmental history of salt pollution in the Llobregat River. Similar to Cronon, Brechin and White, this segment will follow the tradition of urban ecologists concerned with the ecology of the city. The environmental history will trace the evolution of potassium mining, pollution and the urban settlements near the Llobregat side by side. I seek to uncover how people shaped the river, but also how the river shaped human choices and perceptions in the past and today.

Following the environmental history, my dissertation will study how the management of ecosystem services may help river and water treatment managers seeking to remediate river pollution. The particular circumstances in the Llobregat River, whereby salt pollution in the river increases water treatment costs, provide a convenient link between the biophysical and human systems. This part of my research will reflect more similarities to the research of Ecology of Cities since it bridges both human and ecological systems.

Research concerning ecosystem services seeks to break down barriers between social and biophysical sciences and to make the connections between these systems more explicit. In this sense, research on ecosystem services is consistent with the Ecology of Cities approach. And yet, the field of ecosystem services has chosen to push together the human and ecological systems very close, but refused to mesh them together entirely. After all, most researchers in ecosystem services were trained in the biological of physical sciences. These researchers are grounded in a distinct philosophical and epistemological tradition that makes it very difficult for them to accept all of the claims made by political ecologists who advance the study of urban systems as one single system. Furthermore, the methods and tools used in ecosystem service science resemble those from their peers, traditional Ecologists, who study Ecology in Cities.

Therefore researchers in ecosystem services resist wiping away all distinctions between natural and human worlds as some political ecologists have proposed. Researchers in ecosystems services are unlikely to give non-human things agency, nor are they likely to believe that “Nature is Dead”. In many respects they are holding on to the differences between the two fields. Researchers of ecosystem services are therefore an interesting amalgam of both urban ecololgists, that drawn on the tools from Ecology in the City, yet seek to advance the cause of those who subscribe to studying Ecology of the City.

In sum, the distinction between Ecology in Cities and Ecology of Cities is useful because it shows different levels of integration between human and ecological systems. Placing my work on environmental history and ecosystem services within this continuum clarifies how I will contribute to Urban Ecology. It shows that while my tendency is to advance the integration proposed by study of Ecology of Cities, there are still limits to this integration. These limits to integration are driven by both technical challenges in creating meaningful understandings that cross disciplinary boundaries, as well as by philosophical and epistemological beliefs about how to conduct research, and the extent to which the biophysical world is a human construct.

PhD Qualifying Exam: Methods (Question 4)

2009-03-15T20:13:00.000-07:00

What insights can economic analysis of alternate environmental management policies (regulatory, incentive-based, and voluntary) provide for the watershed planning process?

Economic analysis of alternative environmental policies is designed to facilitate decision making for improved social welfare. A watershed planning process, similar to other areas of public decision-making, can draw from economic theory to identify appropriate courses of action. While the ultimate goal of economic analysis is to improve social welfare, there are specific contexts in which economic analysis is particularly useful.

To reallocate resources for efficiency improvements
Economic analysis helps identify inefficient resource use, and potentially can propose different allocations to improve total social welfare. Improved allocation of resources is essential in order to meet human needs and wants. Furthermore, the scarcity of our global resources, which can be contrasted with growth in human populations, makes efficiency essential to maintain or improve human welfare. As mentioned earlier, a driving principle in economics is the ideal of Pareto Optimality whereby we seek to improve the welfare of at least some individuals without decreasing the welfare of others. Frequently this is obtained through the exchange of goods and services that exploit our different individual preferences in order to create transactions that benefit all parties involved.

Many environmental problems are concrete manifestations of inefficient resource allocations. Economics can clarify that the pollution generates undesirable costs that should be averted so that resources can be used elsewhere. Therefore when a lake is polluted, or drinking water supplies are contaminated, economic arguments in favor of environmental remediation are not merely acts of kindness, but rather driven by arguments against the inefficiency of pollution.

In some circles, especially in the realm of critical theory, efficiency has been criticized for obtaining dogma status or for trampling on concerns of equity, rights, or diversity (Scott, Rawls, Young). While the goal of efficiency does not justify ignoring other social issues, neither should we dismiss efficiency improvements as a worthwhile social goal.

To establish appropriate rules of exchange
Economic analysis can help assess how different norms of exchange, rules, or institutional frameworks may yield different outcomes. Existing resource allocations (land, capital) as well as the existing institutions that govern resource exchange (regulatory, incentive-based, and voluntary) are the products of historical struggle (Costanza, Ostrom, Schneider). Often, the arrangements we have inherited are deemed inappropriate on either efficiency or equity grounds. In these cases, economic analysis is essential for evaluating the impacts of various institutional arrangements that contextualize production and distribution.

In a watershed planning process, there is usually considerable debate about what the rules of engagement should be. Under which circumstances should society give private firms the right to pollute? How should pollution be managed? How should public agencies intervene? And what are the rights of pollution victims? These are not easy questions to answer since society must live with some degree of resource use and pollution. Few would argue for a zero pollution society since that would imply a rejection of all technology and contemporary goods. However if we accept some level of resource use and pollution, the question then becomes, how much? What is the appropriate level of pollution? To answer these questions, we must: (a) understand social preferences and (b) then establish appropriate rules of exchange, norms, or institutions, in order to bring us closer to our social preferences.

Therefore, economic analysis can help establish the appropriate rules of engagement between actors in a watershed, and can estimate the different outcomes that are likely to occur under different scenarios (regulatory, incentive-based, and voluntary). When existing norms of engagement are inappropriate, economic analysis can provide institutional innovation to devise new rules that may lead to better outcomes. In recent years, economists have been exploring institutional arrangements that combine command-and-control policies with incentive-based mechanisms. For example, the cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, involves a command-and-control cap, followed by a trading system among polluters in order to maximize pollution reduction at the lowest possible cost. This is an example of the institutional innovation generated by economists that can be useful for improving social welfare.

To compare of alternative courses of action
Ideas are always competing for attention and the chance to be implemented. In the face of this competition, any decision making processes must be able to evaluate the competing alternatives in order to make sound choices. Economics provides analytical tools, both conceptual and quantitative, that facilitate this comparison of alternatives.

When evaluating alternative courses of action, it is useful to have a common unit or metric for comparison. The field of economics proposes that we evaluate alternatives based on the social utility generated from each option. This social utility is quantified and monetized into a common unit of exchange. While this process of monetization is controversial, it still provides a starting point for assessment.

Most choices involve trade-offs. If we want recreation areas for hikes and picnics, we may need to forgo urban development for low income housing. If we want clean water supplies free of carcinogenic compounds, we may need to contribute additional greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Economic analysis clarifies these tradeoffs. It helps us balance competing demands and helps us chose the policies that most closely approximate social preferences.

Cost-benefit analysis is one way to weigh these competing interests. When costs and benefits are distributed unevenly throughout society, economic analysis can help identify the winners and losers, and potentially quantify the magnitude of these gains and losses. This information, while always incomplete, is essential information for making decisions about alternatives.

Economic analysis can also help uncover new alternatives that watershed managers did not consider at the outset. I hope this is the case with my own dissertation whereby conducting an analysis on the watershed scale and by integrating economic knowledge with our understanding of ecosystems, I will be able to identify new courses of action that can improve environmental quality and reduce water treatment costs.

Finally, economic analysis can help us avoid making costly mistakes. It has been asserted that decision making without analysis can lead to systematic bias and error (Costanza). Errors can be costly, either to us directly or for future generations. Incorrect valuations or expectations about the future may constrain future choices, or limit the resources available to us tomorrow. Economic analysis helps us study these future scenarios, although this sort of analysis is by no means exclusive to the realm of economics.

Thus economics provides a common language in which to evaluate alternatives. And while this common language is not perfect, it is a starting point upon which to make systematic evaluations of proposed strategies for moving forward.

Methods for estimating social preferences
Economics also provides methods to ascertain social preferences. In watershed planning processes, these methods are especially useful since many of the goods and services related to watershed planning are not valued by markets. In these cases, economics offers methods for estimating how society values these goods and services. Common methods in environmental economics include: hedonic valuations, that decompose the value of marketed goods into various components in order to extract the additional value of a non-marketed good; contingent valuation studies that directly inquire into individuals willingness to pay for a non-marketed good or service, and travel cost studies, which measure the expenses travelers pay to visit areas of biological value or natural beauty in order to ascertain how much they value these sites.

Here I have described only four ways in which economic analysis contributes to watershed planning. Yet all of these insights from economics: (1) the improvement of resource allocation for efficiency; (2) the establishment of appropriate rules of engagement; (3) comparing alternative courses of action; and (4) methods for estimating social preferences; are designed to improve decision making and social welfare. These contributions, while limited in many respects, nevertheless can help clarify the complex and competing demands associated with watershed management.

PhD Qualifying Exam: Methods (Question 3)

2009-03-15T20:11:00.000-07:00

Discuss the major challenges and opportunities in commodifying ecosystem services for watershed management.

Ecosystem services are the goods and services that ecosystems provide humans. They are valuable because we depend on them to survive (Daily 1997, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). Ecosystems produce the food we eat, purify our air and water, and regulate our climate. Ecosystem services are the basic life support systems for all human activity. Yet while their value has been widely recognized, these values have not been incorporated into decision making. The result has been widespread deterioration of these ecosystems, which threatens their capacity to meet our needs in the short run and threatens human survival in the long run (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005).

What explains this contradiction? How can ecosystem services be essential for human survival and yet at the same time be constantly degraded? Many scholars believe that ecosystem services continue to deteriorate because they have been inappropriately valued, or commodified, by the public and private institutions that manage them. Without appropriate valuation, the contributions made by ecosystem services are not included in the decisions that accelerate their deterioration.

It follows then, that the appropriate valuation of ecosystem services can make huge strides in improving ecosystem management. New York City’s water supply is the most heralded example of how our understanding of the watershed dynamics allowed water managers to invest in an upstream protection scheme instead of building a filtration plant. This huge success has been widely celebrated as a successful adoption of ecosystem valuation that saved New York City billions of dollars (Heal, NRC).

Incorporating ecosystem services into an economic framework has many of the advantages that one might expect. It can improve resource efficiency, clarify tradeoffs, promote intergenerational equity, and ensure economic and ecologic sustainability of human and biological systems. In short, assessing and valuing ecosystem services is an essential step toward sustainability (Daily, Matson, Chan, Ricketts, Kareiva). This proposition is not entirely new, since early ecological economists such as Robert Costanza and Herman Daly, have supported the integration of economic and ecological systems for many years, and only now this approach has become widely accepted and mainstream.

There are clear opportunities associated with integrating ecosystem services into management decisions and yet considerable challenges remain. These challenges emerge from different disciplines and fields. First I will address two points of view who question the commodification process, either because they question anthropocentrism or because they question the underlying logic of market capitalism. Then I will proceed to discuss the challenges associated with valuing ecosystem services even when one accepts, at least temporarily, an anthropocentrist and capitalistic frame of reference. But first, a few thoughts on commodification and valuation.

Valuation has become a contested issue (Goulder and Kennedy 1997). It is important to clarify that economists only claim to measure economic values, and do not make claims on spiritual or moral values. These other values could be in addition to economic values, not replace them. Confusion on the scope of economic valuation has led to considerable confusion and virulent attacks against economists (NRC 2005).

I understand commodification to be a particular form of valuation that results in commercial values. I would argue that not all valuations imply commodification because many non-market valuations do not expect a commercial transaction to occur.

Commodification implies the transformation of a good so that it can be exchanged with another good of equal value. In short, it becomes substitutable. If a good is substitutable, this feature permits individuals to trade in order to improve individual utility or generate additional value. William Cronon has eloquently described the commodification of grain markets in Chicago. In his account, the commodification of grain was an essential institutional innovation that permitted the development of trade and commerce in the American West. Without commodification, farmers were attached to the precise kernels that came from their field. However when farmers could exchange grain-vouchers instead of grain, their product was commodified and could be rapidly traded between individuals or across continents without moving a single sack of wheat. This generated huge flexibility and wealth. Farmers could use grain vouchers to buy other goods such as land, or use the grain markets like a bank where they could trade their vouchers for gold when needed. This process depended merely on accepting that owning grain was not restricted to a particular physical entity, but rather to rights on a grain of the same quality.

In some ways, ecosystem service research is seeking to make equivalent efficiency improvements as those observed in the nineteenth century grain markets. However the commodification of ecosystem services, and the implication of substutibility remains controversial, especially those who hold a biocentrist view. Acknowledging the substitution of a good, such as an ecosystem service, may unnerve those who wish to protect it based on its intrinsic value. If one believes that certain things should have value even if no human believes so, then this position subscribes to biocentrism. This biocentrist position is difficult to reconcile with the anthropocentric field of economics. They would object to commodification of ecosystem services as an undervaluation of the true value of the ecosystems. Some biocentrists claim that priceless goods should not be valued at all because the process of valuation inherently de-values its infinite worth. Economists counter by asserting that not assigning any value permits a valuation in practice of zero.

To commodify assumes an anthropocentric framework, where all values are referenced to human preferences. However an anthropocentric view of economics approach can account for intrinsic values through the concept of existence values (NRC 2005). Existence value is the value that individuals derive from knowing that a particular species or place exists, even if they never obtain any instrumental benefits this environmental good (they never visit or see the species). Therefore the anthropocentric view has incorporated some flexibility to incorporate the values of those who care about the preservation of ecosystems even if they have not immediate instrumental value.

Anyone who questions the underlying logic of market capitalism is also likely to have problems with the commodification of ecosystem services. For many, including Marxists-environmentalists (Castree), the underlying logic of economic is seen as the culprit that is driving ecological deterioration. Therefore, it seems counterintuitive that more economic thinking can pull us out of ecological catastrophe. This position holds that what is needed is less economic commodification, not more (McCauley 2006).

In addition to these broader criticisms on the commodification of ecosystem services, there are still challenges for those who accept anthropocentrism and market capitalism. I will discuss only three additional challenges (a) scalar mismatch (b) dynamic systems and nonlinearity, and (c) permanence.

Scalar mismatch
Another central challenge to ecosystem service valuation is scalar mismatch. Ecosystem services operate at time and spatial scales that far exceed the scope of the institutions we have created to manage them (Costanza, Ostrom). This scalar mismatch crosses both time and space. It has been recognized that all valuations are contingent upon the scalar assumptions, and that useful valuation cannot be made without specifiying the time and spatial scales adopted (NRC 2005). Scalar mismatch also leads to problems of aggregation, as evident in the controversial piece Costanza et al. (1997), in which they multiplied average ecosystem values per hectare by total global hectares. It then ambitiously summed up the value of all ecosystems across the globe. This simplistic approach of multiplication and addition implied that ecosystems had uniform value across time and space. However we know that ecosystems are dynamic and nonlinear.

Dynamic Systems and Nonlinearity
The dynamic and nonlinear feature of ecosystems defies attempts at commodification and valuation. Ecosystem service provision has dynamic variations over seasons, elevations, or latitudes. Furthermore there are thresholds upon which certain ecosystems obtain or lose value. For example, a large wetland may metabolize wastewater from a small town and allow city managers to avoid investing in a wastewater treatment plant. However reduction in the wetland size may suddenly disrupt the capacity of the wetland to provide its service. Or, the same wetland in another town that already has a wastewater treatment plant would not ascribe the same value to the same wetland.

Koch et al. (2009) described how coastal vegetation provided nonlinear protection of coastal property that depended on tidal and seasonal fluctuations as well as geographic location. There was no doubt that the presence of the marine vegetation reduced wave impact on shore, and could mitigate the property damage produced by large storms. However the provision of this service fluctuated tremendously over time and space. Tidal fluctuations overlapped with seasonal changes and movements in ocean currents to provide nonlinear service provision. Even the same species with similar densities would offer less protection at lower latitudes that similar ecosystem in northern latitudes. This example exemplifies the over-simplification made in Costanza’s piece, since it is inaccurate to assume constant service provision over time and space. It also provides insight into the difficulties in valuing services that have so much fluctuation.

Permanence
Valuations have been criticized because they are embedded in social systems and markets that are volatile, and therefore cannot offer permanent protection. There is a fear that if we justify conservation based on economic reasons alone, this protection may not survive in the long run because of the whims of the markets. As we have seen with the current financial crises, changes in expectations can evaporate wealth. If conservation is based on economic values instead of moral values, it becomes vulnerable to sudden changes in the marketplace that can invert outcomes.

For example, in Costa Rica coffee producers depend on pollination services from nearby forest ecosystems. It has been shown that proximity to forests increases the economic output of coffee producing plantations as a result of pollination services. This justified additional forest protection. But then the market changed. Coffee prices dropped and pineapples were planted instead of coffee. The pineapples did not rely on pollination services, therefore the economic logic would then strip the forest of its value that justified protection, and potentially, the economic logic may recommend cutting the forests for its commercial value as timber (McCauley 2006). Therefore the commodification strategy associated with ecosystems services suffers from a lack of permanence because it is inherently embedded in social systems and perceptions which may change.

Those who criticize the commodification of ecosystem services raise valid questions. I agree that there are times when we must confront real tradeoffs between ecosystem protection and human needs. Ecosystems are not always benevolent nor will they always align themselves with human interests. We should not delude ourselves into believing that this compatibility is universal or constant. But at the same time, there are still many circumstances in which this compatibility has not been realized. Low hanging fruit awaits discovery, and I hypothesize that our disciplinary blinders has prevented us from uncovering them.

Furthermore, to exploit the benefits of ecosystem services it is not necessary to resolve all the controversial issues raised with valuation. Instead of investing resources into improving our valuation methods, some have suggested that valuation be sidestepped completely by instead focusing on cost-effectiveness of particular policy goals (Power et al.). In this way one can concentrate on cost-effective approaches with tangible benefits associated with particular outcomes. It is likely that my dissertation will follow this route, where I will use the ecosystem services framework to uncover new watershed management approaches with tangible benefits without having to answer all the questions regarding valuation and commodification.

PhD Qualifying Exam: Planning Theory (Question 2)

2009-03-15T20:10:00.000-07:00

In the context of conflicting interests of the upstream and downstream user, discuss how theories and understandings of justice may inform distinct set of interventions and distinct outcomes for planners involved in watershed management.

To discuss the relevance of understanding justice for planning outcome sought you may choose two or three of the theoretical frameworks suggested below, or choose others as you see fit: Justice as freedom to achieve optimum capabilities (Amartya Sen); Justice as recognition of difference (Iris Young), justice as fairness (John Rawls).

Conflicts over natural resources can originate from different understandings about justice. Similarly, conflicts related to watershed management and water pollution are also grounded in different theories of justice since different water users or polluters make competing claims about their rights to use or abuse water resources. When these competing claims are brought forward to public officials, they often must decide how to weigh these competing claims. At this point it becomes critical for public official to understand the different conceptualizations of justice and their philosophical origins. More broadly, local users and researchers should also understand the competing definitions of justice in order to provide more clarity in their analysis.

Claims about justice are inseparable from the philosophical and moral code that guides decision-making. We all cling to various ethical frameworks whether we recognize them or not. Sometimes we even hold on to clashing ethical frameworks simultaneously. However it is the responsibility of the public official, planner, or watershed manager, to understand these competing ethical frameworks, each with its own conception of justice, in order to make reasoned decisions. Understanding these ethical frameworks will help us weigh competing arguments, accurately communicate different positions, and potentially uncover new positions that have failed to surface.

Since conceptions of justice emerge from various theoretical and philosophical frameworks, and since a theory of justice cannot be isolated from its philosophical origin, I will discuss three conceptions of justice offered by three major philosophical currents: utilitarianism, rights-based justice, and Rawlsian justice. First I describe the conception of justice held by each philosophical position and then proceed to describe the recommendations they would make in cases of watershed conflicts. I conclude with some final remarks.

Utilitarian conception of Justice
Under a utilitarian conception of justice, interventions are deemed permissible if they increase aggregate social value. By default, interventions that decrease social value are deemed morally impermissible. Economic analysis is largely grounded in the utilitarian philosophical framework. Pure utilitarian logic is difficult to defend and therefore a degree of flexibility has been incorporated. The well known decision rule of Pareto Optimality - whereby everyone must be made better off without making anyone worse off - encapsulates a modified yet mainstream utilitarian position. At times, economists have been accused of being insensitive to distributional issues, and therefore insensitive to issues of justice. However this interpretation is not entirely accurate since Pareto Optimality explicitly posits that no individual should be made worse off. Beyond not making anyone worse off, the Pareto Optimality decision rule provides no guidance as to how resources should be distributed, as long as resources are used efficiently.

However in practice, most interventions have winners and losers. This makes Pareto Optimality is difficult to obtain without additional intervention. In response, many utilitarians will accept potentially Pareto Optimal decisions as long as the losers are compensated, and the end result is that no one is made worse off.

Therefore a utilitarian conception of justice would seek to ensure that those damaged by resource use in the watershed were appropriately compensated. Compensation becomes the primary avenue for addressing injustice. In this framework, where injustice is defined as a breach in the rules of Pareto Optimality, justice is generated by accurately measuring the costs and benefits of economic activity or policy interventions.

A utilitarian conception of justice would lead watershed managers to engage in prolific measurement and quantification of welfare and utility. Utility in turn, can be monetized which permits precise compensation for lost welfare. In this conception of justice, there is a precise numeric solution to the distribution of resources that can lead to a just society, or that can determine when a policy becomes just or unjust. In short, issues of justice become technical questions that can be resolved by more precise measurement or more appropriate distribution (compensation).

However even those who ascribe to this position would recognize that there are limitations to this conception, such as our capacity for measurement, uncertainty about the precision of our measurements, and as well as problems of comparability and commensurability.

Rights based conception of Justice
A rights based approach considers decisions or actions to be just when essential rights are not violated. This conception breaks from the utilitarian framework and resolves some of the awkward decisions generated by pure utilitarianism. For example, if the production of a particular good in a watershed leads to tremendous income, wealth and prosperity for 100,000 but at the expense of intoxicating 2 downstream users to death, then this would clearly violate the essential rights of two individuals and be deemed unjust. Depending on the value ascribed to life, or the value of a statistical life (VSL), utilitarians could accept this outcome.

Environmentalists often rely on a rights based theory of justice when they argue that the right to life, health, beauty, or ecological integrity should take precedence over economic activity. When an economic or scientific analysis does not sway the opinion of an environmentalist, it is likely that they are holding on to a rights based conception of justice. In some cases, the rights based position extends rights to the non-human world, and therefore they take a non-anthropocentric ethical framework that includes rights to animals, plants and even the physical world. This conception of justice has been advanced by philosophers such as Peter Singer and planners such as Timothy Beatly. Their conception of justice would include the aquatic species living in the river, as well as the terrestrial ecosystems.

Using a rights based approach to watershed conflict would first establish everyone’s basic rights and ensure that those were met. However a challenge arises when these rights themselves come into conflict. How do we balance the right to clean drinking water with the right to the preservation of a beautiful valley? The controversy surrounding the construction of Hetch Hetchy Dam in California confronted this precise question.

Legislation tries to protect basic rights pertaining to public health and safety. Often, these rights are enforced by creating minimum public health standards for drinking water supplies. For example, in the Llobregat watershed, the disinfection process for treating drinking water generates disinfection by-products which are known carcinogens. These carcinogens are distributed in the drinking supply. Since utilities knowingly intoxicate drinking water users, one could claim that the right to clean water has been violated. But what does “clean water” really mean? Everywhere we are surrounded by contaminants, and by default we live with certain levels of pollution. At which level of contamination do the rights of drinking water users become violated? Should one permit carcinogenic byproducts at 1 part per million (ppm)? 10 ppm? 100 ppm? There are no clear guidelines, and ultimately a decision must be made at some threshold. It is at this point where the economic analysis/framework provides some guidance, if nothing less, for an approximation. A world that holds to all rights, simultaneously, seems difficult to defend, and much more difficult to implement in practice.

In the Llobregat watershed, the rights based conceptualization would also need to balance the rights of workers who benefit from the polluting industry, with the rights of downstream users. While the rights based conception of justice is attractive and useful, philosophers have been struggling to organize these rights into a consistent framework for decision making. Perhaps the philosopher that made the most progress in this regard has been John Rawls.

Rawlsian conception of Justice
John Rawls rejected a utilitarian conception of justice, and fits himself squarely under a rights based conceptualization of justice. One of his central contributions was finding an innovative method for reconciling the conflicting needs of various rights, especially between liberty and equality. In his seminal work, A Theory of Justice, Rawls outlines the features of his philosophical framework, and makes suggestions about how to prioritize and balance competing rights.

According to Rawlsian justice, decisions or actions are just if they improve the welfare of the worst off. Rawls arrives to this conclusion through his “veil of ignorance” metaphor. He argues that if, a priori, we did not know our material conditions in the real world, we would chose to make an equitable and just distribution of resources. The decisions we would make under the ‘veil of ignorance’ would lead us to a just world. In these circumstances, liberty would be highly prized since behind the veil of ignorance, no one would wish to be a slave. Rawls prizes liberty, and asserts that liberty should not be violated except in few circumstances. The central exception to our right to liberty is under circumstances where it benefits the least favored. As a result, Rawlsian justice focuses on improving the welfare of the worst off.

An application of Rawlsian justice in watershed management would entail identifying and improving the welfare of the least well off. One can assume that the least well off is measured in economic terms, although there are probably other metrics upon which we can determine well-being. The stakeholders in the Llobregat include the mining company, the water treatment utilities, the mining communities, river communities along the Llobregat and water consumers. This approach would entail qualitative methods and historical analysis since determining the “worst off” is historically and culturally contextual. In economic terms, one might find that communities in the mining town to be the worst off, and their economic condition would deteriorate further if the mine company were to shut down (and pollution stopped). But the process of defining stakeholders, it becomes clear that there is some level discretion.

In sum, different conceptualizations of justice lead to different approaches to watershed management. Being able to understand these differences, their origins and implications, will prepare watershed managers to balance competing claims about what is deemed to be the ethically appropriate decision.

PhD Qualifying Exam: Planning Theory (Question 1)

2009-03-15T20:07:00.000-07:00

Imagine past and contemporary planning theorists subscribing to different epistemological traditions have somehow gathered in one room to discuss your research project titled: “Watershed Management and River Restoration in the Context of Conflicting Upstream and Downstream Interests.”

a) Choose your favorite theorist(s) within the following traditions:
• Rational scientific planning;
• Coherentist planning
• Postmodern planning
• Collaborative planning

b) Outline how each theorist will advise you on guiding principles of your planning intervention; and
c) Discuss the strengths and limitations of each perspective in dealing with the context of your project.

This week I was fortunate to discuss my research with planning theorists who ascribe to contrasting schools of thought. From each of them, I have obtained valuable lessons and strategies for framing my research. Below I describe what they told me, as well as the strengths and limitations to their approach as it pertains to my work on watershed management.

Rational scientific planning
The rational and scientific planners (Simon, Davidoff, Faludi, Wildavsky) got straight to the point. They advised me to begin with a comprehensive watershed diagnostic. I should begin by collect biophysical data (elevation, vegetation, urbanization, hydrology, soil type, sewer systems, flow trends, water quality etc...) in addition to social data (water users, income, willingness to pay) and integrate this into a singular watershed model. The advances in geographic information system (GIS) software would facilitate the integration of the data layers into a singular electronic model. Once the diagnostic was completed, the main problems in the watershed such as pollution or inefficiencies would reveal themselves.

Having generated a diagnostic watershed model, the rational and scientific decision maker would then proceed with the following steps:
1) Identify watershed goals
2) Establish priorities and criteria to evaluate interventions
3) Identify all possible watershed interventions
4) Evaluate alternatives according to priorities and criteria
5) Select the best policy
6) Implement

The advantage to this decision making process is that it is linear and straightforward. There is also accountability for why decisions have been made. In terms of accountability, it is democratic, even though the decisions are often centralized. And while some of the planners recognized some weaknesses to this approach, they insisted that it was necessary because there is so much about the watershed that we still did not understand: Which pollutants flow through the watershed? How to these pollutants interact with the ecosystems? What is the cost of treating these pollutants? How do these pollutants vary over space and time? And they pointed out that no one had yet studied the ecosystem service provision in the watershed. In this sense, they encouraged me to explore the spatial and temporal variability of the ecosystem services provided in the watershed.

I quickly determined that the comprehensive watershed planning approach would not be entirely appropriate for my research. Even if I adopted Herbert Simon’s ‘bounded rationality’, that permitted screening of alternatives and sufficing with the most realistic options, the complexity of the watershed still far exceeded my capacity of comprehension. There are the standard criticisms to the rational choice model, such as the lack of comparability between alternatives, and the difficulty in quantifying particular values. But even beyond that, I was concerned that their approach did not encourage me to look at the historical and political context of water pollution. It seems that there is a wealth of information and insight to be uncovered by looking into the past and by understanding how the watershed has evolved over time.

The rational planners recommended that I rely predominately on quantitative methods. While many of these are useful, I found that most quantitative methods suggested would not uncover the multidimensionality and complexity of the watershed problems at hand.

Coherentist planning
Donaghy and Hopkins (2006) suggested that I take a coherentist approach to planning. They told me that creating a singular and hierarchical master plan for the watershed was neither possible nor advisable. This singular comprehensive plan would be an artificial construct in the sense that it would smother dissent among various actors in the watershed. By glossing over dissent, I would lose out on valuable insight that can be generated by exploring the tensions. From a theoretical perspective, they explained that a coherentist approach to planning theory follows the same logic as the theory about maintain a ‘web of plans’. Just how a ‘web of plans’ is preferable to a Master plan, so too is it preferable to maintain contextual theories that co-exist despite their contradictions. Therefore in planning theory, it is critical to look for and rely upon a repertoire of planning theories to assist us is deriving theories of explanations and theories of justifications. While we all need theories (explanations and justifications) to help us cope with the complexity of the world, these theories should be contingent on context. Researchers should ask about the historical and political of theory making, as well as ask which audience will consume or evaluate the theory. Donaghy and Hopkins suggested that I begin by analyzing my audience since the audience is likely to determine the causal depth necessary to validate the explanation I may give. We agreed that my audience consists of both public officials and water treatment engineers, and that this group is more likely to be amenable to models of how the watershed works. In this case, they encouraged me to work with researchers who have experience on quantitative modeling of pollution, while at the same time, explore other questions using other methods that can complement my quantitative findings.

Donaghy and Hopkins were supportive of my idea to conduct an environmental history of water pollution in the watershed. They agreed that this analysis could reveal insights that could elude my analysis of water quality and treatment costs. They also encouraged me to identify discrepancies and inconsistencies among the methods I used, because they hypothesized that it was at these points of friction, on the edges between disciplines, where advances could be made. They also warned me of dogmatisms, and encouraged me to not presume disagreement between theories.

The advantage of the coherentist approach is that it provides me with epistemological flexibility, and provides me with a broader range of methods and strategies to address my research question. The disadvantage to their approach is that it remains unclear how to select particular approaches in different circumstances.

Postmodern planning
The postmodernists were a fun crowd (Foucault, Milroy, Beauregard, Sandercock). They reveled in questioning every assumption I had made in my proposal. They reminded me that knowledge is a social construct, not the product of objective rationalization. To prove their point, they relied on the work of linguists (Saussucre) who showed that meaning is ultimately subject to our interpretation of arbitrary signifiers. By understanding the separation of signifier and signified, we realize that our words are arbitrary combinations of symbols that have meaning only in their social context. By changing or removing the social context, we can change or remove meaning. As a result all knowledge is socially constructed, and in constant evolution. ‘Truth’ becomes redefined as that which is no longer contested in a particular social context.

The postmodernists had plenty of suggestions that were relevant to my work. First, they suggested that searching for a singular and optimal solution to water pollution was fruitless. And even if a singular solution could be calculated, they warned me that the result was contingent upon our positionality and assumptions. To this I replied that economists already knew that assumptions were critical for determining outcomes! The postmodernists clarified, saying that they were referring to assumptions about which questions were important to ask in the first place. In this respect, they advised me to concentrate on problem framing instead of problem solving.

Milroy (2001) was able to summarize four basic tenants of post-modernism thought. First, it was deconstructive, in the sense that I described earlier. Second, it was anti-foundational, meaning that they rejected universal laws, truth and reason. Third, it was non-dualistic in the sense that they discouraged traditional dichotomies that frame our understanding: good vs. bad; men vs. women; fact vs. values. And fourth, they embraced diversity.

I felt I could accept most, but not all of Milroy’s tenants of postmodernity. The tenant that caused me most concern was anti-foundationalism since it rejected all universal laws and truth. Accepting such a tenant would put me a serious bind, and challenge my ability to make recommendations. Accepting anti-foundationalism risked throwing me off the precipice of relativism where no truth exists, no assertion becomes more valid than another, and no action is possible. In short, everything goes.

Still, it was useful speaking to the postmodern planners because they encouraged me to think about power relationships. They also encouraged me to deconstruct the existing narratives that dominate explanations about water pollution. One dominant narrative is that the pollution emanating from the mine is too expensive to clean up and that the costs for addressing the problem far exceed the potential benefits. Furthermore, the narrative asserts that local mining towns depend on employment from the operation of the mines, and that closing the mines would provoke widespread economic devastation.

The postmodernists helped me construct a counter-narrative that described how mining towns have already organized to enforce environmental regulations on the mining industry. The mines have already generated economic devastation for other industries including local water suppliers that need to ship in new water from miles away because their local source has been salinated. Profits from the mines are exported to a foreign mining conglomerate in the Middle East, and miners are willing to change employment if other opportunities existed. Lastly, the ‘costs’ of addressing the pollution problem may in fact generate returns on investment (profits) downstream, and finally, the operation of the mine may be compatible with ecosystem recovery.

Collaborative planning
The collaborative planners (Forrester, Healey, Innes and Susskind) were congenial and great listeners. They encouraged me to play close attention what was being said about the watershed, and then to participate in this dialogue. For these collaborative planners, knowledge was constructed through communication acts. They drew from Habermas and his conception of communicative rationality -- which is essentially an epistemological view that knowledge is created through communication (Sandercock 1998). This concept made intuitive sense to me, and also offered a concrete strategy for moving forward in a postmodern world where knowledge and truth may be social constructs.

When we engage in dialogue, we bring with us our personal views of how the world works. Our cultural background shapes our perception of facts and theories in unique ways. These perceptual differences can account for much of the disagreements about watershed policies. Therefore the collaborative planners agreed with the postmodernists in the sense that knowledge is a social construct. But they diverged by pointing out that knowledge could be generated through productive dialogue. Despite our difference when we come to the table, if we listen, communicate and share points of view, then as a group we can create a new consensus, and ultimately, new knowledge, and a new truth. This epistemological view of how knowledge is generated and validated offers considerable insight. It suggests that deliberation by itself can generate knowledge, without adherence to any particular to a particular scientific method. Conversely, knowledge generated under the scientific epistemology may not be sufficient for social validity but that those findings should be inserted into the process of dialogue for validation. Ultimately, peers and contemporaries will determine the value of my work. My findings do not live in a social vacuum, and therefore if I seek relevance, it must be a part of the broader discussion.

The collaborative planners encouraged me to speak and listen carefully to the stakeholders in the watershed. They advised me to be aware of gender differences, class differences and social position, since each would probably influence local perceptions. They asked me: Who do you listen to? Who are you willing to learn from?
It was great to talk to Judith Innes who has practical experience implementing dialogue processes in California watersheds.

Some collaborative planners recommended that I hold a visioning process for the watershed that could bring the stakeholders together to discuss their conflicting views and priorities. Others suggested that instead of relying of GIS models to identify the ecosystem services, that I simply interview local residents and ask them what services they have identified.

While I was very interested in their approach, I pointed out that methodologically, my research would probably not use a collaborative planning process. Nevertheless, I quickly subscribed to their epistemological views. We agreed that understanding the value of dialogue would be useful throughout my career, especially since I will be collaborating with experts from different professional and cultural backgrounds.

By the end of my conversation with these planning theorists, it was clear that each of them had already influenced my intellectual formation. By knowing which each theory had to offer, I felt more prepared to engage in meaningful research.

PhD Qualifying Exams

2009-03-15T20:03:00.000-07:00

Last week I took my department Qualifying Exams which test my knowledge in three areas: Planning Theory, Methods, and my Area of Specialty. I took them over the course of three days. In each area, I was given two questions and seven hours to respond. The exam was closed book and closed notes, and I did not know the questions in advance.

Understanding variations in ecosystem service provision

2009-02-25T19:43:00.001-08:00

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment defines ecosystem services as the benefits that people derive from ecosystems (MA 2005). It is the natural capital that we rely on for food production, climate stabilization, pollination and drinking water. In the last decade, research on ecosystem services has exploded as academics and practitioners alike are searching for more explicit connections between ecosystems and human well being. New York City’s water supply is the successful adoption of the ecosystem services framework in practice. When water managers were evaluating alternatives for improving drinking water quality, it was found that investing in their natural capital, through watershed management and forest conservation, provided equivalent water quality at only a fraction of the cost of a new filtration plant. The financial savings have been estimated at $6 to $8 billion, plus $300 million per year in maintenance (Chichilnisky & Heal 1998, NRC 2000).

However our dependence on ecosystems has not prevented us from stressing them to the point where we have reduced their capacity to meet our needs (MA 2003). To maintain our ecosystem services intact we must incorporate their value into decision making (Daily et al. 2009). Initially ecosystem valuations measured total economic value (Costanza et al. 1997, Loomis et al. 2000). In a widely cited piece from Nature, Costanza et al. (1997) calculated the total economic value of 17 global ecosystem services to be in the range of USD$16-54 trillion/yr. Yet these estimates of total economic value were of little use to decision makers since most management choices operate at smaller scales and on the margins. That is, decision makers need to understand how the additional protection of an ecosystem will provide additional economic benefits to human populations. Marginal values are essential for evaluating tradeoffs. This recognition inspired research that integrated economic and ecological systems with the purpose of estimating the marginal values of ecosystem services (NRC 2005).

The problem with marginal valuations is that they generally assume a linear relationship between the ecosystem’s condition and the value of the service provided. This linearity does not hold for either ecosystem conditions or for the services provided. Ecologists have documented that ecosystems can fluctuate between alternative states where marginal changes have no impact if thresholds have been passed (Holling 1978). Economic systems also have thresholds whereby costs kick in after a certain point. Thus assuming linearity in our study of ecosystem services is likely to provide misleading information (Barbier et al. 2008). A new consensus is emerging that research on ecosystem services must consider the inherent variability and thresholds that are characteristic of both ecological and economic systems.

Researchers have only recently attempted to understand the stochastic qualities of ecosystem services. Aburto-Oropeza et al. (2008) studied the spatial and temporal fluctuations of fish catch as they related to mangrove conditions, while Koch et al. (2009) studied the irregular protection of coastal property provided by marine vegetation. The scant review of non-linear ecosystem service provision has generated urgent calls for improving our understanding of how ecosystem services fluctuate across space and time (Koch et al. 2009, Kremen et al. 2009).

Aburto-Oropeza, Octavio, Exequiel Ezcurra, Gustavo Danemann, Víctor Valdez, Jason Murray, and Enric Sala. 2008. Mangroves in the Gulf of California increase fishery yields. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (30): 10456-9.

Barbier, Edward B., Evamaria W. Koch, Brian R. Silliman, Sally D. Hacker, Eric Wolanski, Jurgenne Primavera, Elise F. Granek, et al. 2008. Coastal ecosystem-based management with nonlinear ecological functions and values. Science 319: 321-3.

Berrens, R., Ganderton, P. Silva, C. 1996. Valuing the protection of minimum instream flow in New Mexico. Journal of Agricultural Resource Economics. 21:90-104.

Chichilnisky, G. and G. Heal. 1998. Economic returns from the biosphere. Nature 391: 629-630.

Costanza, Robert, Ralph D'Arge, Rudolf de Groot, Stephen Farber, Monica Grasso, Bruce Hannon, Karin Limburg, et al. 1997. The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature (387): 253-260.

Daily, Gretchen C., Stephen Polasky, Joshua Goldstein, Peter M. Kareiva, Harold A. Mooney, Liba Pejchar, Taylor H. Ricketts, James Salzman, and Robert Shallenberger. 2009. Ecosystem services in decision making: Time to deliver. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (1): 21-8.

Daily, Gretchen C. 1997. Introduction: What are ecosystem services? In Nature's services: Societal dependence on natural ecosystems., ed. Gretchen C. Daily, 1-19. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

Holling, C. S. 1978. Adaptive environmental assessment and management. Wiley IIASA international series on applied systems analysis Chichester ; New York: Wiley.

Kremen, Claire, and Richard S. Ostfeld. 2005. A call to ecologists: Measuring, analyzing, and managing Ecosystem services. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (3): 540-8.

Koch, Evamaria W., Edward B. Barbier, Brian R. Silliman, Denise J. Reed, Gerardo M. E. Perillo, Sally D. Hacker, Elise F. Granek, et al. 2009. Non-linearity in ecosystem services: Temporal and spatial variability in coastal protection. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (1): 29-37.

Loomis, J.B., P. Kent, L. Strange, K. Faush, A. Covich. 2000. Measuring the total economic value of restoring ecosystem services in an impaired river basin: results from a contingent valuation study. Ecological Economics. (33):103-117.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. 2005. Ecosystems and human well-being: Current states and trends. Washington DC: Island Press.

National Research Council. 2000. Watershed management for potable water supply: Assessing the New York City strategy. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

National Research Council. 2005. Valuing Ecosystem Services: Toward Better Environmental Decision Making. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

(Koch et al. 2009) Non-linearity in ecosystem services: temporal and spatial variability in coastal protection

2009-02-12T19:49:00.000-08:00

Since natural systems fluctuate over time and space, so do their associated ecosystem services. Koch et al (2009) propose that ecosystem managers take a closer look at these seasonal and spatial variations in order to assess the value of the ecosystem services more accurately. To date, few studies have looked at ecosystem thresholds or dynamic responses in the context of ecosystem services. They suggest that future research seek to incorporate the non-linear properties of the services for more accurate assessments. The authors show that assuming spatial and temporal linearity can lead to significant errors when trying to estimate the protection value of coastal ecosystems from storm damage.

This is a timely article for my research. In discussion with my advisors last week, we agreed that the water treatment managers in the Llobregat watershed were confronting environmental costs with significant seasonal and spatial variation. It became clear that understanding the dynamic nature of the ecosystem service provision in the watershed would be critical to help improve water treatment decisions. If we pursue this approach in the dissertation, Koch et al (2009) will an example from which to build upon.

Koch, EW., E.B. Barbier, B.R. Silliman, D.J. Reed, G.M.E. Perillo, S.D. Hacker, E.F. Granek, J.H. Primavera, N. Muthiga, S.Polansky, B.S Halpern, C.J. Kennedy, C.V. Kappel, E. Wolanski. 2009. Non-linearity in ecosystem services: temporal and spatial variability in coastal protection. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 7(1): 29-37.

Special Issue on Ecosystem Services

2009-02-12T19:23:00.000-08:00

This month, February 2009, the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment has published a special issue dedicated to ecosystem services, and it includes the most current ideas from the fields’ most well reputed scholars. Gretchen Daily and her team publish a piece entitled Ecosystem services in decision making: time to deliver, where they point out that the value of natural capital has not been incorporated into resource and land-use decisions on a large scale. To reach this goal, they present a conceptual framework that outlines the steps needed for ecosystem services to deliver on its promise.

The authors also briefly mention a software tool being developed, called Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs – InVEST, which is being designed to help decision makers quantify the benefits and tradeoffs associated with ecosystem services and relevant land-use decisions. However details regarding the software remains sparse, and it is unclear what distinguishes InVEST from other modeling tools used by environmental economists. That being said, it appears that the Natural Capital Project has recently released its first beta version of the InVEST software (1.001 beta) and its respective user guide. It looks like the software is being distributed as an ArcGIS toolbox. This looks like a smart move that should facilitate easy user adoption.

Daily, Gretchen C., Stephen Polasky, Joshua Goldstein, Peter M. Kareiva, Harold A. Mooney, Liba Pejchar, Taylor H. Ricketts, James Salzman, and Robert Shallenberger. 2009. Ecosystem services in decision making: Time to deliver. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 7(1): 21-28.

Research on Ecosystems Services searches for Integration

2009-02-12T10:11:00.000-08:00

An underlying theme in the ecosystem services literature is integration. Scholars are searching for ways to overlap ecology with economics in order to generate new insight (Powers et al. 2005, Fisher et al. 2008, Ward and Pulido-Velázquez 2008, Daily et al. 2009). The ultimate goal is to improve decision making with respect to both ecosystems and human welfare. In their quest for integration, specialists in both fields are exploring unfamiliar topics. This has led to creative thinking, but also generated a degree of confusion, especially for students still learning both fields. Within the community of scholars specialized in Ecosystem Services, there is a consensus that integration is fundamentally a good thing; that future breakthroughs will be generated by this integration; and that we are still only in its incipient stages.

References
Daily, Gretchen C., Stephen Polasky, Joshua Goldstein, Peter M. Kareiva, Harold A. Mooney, Liba Pejchar, Taylor H. Ricketts, James Salzman, and Robert Shallenberger. 2009. Ecosystem services in decision making: Time to deliver. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 7(1): 21-28.

Fisher, B. Kerry Turner, Matthew Zylstra, Roy Brouwer, Rudolf de Groot, Stephen Farber, Paul Ferraro, et al. et al. 2008. Ecosystem Services and Economic Theory: Integration for Policy-Relevant Research. Ecological Applications. 18(8): 2050-2067.

Powers, M.E. N. Brozović, C. Bode, D. Zilberman 2005. Spatially explicit tools for understanding and sustaining inland water ecosystems. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 3(1):47-55.

Ward, F.A. Pulido-Velázquez, M. 2008. Efficiency, equity and sustainability in a water quantity-quality optimization model in the Rio Grande basin. Ecological Economics. 66:23-37.

(Power et al. 2005) Spatially explicit tools for understanding and sustaining inland water ecosystems.

2009-02-10T18:37:00.000-08:00

Mary Power, Nicholas Brozovic, Collin Bode and David Zilberman make a compelling case that new technologies will provide researchers with an unprecedented capacity to model "socioecological systems". While ecosystem response to human change remains uncertain, dynamic and nonlinear, the new mapping, monitoring and tracing techniques will allow researchers to make better sense of the changes underway. It follows that better ecological models will improve the input data for economists who design institutional arrangements and policies for better ecosystem management.

The article transmits huge excitement. No doubt, new data sets acquired through remote sensing technologies, and new analytical tools such as ArcGIS are opening new frontiers in data analysis. I share the authors´ interest in learning how to capitalize on the spatially explicit tools available. I find that there is a large gap between what the technology will allow us to do, and what users are capable of doing. The technology seems to progress five times faster the rate of user adoption. And as a PhD student, with time to invest in learning these tools, it is nearly incumbent upon me to become an earlier adapter and use the new tools or data sets. While I yet to find the way to integrate these new tools in my research, I look forward to discussing this with my advisers.

A key contribution came at the end of the article, where the authors suggested that researchers should focus on assessing cost-effective policies based on specific goals instead of generating elaborate optimization models that need monetary values on ecosystems or species. This alternative strategy sidesteps the valuation controversy, and avoids the costly, technically difficult and politically sensitive studies such as contingent valuation surveys.

It should be noted that the some leading scholars in the field of ecosystem services are still focused on valuation methods, and the integration of ecosystem values into decision making processes (Daily et al. 2009).

Power, M.E., N. Brozovic, C. Bode, Z. Zilberman. 2005. Spatially explicit tools for understanding and sustaining inland water ecosystems. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 1(3):47-55.

Watershed Management and Optimization for Membrane Treatment Facilities

2009-02-10T18:30:00.000-08:00

My research seeks to learn how water treatment managers can optimize treatment processes through improved watershed management. I hypothesize that watershed management will gain renewed relevance as newer membrane technologies increase treatment costs downstream. In recent years, we have observed how water managers increasingly select membrane treatment in order to meet new water demand and to improve water quality. These new technologies imply significant changes to various aspects of the treatment process. The high energy use and costs associated with membrane treatment create new optimization equations. Pollutants such as dissolved salts -- previously untreatable using standard treatment methods -- now will directly increase treatment costs. Thus the technological innovation should change how water treatment managers engage with upstream polluters who degrade water supplies. More precisely, the high operating costs associated with membrane treatment may uncover new economic arguments that favor of watershed management.

To understand how membrane treatment plants should respond to upstream polluters I will draw from the fields of urban planning, environmental economics, and environmental engineering. In particular, I am interested in learning if the adoption of membrane treatment will create new opportunities to align economic incentives with environmental goals. Do the increased treatment costs generate new incentives to address point source pollution at their source? If so, what are the quantifiable economic benefits associated with specific surface water quality improvements? These questions are of interest to a broad community of environmental engineers, urban planners, and environmentalists. They also are questions that move us forward in our quest for sustainability because they simultaneously address
economic and environmental goals.

This research is inspired by the experience in New York City where water managers saved millions of dollars by investing in strategic land use management in the Catskill watershed. The investment in land conservation helped them protect drinking water supplies and avoid installing an expensive filtration system (Chichilnisky & Heal 1998). New York is one of the most well studied examples of integrated land and water management (National Research Council 2000). While my research follows the spirit of the New York case, it adds two important twists. First, the treatment technology is vastly different. Instead of seeking to avoid new technologies, my research embraces the most advanced membrane treatment and yet searches for efficient and environmentally sound practices within this new technological context. Second, I will study the benefits of restoration, not conservation. I will quantify the real savings derived from improving surface water quality instead of speculating on the avoided costs that resulted from land conservation. Furthermore, the technological and environmental conditions at my research site are more representative of urban water challenges globally. Most treatment facilities have already installed the filtration systems that New York avoided. My research site reflects conditions that water managers are likely to face in the future, whereby poor water sources will be treated with newer technologies.

Research Site
The Llobregat River near Barcelona, Spain offers a special opportunity to study the new relationship between membrane treatment and watershed management. Over 4 million residents in the Barcelona metropolitan region depend on the Llobregat River for their drinking water (Saurí 2003).Two major treatment plants draw water from the Llobregat: the public water agency Aigües Ter-Llobregat (ATLL) and the private water company Aigües de Barcelona (AGBAR). Motivated by upstream pollution and new drinking water standards, both facilities will begin to operate new desalination systems starting in 2009. The publicly managed ATLL plant has purchased a reversible electrodialysis system from General Electric. The private water company AGBAR has chosen to install a reverse osmosis system.

For decades, both facilities have had difficulties managing trihalomethanes (THM) produced during disinfection (Esteban & Prat 2006). THM formation is especially high in water from the Llobregat River because mine tailings upstream release salts and bromides. These contaminants have also contributed to poor odor and taste. While several measures have mitigated the mines’ impact, public officials have always claimed that effective management of river pollution in the Llobregat implied unbearable financial costs. This scenario may change under the new technological and economic conditions. Clearly, the new treatment systems will generate additional operation costs per cubic meter. Therefore the transition to membrane treatment and the high operating costs that come with it may change the economic calculus to make investments in upstream pollution financially viable. And while no one disputes that cleaner surface water would reduce treatment costs, it is unclear how much the savings really are, if they would materialize under actual operating conditions, and if watershed investments truly make economic sense in a restoration context.

Method
I will collect and analyze one year’s worth of data from the treatment plants in order to define the relationship between surface water quality and treatment cost under actual operating conditions. In particular, I would like to learn how marginal improvements in water quality can reduce treatment costs. Regression analysis of a time series data set will help isolate the relationship between pollutant concentrations and treatment costs. Water treatment managers are already collecting water quality data at different points in their treatment process. In collaboration with them, I will compile a database of water qualities at three critical stages: (1) raw surface water quality, (2) water quality following the standard treatment process, and prior to desalination and (3) final water quality following desalination. At each stage, I will track parameters such as temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, total organic matter, conductivity, and total THMs. When I have established how a marginal improvement in water quality reduces treatment costs, I will be able to conduct a Cost/Benefit Analysis of restoration options available to watershed managers.

Completed Research
I have conducted preliminary order of magnitude calculations to test if my research is viable. Thus far, these calculations have yielded encouraging results. The literature asserts that the operating costs for both desalination plants will be approximately €0.36 / m3 (Avlontis 2002, Karagiannis and Soldatos 2008). Nearly 75 percent of these operation costs are from energy expenditures (Valderi-Perez et al. 2001). To estimate the potential savings derived from improvements in surface water quality, I have calculated the savings associated with a 3 percent (€0.01/m3) reduction in water treatment cost. This hypothetical reduction would result in savings of over € 2 million per year. This represents a Net Present Value of €36 million over 20 years and using a discount rate of 5 percent. These are significant savings for a reasonably small reduction (3%) in water treatment cost, and suggest that there are real opportunities to align the economic and environmental goals. It means that watershed management proposals under €36 million will make financial sense if they can reduce treatment costs by only €0.01 / m3. With such a large amount of money in play, there may be several measures that can simultaneously help restore the Llobregat River and reduce treatment costs.

Com podem evaluar l'estat ecologic d'un riu?

2008-12-11T19:03:00.001-08:00

Com podem evaluar l'estat ecologic d'un riu? Apren aqui, escoltant una entrevista a la Silvia Gili, directora de Projecte Rius, per Catalunya Radio.

Interview with Pedro Arrojo

2008-12-03T08:43:00.000-08:00

Pedro Arrojo is a well known economist who has made a significant contribution to water policy in Spain. From his academic base in Zaragoza, he provided the intellectual muscle to overturn the predatory water projects planned for the Ebro River. His work has been recognized internationally -- most notably perhaps as the winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2003. In this interview [listen here] with Joan Barril and Joan Olle on the radio program El Cafe de la Republica, Professor Arrojo discusses the special attention that Spaniards have recently given to water and rivers.

While I had read Arrojo's work, I had not heard him speak. Arrojo's tone is gentle, conciliatory, and understanding. It was a pleasant contrast to many of the more strident voices in the environmental movement. And yet, his gentleness did not compromise his position. Arrojo did an excellent job communicating substantive content without being dogmatic or righteous. This interview shows that Arrojo is a role model not only for this intellectual contribution, but also for his communication skills.

Preliminary Research Hypothesis

2008-10-13T07:45:00.000-07:00

My research hypothesis is that downstream water treatment costs may be reduced through improved watershed management practices upstream. To test this hypothesis I will conduct a Cost/Benefit Analysis of river restoration options available to watershed managers. However the economic analysis cannot be conducted in isolation from the existing biophysical, political and historical context. There are relevant biophysical processes that dictate the flow of contaminants throughout the watershed, just as there are relevant historical struggles that have determined today’s resource use. Understanding the watershed’s biophysical and historical context is essential for making insightful economic analysis of river restoration options currently available to water resource managers.

Preliminary Research Question: Is River Restoration Profitable?

2008-09-07T11:22:00.000-07:00

Can river restoration be sold as an investment for water users? In other words, can restoration activities be justified by a reduction in water management costs downstream? Initially, I considered studying the financial costs of all water users downstream but I may need to focus on water treatment facilities since they are the largest water user with the highest expenditures.

To answer my question, I must understand the relationship between the water quality and treatment cost. If one could establish this relationship, one might find that a marginal improvement in water quality could lead to significant reduction in treatment costs. Since the Llobregat is highly polluted (low water quality), my initial assumption is that the treatment facilities are probably operating on the higher and more expensive end of this relationship.

Of course, specifying the relationship between water quality and treatment cost will not be easy. There are several obstacles. For example, there might be thresholds associated with certain contaminants which would create a step function. Another challenge will be defining “water quality” or “water pollution”. Both terms are comprised of many variables, often in different units. Similarly, cost data may fluctuate over time for reasons independent of water quality.

Studies have found that cleaner surface water can reduce treatment costs, although it is unclear by how much. One study in Texas found that a 1 percent increase in turbidity was associated with increased chemical cost of 0.25%. Furthermore, when comparing the presence or absence of a contamination index, the presence of contamination increased the chemical cost of water treatment an additional USD $20 to a total of USD $95 per million gallons (3,785 m3) (Dearborn 1998). More information on the total cost of water treatment would be necessary to assess the relative magnitude of these values. Also, one cannot expect to find the same level of savings as in the well known example of New York City drinking water because most urban areas already have constructed water filtration systems (Thompson 2007).

Is the ecosystem services framework useful for river restoration in the Barcelona metropolitan region?

2008-09-07T11:18:00.000-07:00

The ecosystem services framework may provide a useful entry point for addressing competing water needs in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region. In the spring of 2008 the Barcelona Metropolitan Region confronted its worst droughts in recent history. The Catalan Government implemented severe water restrictions and initiated emergency plans including the importation of desalinated water on boats from southern Spain. Authorities were concerned that water restrictions would exacerbate citizen discontent and destabilize a weak economy dependent on tourism revenue. At the same time, the European Union has mandated watershed restoration plans to obtain “good ecological status” in all water bodies including rivers (ACA 2006). The Catalan government is under pressure to meet the needs of its residents without further degrading riparian ecosystems.

Can ecosystem services help uncover win-win solutions to address Catalonia’s water problems? I begin my research open with the possibility that the ecosystem services framework is significantly more limited than advocates make it out to be. At least the literature on hydrologic services makes it clear that tradeoffs will be inevitable (Brauman et al. 2007). Furthermore, the links between water attributes such as quantity, quality, timing, and location are not easily translated into numerical values for policy makers. Perhaps surface water quality provides one of the clearest links between restoring “good ecological status” and human well-being.

Another more complex connection between ecosystem functions and human well-being relates land use, water quality and water treatment. The urbanization of a watershed with impervious surfaces is closely related to diminished water quality (Moglen & Kim 2007). This creates an incentive for water users, treatment managers and service providers to minimize development impacts on the hydrologic cycle. Are water users, treatment managers and service providers willing to pay for land conservation to protect their watershed and reduce (or stabilize) water treatment expenses? A study on this question with water service providers in California found that land was too expensive to offset the ecosystem benefits gained from protection (Thompson 2007). They concluded that for conservation to make financial sense, the hydrologic services alone are not enough. To make a convincing case for land conservation, the ecosystem services will need to be bundled. Attempts to calculate the bundled value of ecosystem services across a landscape are still preliminary. Only recently have researchers used this approach to identify and prioritize areas for conservation (Chan et. al 2006; Naidoo & Ricketts 2006). Indeed, much of the discussion on ecosystem services has been in a conservation context. The degraded conditions of the Llobregat watershed will permit an exploration of the utility of the ecosystem services concept in a restoration context. Are the ecosystem services sufficient to merit their restoration?

More on Ecosystem Services

2008-09-07T11:17:00.001-07:00

People and cities depend on the goods and services produced by our planet’s ecosystems. This dependent relationship between human well-being and the biophysical world is eloquently encapsulated by the relatively new notion of ecosystem services. The food we eat, the air we breathe, and the water we drink all derive from ecosystem processes. However our dependence on these ecosystems has not prevented us from stressing them to the point where we have reduced their capacity to meet our needs (MA 2003). To maintain our valuable ecosystem services intact we must improve our management and decision making. The ecosystem services framework promises to generate the interdisciplinary tools of the future that can meet this challenge. This approach is quintessentially interdisciplinary as it weaves together the physical, biological, and social sciences into a framework for decision-making. The successful integration of these fields into a coherent and practical framework has the potential to transform environmental policy at all scales.

Proponents of ecosystem services have argued that this framework offers the most promising way forward for the field of conservation biology (Armsworth et al. 2007). Protecting our life support systems has also resonated with advocates for the global poor (Sachs & Reid 2006). Major research institutions, conservation organizations, foundations and the private sector are investing in advanced research on ecosystem services. Stanford University has selected this topic as a core area of research. Consistent with this objective, the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford has teamed up with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and The Nature Conservancy (TNC), to create the Natural Capital Project[1] – a bold new initiative that brings together leading intellectuals and conservation practitioners to create new decision making tools for ecosystem managers. Millions of dollars are being invested in this initiative (pers. com. P. Kareiva, 2007). These groups are gambling that a breakthrough in ecosystem services research will open new avenues for solving sustainability challenges. The vast potential of this field has not escaped attention of the popular media (Montenegro 2008). Ecosystem services research promises to find win-win solutions that have a broad appeal to government leaders, business owners, and the public at large. New ecosystem management approaches that weave together the natural and social sciences could transform conservation biology, land-use planning and environmental policy.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) defines ecosystem services as the benefits that humans obtain from ecosystems (MA 2003). This concise definition has become the standard for the field. In fact, the MA has become the benchmark document for nearly every study grappling with ecosystem services. A coalition of United Nations agencies spearheaded the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment by bringing together international experts in the natural and social sciences. This team was asked to synthesize the existing scientific information on the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being. Their report targeted global leaders who manage ecosystems and look after the well being of their constituents (Carpenter et al. 2006). In the process of conducting this assessment, the MA organized our understanding of ecosystem services and mapped out the health of our planet. With regular updates scheduled every 5 to 10 years, the MA process has been modeled after the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (MA 2003).

[1] See www.naturalcapitalproject.org

Field Work Reflection: Closer to a dissertation topic

2008-09-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

Researching for Locals and Academics

My goal this summer was to find a research question that contributed to two distinct conversations. On the on hand, I want to address local problems in the Llobregat basin. Simultaneously, I want my research to advance the literature on river restoration or management. Finding a question that speaks both to local users and the larger academic community has not been easy. Many local questions could be answered by environmental consultants without creating new knowledge. As such, they are not appropriate for PhD research. On the other hand, I would be uncomfortable answering a question devoid of local salience.

This summer I conducted preliminary field work that introduced me to the Llobregat River, its managers, history, and competing uses. From mid June to mid August, I interviewed experts and gathered documentation in Barcelona. In order to see the current river conditions first hand, I hiked the length of the river from the Pyrenees Mountains to the Mediterranean Sea. Over the course of ten days and 170 kilometers, I met local users and neighbors who shared their knowledge of the river, its past, present and potential future.

Framing the Research in the Llobregat Watershed

The Llobregat River is highly polluted and heavily managed. Still, millions depend on surface water from the Llobregat for industrial, agricultural and domestic uses. Treating the highly polluted river for drinking water purposes exposes Barcelona residents to several public health risks that few are willing to discuss openly. Water managers at the two treatment facilities have been dealing with industrial contaminants and mining residue dumped into the Llobregat for decades. Potash mines have been contaminating the Llobregat with salts since the 1930s, and industrial waste has been dumped in the river since the 1960s. This has not stopped the region from relying on the Llobregat River to meet its basic water needs.

The private company Aigües de Barcelona (AGBAR) built the first water treatment plant on the shores of the Llobregat in the 1950’s. Since then they have mixed treated surface water with high quality groundwater from the Llobregat Delta aquifer. ABGAR built the water treatment facility in the lower segment of the river outside the city of Barcelona in the suburb of Sant Joan Despí. This site has proven unfortunate because it is located downstream of major industries at the bottom of the watershed. The surface water to ground water ratio at the AGBAR plant is usually around 50/50, and the average intake from the Llobregat is 3 cubic meters per second (m³/s). During the dry season, the AGBAR facility frequently diverts the entire Llobregat River into the treatment plant. However the river does not run dry because immediately after the diversion point, another pipe dumps industrial waste and treated wastewater into the riverbed.

In the 1970’s the Catalan Government built a second water treatment plant upstream in the town of Abrera. This plant is managed by the public water agency Aigües Ter-Llobregat (ATLL) who is responsible for treating water from the Llobregat and Ter Rivers and then re-selling it to municipal providers. While the extraction point in Abrera is upstream of many industries, they too have considerable problems maintaining water quality. On the day of my visit, the water was dark red prior to filtration. I was told that this was unusual, but later when I visited the ABGAR plant they asked me if the ATLL plant in Abrera continued to struggle with the red dyes.

Both facilities use classic water treatment technology with large sedimentation ponds and sand filters. They avoid disinfecting with chlorine as much as possible because it reacts with organic matter to produce carcinogenic trihalomethanes. Instead, they disinfect with with ozone (O₃) and chlorine dioxide. Within the last decade, both treatment plants have installed activated carbon filters. The carbon filters are expensive, and the maintenance consists of shipping them to large ovens in Italy where they burn off filtered material. After every burning, the damaged carbon must be replaced with new material. These maintenance expenses may be a critical component of a dissertation that tries to relate treatment costs with water quality.

While the activated carbon filters brought considerable improvements in drinking water quality, the taste has remained poor. Both water treatment plants are now investing in advanced membrane technology that will remove additional contaminants, especially various salts compounds. The Llobregat River becomes extraordinarily salty after it passes the potash mines in the towns of Sallent and Cardona. The salts in the Llobregat have plagued drinking water managers for decades and have been responsible for a consistently poor taste in Barcelona’s tap water. In the 1980’s, the Catalan government tried to mitigate salt contamination by diverting salt runoff from the mines into a long pipe that ran 100 kilometers from mines to the Mediterranean. This pipe collects the salty stormwater runoff and to some degree, has reduced the river’s salinity. However maintaining the pipe has been difficult and periodic breaks have released heavy salt loads onto fields destroying crops or into the river disrupting aquatic ecosystems.

When I visited the water treatment plants, both were undergoing major construction to install the modern desalination technology. It was odd to see desalination systems being installed in a freshwater ecosystem and I wondered if there was any precedent for this absurdity. Both of these systems are costing millions of Euros. The public agency ATLL is purchasing electrodialysis desalination equipment manufactured by General Electric, while downstream, the private firm AGBAR is investing in reverse osmosis. Both systems are highly energy intensive and costly to maintain. Nevertheless, AGBAR is a profit driven firm that would not have invested in desalination had the project not been deemed financial viable. At the same time, I suspect that these projects have been partially subsidized by the European Union or other government agencies, thereby reducing the investment burden.

The investment in desalination shows that water managers in Catalonia are implementing an “end of pipe” solution to mitigate its environmental woes. Instead of addressing the contamination at its source, water managers have chosen to make a huge investment in a new technology that is costly to purchase and maintain. In this respect, they are moving in the opposite direction of water managers from New York City who have avoided expensive filtration by investing in watershed management upstream. The case of New York City’s water supply is perhaps the most frequently cited example of intelligent water management because the protection of the Catskill watershed came at only a fraction of the cost of the planned filtration plant. The financial savings have been estimated at USD $6 to $8 billion, plus $300 million per year in maintenance (Chichilnisky & Heal 1998, National Research Council 2000). While these avoided costs have erroneously been referred to as the “value” of the ecosystem services, it is nevertheless a good example of a successful strategy that protects ecosystems and improves water management.

Initially I was discouraged to learn about the magnitude of the investment in desalination along the shores of the Llobregat. Had I began my dissertation five years ago, I probably could have made a strong case in favor of river restoration at its source, mirroring the experience from New York City, and potentially help redirect the millions invested in desalination into watershed management instead. So now that this investment is underway, are there no longer economic arguments in favor of river restoration? Is the concept of ecosystem services only useful for averting infrastructure investments? How can the notion of ecosystem services still be applied in the Llobregat watershed?

My interviews with river managers in Spain made it clear that they do not need a dissertation to inform them that the Llobregat River is polluted. Nor are they interested in a dissertation about river restoration methods – for the most part, they have the capacity to restore geomorphology and improve wastewater treatment. However river managers did express interest in studies that could strengthen linkages between restoration activities upstream and water users downstream. If river managers had more evidence that restoration investments in the upper parts of the watershed could produce tangible benefits for water users throughout the river’s course, this evidence could refocus attention away from the “end of pipe” approaches and encourage restoration efforts in the upper parts of the watershed.

The questions posed by water managers in Spain fit nicely into a broader discussion in the academic literature on ecosystem services.

Day 10: Sant Joan Despi - Mediterranean Sea

2008-08-18T05:08:00.000-07:00

On my last day hiking the Llobregat River, I am once again joined by Sara. In the morning we meet with Joan Bordas and Pep Clavero, both of which are expert botanists. Joan is the sixth generation in his family to work as a gardener/horticulturalist! He has followed a long family tradition of managing Jardinerias Bordas, since 1918. Joan and Pep first take me to the wetlands at Molins de Rei. They are a beautiful example of what the lower Llobregat could look like in the future. The wetlands are filled with cattails, as well as riparian trees common in the Mediterranean such as pollancre (Populus Alba, Populos Alba Nivea), Lladuners (Celtis Australis), Tamariu (Tamarix Gallica, Tamarix, Africanica). Unlike the biologists from the University of Barcelona, Joan and Pep held the invasive cane in high regard. They point out that the cane serves as habitat for other species and they dispute the claim that the cane stalls the classic Mediterranean succession.

In the wetlands the point out the presence of Salicra a plant with purple flowers that indicates relatively clean water. They also show me a native grass called 'grava de Sitges' (Paspaloum Districhum) that uses 15 times less water than the English species often planted by landscape architects in Spain. We also found Estramoni (Datura Stramonium) a plant used turn of the century painters and architects to get high and hallucinate.

I asked Joan and Pep about the possiblity of restoring the salt mountains in Sallent, and they assure me that it can be done.

I see construction near the Llobregat from here and to the Mediterranean. Everywhere there are machines moving earth from one place to the next, installing pipes or taking them out. I pass the water treatment plant managed by AGBAR at Sant Joan Despi, but I'm confident that Roger Lloret will give me a personal tour next week.

After el Prat del Llobregat, home of the historian Juame Codina, I encounter the spot where engineers changed the course of the Llobregat river in order to expand the industrial zone of the Zona Franca. This monumental feat of engineering, raises the question: if we can move a river, can't we restore it as well?

At this point, I begin to smell the salt of the ocean. There is more algae in the river than upstream, and the river islands and meanders disappear.

Here the Llobregat ceases to look like the river that I had followed for ten days. It looks more like an extension of the Mediterranean, flowing upstream. When the engineers changed the course of the river, did they really bring the Llobregat to the Sea, or did they allow the Sea to gobble up the Llobregat inland?

Finally, I see where the Llobregat meets the Mediterranean.
In the final kilometer we enter the protected area of the Llobregat Delta. A chain linked fence prevents us from following the course of the river, and guides us to trails in the delta created for bird watchers and cyclists. My sense of direction tells me that the path will meet the Mediterranean south west from where the Llobregat meets the sea. And indeed, by the time we hit the beach we see dikes guiding the Llobregat into the Mediterranean about 750 meters to our left. The path ends, and we see the beach, but do not have access. Instead we are surrounded by chained linked fences, and signs warning us not to trespass. Futhermore, major construction was drilling next to us, causing a horrendous noise. Sara and I are tempted to jump the fence, even though we saw a security truck slowly pass and give us a menacing stare. It was frustrating to walk the entire length of the Llobregat, only to be treated like a prisoner at the end. The freedom and liberty I had enjoyed over the past 10 days, following the river, and moving around obstacles, came to an abrupt end, as I was constrained by the urban insfrastructure and the urban norms that restricted my access, and prevented me from swimming in the Mediterranean, as I had hoped.

Day 9: Manresa - San Joan Despi

2008-08-18T03:59:00.000-07:00

In Martorell I met with Rafa Diez and Roger Arque from Martorell Viu, a group of concerned citizens who work to maintain the environmental integrity of their town and its surroundings. Another major tributary to the Llobregat, the Anoia, is supposed to join the main stem of the river here in Martorell. But Rafa explains that in the 1970s the Anoia became so polluted, that the water treatment plant managed by AGBAR downstream insisted that the Anoia river be put in a tube and diverted until after the water plant extracted its water for the city of Barcelona. I was shocked at the audacity that water managers had to pipe a major tributary of the Llobregat. It also showed an end of pipe approach to water management. Like the desalinization plants being installed today, the diversion of the Anoia river effectively manages the waste but does not address the problem at its source. Following the diversion pipe, the volume of the Anoia decreases significantly. We saw fish kill nearby, baking in the hot sun.

Rafa and Roger also showed me la Horta, an agricultural field in the Llobregat and Anoia floodplain that the Catalan Land Instiute (Institut Catala del Sol) and the City Hall of Martorell would like to develop for housing. Many from Martorell are resisting this development, and they correctly point out that the Catalan law does not permit new development in the floodplain. They showed me maps of the floodplain at 10 year, 50 year and 100 year return periods. The maps are a bit suspect because they have straight lines in them and I wonder how these can be accurately drawn without a complete model for the watershed. I raised another eyebrow with Rafa told me that the engineer responsible for the floodplain maps insisted that he was contracted to only calculate flood boundaries for one side of the river. *!?. This conversation sparks my curiousity as to how these lines are made and my intuition tells me that politics and economic interests may be helping draw the boundaries in order to assist urban development.

The Roman Via Agustus, which connected the silver mines of southern Spain to Rome, passes through Martorell and crosses the Llobregat at El pont del diable 'Devil's Bridge'. Orignally built by the Romans, the current structure is medieval. Still, this point has remained a strategic center for both ancient and modern infrastruture. Roads, rails, pipes and other infrastruture enter the Barcelona Metropolitan region through this narrow segment of flat lands between two mountain ranges.As I entered the final and most urban segment of the Llobregat, I encounter workers building vairous infrastructure projects. First I meet workers who are doubling the capacity of the salt pipe orginally built for the mines in Sallent. The increased capacity will accomodate the salty waste generated by the new desalination plants in Abrera and Sant Joan Despi. I also encounter workers building a walking trial on the left bank. With funds negotiated from the Spanish Government in compensation for the environmental damange caused by the high speeed train (AVE), the Catalan Water Agency and the local city halls are investing in the left bank of the river for recreational use. The plan is to connect Martorell with the Delta. I was encouraged to see this work, and suspect that it will be a success, with considerable public use.

I also saw heavy machinery cruising up and down the river near Palleja. Later, an engineer told me that this operation is meant to increase aquifer filtration from the Llobregat. In fact, AGBAR and the Catalan Water Agency have being paying someone to plow the river for over 30 years! They have found that contaminants, which I assume to be some sort of hydrocarbon, coat the bottom the the Llobregat and prevent aquifer filtration. The heavy machinery moves the bottom of the river to allow water to percolate into the aquifer. It seemed like such a rudimentary, if not primitive method for managing an aquifer. It also contradicted what a groundwater specialist at the ACA had told me when she insisted that the surface water of the Llobregat was not connected to the aquifer at the Delta. It still is unclear to me how the surface water and aquifer are connected, and if the contaminants from the Llobregat affect groundwater sources.

I also ran into Manuel Alvarez, an engineer working on restoring meanders in the lower segment of the Llobregat. The funds for this project also come from the compensation from the high speed train project. The goal is to create small islands in the Llobregat, which, I assume, will slow down the river, increase filtration, and create habitat for biodiversity. The project is being executed by well known construction firms. Lluis Gode at the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) had told me about these restoration projects, and I was excited to see its execution on the ground. It will be interesting to follow the progress of this project in the next few years. There also may be opportunities to learn from this project. At first glance, the execution of this restoration project did not adopt an adaptive management approach.

The trail was dusty more unpleasant than I expected. I passed heavy industry, including the CELSA plant that melts discarded metals, and is a visual eye-sore in the lower Llobregat Valley. Being surrounded by heavy industry, I was suprised to run into Paco, a sheep herder who has been taking care of his flock in the lower Llobregat for decades. It was a shame that I ran into Paco at the end of the day, because by that time I was too tired to ask too many questions. I hope to run into Paco again someday, because I had the sense that he knowns the lower part of the Llobregat well.

Day 8: Monistrol de Montserrat - Abrera

2008-08-18T02:57:00.000-07:00

Starting at Monistrol, the Llobregat hugs the eastern border of the Monsterrat mountains. The mountains of Monsterrat look like a geological mistake. They rise out of nowhere like fingers reaching into the sky. It is no wonder that monks chose these mountains as a refuge for reflection and prayer. These mountains, its virgin of Montserrat and the boys choir that sing for Christian worshipers, have all become symbols of Catalan pride. While most Catalans are devout atheists, they all respect the virgin of Monsterrat, also called la moraneta or the 'dark one' because her statue was miraculously found black. The widespread respect for the holy shine monastery of Monsterrat, even from the non-believing, is the product of the Catalan nationalism espoused by the clerics of Monsterrat. The Spanish dictator Francisco Franco had a hard time constraining the pride of Catalan clerics, and as a result, Montserrat also became a space for resistance, and where one could proudly speak Catalan.

The trail from Monistrol to Olesa was excellent, and I was surprised to see so much vegetation near the river. There are still dams and abandoned mills in this segment. I tried to visit a natural spring with sulfuric water but the guard who takes care of the abandoned mansion nearby wouldn't let me through. I was in a rush anyway. I had an afternoon appointment with the drinking water plant in Abrera managed by Aigues Ter Llobregat (ATLL). Earlier in the summer I had tried to make an appointment with them, but it wasn't until Roger Lloret made the phone call for me that someone at ATLL agreed to meet with me.

Near Olesa, I found raw sewage being dumped into the Llobregat. It was very smelly.

Only a few meters downstream, I noticed treated sewage released into the river as well. From the map, I could tell that I was close to two waste water treatment plants. Taking a careful look at the center of the river, aided by a bridge, I could see plumes of dark sewage being released into an already cloudy river. It looked as if a pipe with holes ran across the river, and sewage was being evenly released at each hole.

Downstream, in Abrera, I was fortunate to be received by the team at Aigues Ter-Llobregat (ATLL) who are responsible for converting the dirty Llobregat into drinking water. I asked Ramon Arbos, Fernando Valero and Angel Barcelo from ATLL about how their work might be different if the water they received from the Llobregat were as clean as it was in the Baells reservoir. They agreed that cleaner water would imply reduced treatment costs. To filter water from the Llobregat, the ATLL plant uses expensive activated carbon filters in addition to the traditional sand filters. The activated carbon is costly to purchase and maintain. Periodically it must be trucked to Italy where they submit the carbon to high temperatures to remove the unwanted filtered material. Every time the filter goes through this process, the Italian oven burns away a bit of the carbon itself, which needs to be replaced, also at a cost. This raises the question, what if one could show the connection between improved river quality and reduced treatment costs?

Angel Barcelo gave me an excellent tour of the miniature treatment plant used to test new equipment and procedures. I saw the sand filter, carbon filter and chlorination station. Angel explains that the pre-chlorination process was eliminated because the chlorine reacted with the salts to create carcinogenic compounds. He also confirmed that the new desalination plant being contstructed is a direct consequence of the high salt content in the Llobregat. I wonder if this multimillion dollar investment could have been avoided with more active watershed management upstream. The new desalination plant, using 'electrodialisis' technology from General Electric, is highly energy intensive, although less so than 'reverse osmosis' technology planned for the lower Llobregat Delta and the AGBAR plant at Sant Joan Despi. I left the ATLL plant very happy with the tour I was given, and excited about the possibilities of collaborating with those I had met at the water treatment plant.

Day 7: Manresa - Monistrol de Montserrat

2008-08-18T02:11:00.000-07:00

Manresa is a medium size Catalan city with over 70,000 residents. The night before I took refuge in the Youth Hostel el Carme managed by the Generalitat. The Cardener river, the primary tributary of the Llobregat, passes through Manresa. Like the Llobregat, the Cardener is polluted by the mining industry and also contains high levels of salt and chloride derivatives. In the morning I had a close look at the Cardener, and it looked even more turbid that the Llobregat. It was disappointing to see the Cardener look in such bad shape, but I had to accept that from here on, the river I was to follow was going to look like a river of mud and guck.

Starting in Manresa I also had to accept more city infrastructure by my side. In addition to roads and highways travelling up the river valley, I was also surrounded by more gas stations, warehouses, automotive workshops and light industry. I was also surprised to find a golf course, and two train lines. Mid morning, I found a worker fixing a river gage on the Cardener near the golf course. He was subcontracted by the Catalan Water Agency to fix or maintain proper functioning of the gages that automatically took readings on river velocity and height, which they used to estimate volume.

Soon after learning about the river gage, I came across the first of the monitoring sites that I had visited with the team of biologists from the University of Barcelona. Only a few meters from this site, I met up with the Llobregat again. At the confluence of these two rivers, I was hoping to see something significant, such as a difference in color between the Llobregat and the Cardener. Unfortunately, I did not see anything of the sort. On the banks of the rivers I noticed that the city hall of Castellgali was cleaning up the bank, maintaining the paths, planting new trees and removing the invasive cane. In most places however, the cane was coming back.

The dearth of trails complicated the entire day, often forcing me to backtrack. In Castellgali, I followed a trail nearly a kilometer only to find it dead end at a water well. Local cities had several wells along the banks of the Llobregat, and today it became clear that many of these wells remain in use. Angel Miralda had showed me wells near the banks of the Llobregat and he told me that the water was not filtered. Chlorine was added before distribution, and off it went. I wondered what the salt content was in these wells downstream of the salt mines.

The only beautiful segment today came at the end. First, before Castellbell i el Vilar there is a beautiful meander followed by an ACA monitoring station and an industrial canal. Then, as one approaches Monistrol de Monsterrat, the peculiar mountains of Monsterrat loomed large above me. Having arrived at Montserrat, I felt that I was in familiar territory, and no longer so far from the Mediterranean.

Day 6: Sallent - Manresa

2008-08-14T08:54:00.000-07:00

In the morning, Eloi Escude and Marc Vinyals from Prou Sal! offered to give me a closer look at the largest salt mountain near Sallent that towers 600 meters into the air, occupies 35 hectares, and weighs approximately 40 million tons. We were able to see the salt water collector at the base of the Cogullo mountain. Having heard so much about the salt water collector, I expected a huge pipe. It was disappointing to see a tiny tube less than a foot in diameter. How could this collector transport all the stormwater runoff during rain events? Plus, the whole apparatus seemed to be falling apart, and abandoned. Was it possible that this small basin and collection of pipes was the Llobregat 's only defense from the salt water runoff?

Eloi and Marc explained to me that the mine had recently expanded their salty dump. The expansion was largely contested by city hall who opposed increasing the amount of waste being dumped on the Cogullo mountain. The expansion was also complicated by high voltage electrical towers that traversed the area of the planned expansion. In the end however, not even these existing electrical towers could prevent the mining company from its enlargement, and the towers were moved to circle area of planned enlargement.

That afternoon I hiked toward Manresa in the heat of the day. For the first time in my trip, I felt exhausted. After resting in the shade near Navarcles, I continued south toward Sant Benet del Bages. Before arriving to the restored monestary, I noticed a swimming pool in the back yard of what looked like a luxery hotel. Jumping in was tempting, but I resisted. The trail took me away from the Monestary, and I was tempted to make a sharp right turn up the hill and skip the short visit. But instead I walked down the closer to the monestary, and noticed more modern buildings in the vicinity. Then I saw a familiar face that dominats the local news: Joaquim Nadal, the Catalan Minister of Urban Planning and Infrastructure. I was able to explain the objective of my research to the Minister and I also pressed him on the issue of the salt contamination of the Llobregat. He was aware of the severity of the situation.

Day 5: Navas - Sallent

2008-08-14T07:43:00.001-07:00

On Sunday we continued down the well marked trail that connected the industrial colonies of the Llobregat. The town of Navas marked the first town of the comarca Bages, considered to be core of central Catalonia. Accompanied again by Angel Miralda, his wife and a friend, Hector and I had the morning to ask more questions about the river, its users, and history. Mid morning, near Balsareny, we encountered one of the Llobregat's oldest landmarks, the Sequia dels Manresans. This dam was originally built in the XIVth century by the city of Manresa to provide drinking water and irrigation. The city requested permission from king Pere III the cerimonious to divert water from the Llobregat and transport it 26 kilometers to Manresa. This medieval infrastructure include 30 aqueducts, and the canal from the Llobregat to Manresa only looses 10 meters in elevation despite traversing uneven terrain.

Later that afternoon, we passed the last of the well known industrial colonies, and said goodbye to our local guides. Discovering the history of the industrial colonies was a highlight of the trip thus far. In one old picture of the colony Viladomiu Nou, I noticed that the majestic home of the land owner and the factory was surrounded by bearen land. Not a single tree or bush was in sight. I was told that this was because of firewood collection. Whatever the cause, this picture from 1920 reminded me that restoration is not necessarily going back to the past, and that any restoration effort today of the Llobregat should consider that the area has already suffered considerable ecological alteration whose impacts are likely to remain.

It is well known that salt, NaCl, the same salt we put our our salad, is the most problematic contaminant in the Llobregat. The private water company Aigues de Barcelona (AGBAR) first to remediate the salty Llobregat in 1931 by creating a special commission to study the problem. Only six years earlier, in 1925, mining companies located upstream near Cardona and Sallent had begun extracting minerals from the earth and depositing their waste near the Llobregat or the Cardener river- its main tributary. The mines mostly sought potassium - a valuable mineral for producing fertilizers and explosives. The profitabitity of these mining activities allowed locals to overlook the environmental problems caused by the salt water runoff, especially during storm events, that frequently injected the Llobregat and Cardener with salty water.

In Vilafruns, I was able to witness the severity of the salt runoff. Only a few meters from the main stem of the Llobregat, a considerably large mountain of salt residue piled up into the sky. The base of the mountain was surrounded by a white gully filled with salt. As far as I could tell, this salt water drained into the groundwater, and probably directly into the Llobregat. I had been told that a special pipe had been build to channel the salty water to Mediterranean, but this work of remediation was not visible in Vilafruns. To be honest, I as astounded with what I saw.

In the afternoon, I met with Josep Ribera from the organization Prou Sal! He invited me to the evening meeting where I met the community organizers who have raised awareness about the issue. I learned that city wells have been contaminated by the salt water runoff, forcing the town of Sallent to invest millions in to water potabilization technology. The same can be said downstream at the water treatment plant in Abrera and Sant Joan Despi, where the newest desalinization and filtration technology is being installed in a freshwater river to remove salts and other contaminants from Barcelona's drinking water.

Another group working on the same issue, Montsalat, has an excellent webpage with more information about the historical grievances associated with the salt contamination caused by the mines.

Day 4: Gironella - l'Ametlla de Merola

2008-08-13T00:15:00.001-07:00

Here I began the industrial section of the Llobregat. In the late nineteenth century, the river provided energy for the textile factories that drove the industrial revolution in Catalonia. Wealthy factory owners built their empires from scratch. First however, they needed a strategic segment along the river that maximized vertical drop. The higher the drop, the more kinetic energy they could capture from the Llobregat to power their mills. But while the energy they captured from the river was critical, they also needed old fashion human labor as well. And since these factories were being built along the shores of the Llobregat where few towns existed, the factory owners decided to build housing for the factory workers. This way, workers lived next to the factory, and could bring their family with them to the place of their new employment. And with the families, came the need for schools, entertainment and of course the church. The factory owners provided these services, and created small enclaves where the workers lives revolved entirely around the labor and services near the factory. Each colony was given the name of its owner, and with it, new, modern and mini-industrial societies were born, complete with cafe's, the church, and theatre.

The towns along the Llobregat have organized into a tourism board to promote the restoration of the colonies. The headquarters of the Concorci pel Parc Fluvial de les Colonies del Llobregat is located at la Torre de l'Amo at Viladomiu Nou. Neus Santamaria gave us an excellent tour of the home of the factory owner.

In the afternoon, we met up with Angel Miralda, who grew up in the colony of l'Ametlla de Merola. We met in Puig-reig and together, we walked south passing the colonies of Cal Marcal, Cal Vidal, and Cal Riera. Angel participated in an MIT-Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya study on the Llobregat. I had seen the study cited but had not seen a printed copy until Neus showed me one at the Concorci. I would like to obtain a copy because it was written by a team of urban planners with the intent of promoting the corridor of industrial colonies along the Llobregat. Oriol Nel.lo first told me about this study in January 2008, and I must admit that that conversation first sparked my interest in studying the Llobregat at all. I hope to contact both the Catalan and American coordinators of this project to gain more insight on this part of the Llobregat from a planning perspective.

Day 3: La Nou de Bergueda - Gironella

2008-08-12T22:53:00.000-07:00

Leaving La Nou I realized that this would be my last day in the mountains. A neighbor confirms that the small town of La Nou dumps its untreated sewage into a mountain stream, that flows into the Baells reservoir. A sewage treatment plant is being designed for La Nou, but for the time being, residents give daily doses of waste to the river, as they have done for centuries. As a visitor in La Nou, I too have contributed to the organic matter and nutrient load of the Llobregat.

With this thought in mind, I began a steep descent toward the Baells Reservoir. Built in 1975, the Baells Reservoir was one of the last grand hydroelectric projects of the Franco dictatorship. The dam regulates flows to prevent flooding, stores water for the Barcelona metropolitan area and produces electrical power. The heavy rains in May 2008 have filled the reservoir to 98% capacity, and few remember seeing it so full.

Despite my unannounced visit, Ricard Sosa, Lluis Canals and Rafael Fernandez from the Catalan Water Agency provided me with a fantastic explanation of the dam's operation and an improvised tour. Ricard and Rafael were both part of the original team of dam builders who have stayed on as part of the maintenance team. Every day they manually check geological gages to ensure structural stability. Having worked at the dam for over 30 years, they have gained intimate knowledge of its operation. Fortunately, they are passing on their knowledge to younger generations. At the time of my visit, they were releasing 3 cubic meters per second. They showed me a chart that showed how much power they were generating given the volume released and the pressure (reservoir capacity) at which the water was released. A private firm operates the hydroelectric generator, but the Catalan Water Agency decides how much is released. The ACA team collects abundant data that can be helpful for understanding the Llobregat system.

Rafael and Lluis take me to the bottom of the dam in an old elevator. The tunnel at the bottom was damp, and filled with puddles -- from condesation they said -- although I couldn't help but think about the volume of water above our heads and to the left.

They hydroelectric generator was built several years after the dam, and approximately 750 m. downstream. As a result, the Llobregat essentially disappears into a pipe in this segment. Rafael and Lluis tell me that they have scrambled down the rocks that lead to the second birth of the Llobregat at the hydroelectric generator. It had been a while since they had hiked this segment, but since they assured me that it wasn't dangerous, I gave it a try. While it was physically possible to go through the brush, without a machete, my pace slowed to a crawl. And literally, I crawled under the brush. On three ocassions I had to take off my pack, throw it over a bush or down a rock, and then scramble without the weight. When the brush became so thick that I couldn't pass, I crossed what should have been the Llobregat, but instead was a field of mud with cane overgrowth. When my boots sunk into the mud I walked faster. Finally, I reached the old train trail on the left bank. The path felt like a highway. Crossing this trecherous segment had the reward of seeing the Llobregat where few have seen it. The next 4 kilometers had the most beautiful views of the 10 day trip.

After an hour I came across the bridge and monestary of Pedret. Residents from Berga come to swim here. I was told that this is a relatively clean part of the Llobregat, and probably my only chance to swim in it. It was hot, and a cool dip was enticing, but I was alone, and I already had dealt with enough adventure for the day.

Near Pedret, fishers from Berga invite me to have coffee, whisky and donuts (I declined the first two but accepted the later). They were scheduled to repopulate the river with truita. They also tell me that fishers pay considerable fees to fish, both to the association and to the Catalan Government.

After eating donuts with the fishers I move on. The trial is flat and agreeable, ideal for bikes. I pass three tunnels that were originally built for the trains that transported coal and and other mining minerals from the higher segments of the watershed. The construction of the Baells dam closed the rail line for good.

At about 4.30 in the afternoon, I reached another major transition point in the trip just before arriving to Cal Rosal. First, the water quality declined significantly as I passed the point where Berga released its (treated) wastewater. I also reached my first old textile factory, marking the beginning of an entirely new chapter of my journey. Here the river also crawls beneath the first of many freeway bridges. Finally, I was also fortunate to meet up with my friend Hector Oliva who offered to join me for the weekend. It was great to see a familiar face, and have someone with whom to share the adventure.

Passing Cal Rosal, we set out for the town of Gironella where we would spend the night. Walking onto the left bank of the Llobregat, it was clear that we had left the mountains and the terrain opened up. For the first time in several days, my view was unobstructed by mountains.

As a final surprise, we found two kids catching freshwater crabs. I had read that the native species of crab had been in decline, and that an invasive species, known as the American crab was taking its place. I asked the kids if they had seen different species, but as far as they knew, they all looked the same. The rock formations here were also very interesting. The rock was smooth, and undulated like waves.

By the end of the day I was tired. It was my longest trek yet, at 30 km. for the day.

Day 2: La Poble - La Nou del Bergueda

2008-08-04T10:42:00.000-07:00

Upon learning that there wasn't any trail that accompanied the river between La Poble and Berga, and following an unpleasant experience blazing my own trail the day before, I chose to follow a marked trail that would take me across the Collaras mountains and diagonally southwest to catch up with the Llobregat near the Baells reservoir near la Nou de Bergueda. Local hikers estimated a 6-7 hour trek, although no one I spoke with had ever done it before. The trail took me up and down two valleys, into the heartland of the Catalan Pyrenees. The trail was well marked and well kept through a forests that appeared to be in equally good shape. Flowers and vegetation were everywhere. After a morning gaining altitude, I caught a glimpse of the Pedraforca mountain, and the Cadi-Moixaro range. Later in the afternoon when I found a small pension at la Nou I was told that one of the few homes that I passed was owned by two brothers who had refused to connect to the electrical grid.

Day 1: Castellar d'en Hug to La Poble de Llillet

2008-08-04T10:13:00.001-07:00

The Llobregat river springs to life between a few boulders below the town of Castellar d'en Hug, only a few miles south of the Spanish-French border in the Pyrenees Mountains. These springs have become a tourist attraction for thousands of visitors each year. The public water company Aigües Ter-Llobregat (ATLL), and the local city hall have invested in giving visitors a good impression. Using signs and a multimedia film called "El Llobregat: Un riu amic" (The Llobregat: A friendly river), they sell the idea that the river is well managed. If nothing else, the positive spin fed to visitors forces them to think more carefully about what sort of river they see today, and perhaps what type of Llobregat they would like to live with in the future.

Sara joined me on the first afternoon of my trip. The restaurant owners of Castellar d'en Hug told us that an abandoned trail would take us to La Poble, although it was so grown over that we lost the trail after only a few minutes. We descended into another valley where we found small tributary of the Llobregat that was floored with red soils. Without any trail to follow, it was easier jump from rock to rock down the middle of the stream than to walk along the bank.

The water was clear and beautiful. This despite being told by town residents that the waste water treatment plant of Castellar de n'Hug is located above the birth of the Llobregat. It was unclear why the town chose to pump water uphill to the waste water treatment plant, only to divert it downhill, around, I assume, the birth of the Llobregat. There is an outside chance that the wastewater is put into a pipe that feeds an hydroplant at the former cement factory at the Clot del Moro. Still, the flows of waste water, even at the birth of the Llobregat, remained a mystery.

Only a few kilometers below the river's birth, there is an abaondoned cement factory that has now been transformed into a cement museum. The old factory reminds me of the heavy industry that I will see along the entire trip.

Exploring the Llobregat River

2008-08-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

Before selecting a specific PhD research question I wanted to get to know my area of study. What better way than to hike the length of the Llobregat River from its birth in the Pyrenees Mountains to the Mediterranean Sea? Funded in part by the Tinker Foundation at the UI Center for Latin American Studies, I was able to travel to Barcelona and prepare a 10 day backpacking trip down the Llobregat River. First I arranged meetings with local experts along the route. Then I set off, with not much more than a digital camera, a notebook, energy bars, a few change of clothes and a brand new GPS. The trip was scheduled for July 23-August 1st.

What is the water quality of this river? Look under a rock

2008-07-21T13:43:00.000-07:00

Last week I helped collect water quality samples in the Llobregat watershed with biologists Mia Morante, Pau Fortuño and Nuria Sanchez from the University of Barcelona. We were looking for macroinvertebrates that live under rocks and are useful for estimating water quality. Biologists have been collecting, classifying and counting these critters since 1994 and dumping them in a comprehensive database called ECOBILL. This data set provides nearly 15 years of information useful for extacting trend analysis. It occurred to me that this data set might uncover new information if it were meshed with another data set in the watershed, such as land cover change, or investments in wastewater treatment plants.

The day long trip introduced me to lesser known parts of the Llobregat watershed. I was also very lucky to have Mia, Pau and Nuria who answered my endless questions. We started the day in the more industrial section of the Llobregat where the river smelt bad. Not surprisingly, as we moved upstream the water became clearer and more species of macroinvertebrates revealed themselves under the rocks.

Collecting data to confrim that the Llobregat is dirty, reminded me that my thesis cannot simply restate the obvious. Yes, there is a lot of crud in the river. But are there measures that can result in tangible or measureable improvements in water quality? How do river managers deal with daily or seasonal variability? What about all the relatively new wastewater treatment plants? These are the pride of the local water agency because they dump treated water into the river, and yet when it rains, there are severe combined sewer overflows. Looking into the future, what is beyond centralized waste water treatment? Decentralized treatment? Decentralized water re-use? Should our goal be to build more, bigger treatment plants, or reframe the entire process to something totally different?

Civil Society Speaks Against the Ebro Interbasin Transfers

2008-06-06T18:52:00.000-07:00

Tonight I heard Manolo Tomas, leader of the Platform in defense of the Ebro River, discuss the cancellation of inter basin water transfer from the Ebro to the Barcelona Metropolitan region. Hard rain fell on Catalonia this May 2008. The water was sorely needed as the region was facing one of the worst droughts in 70 years. The reservoir network jumped from 20% to 50% capacity in hardly a mont. And so this week the government cancelled plans to transfer water from the Ebro to Barcelona. The Platformin Defense of the Ebro led the charge against the infrastructure project, and they very pleased that no more water will be removed from the Ebro.

About 7 years ago, when another water transfer project threatened to remove water from the Ebro, the Platform successfully campaigned against and defeated the proposal to transfer water to the Levante coast of Spain. The group has been successful in combining environmental, agricultural and local interests. They have admirably prevented private interests from taken water to lubricate their business machines. Farmers and real estate speculators were the most likely benefactors of new water resources to formerly dry lands.

There was one point where I disagreed with Mr. Tomas: I don't believe in the conspiracy theory that claims the drought was manipulated to create a crisis that would allow for the passage of inter-basin connections. There is also a lot of rhetoric. It is unclear if the Platform is really for sustainble management or simply the status quo. What influence to current irrigation communities have in the platform? Are they willing to invest in water saving technologies? 80% of Spain's water is destined to agriculture, and farmers have benefited from highly subsidized water. Agricultural runoff transports pesticides, fertilizers and nutrients that strangle ecosystems. Is the platform in defense of the Ebro taking on these issues to restore the Ebro? My impression is that economic interests, especially agricultural interests, are behind the Platform, and yet they use the environmental discourse to gain more widespread support.

If this were not the case, we would be hearing much stronger ecological arguments and criticism of the irrigation community. Their silence on these issues speaks volumes.

Comparative Study on Water Management: Spain and California

2008-05-20T16:39:00.000-07:00

Last week, Harvard's Widener Library sent me "La gestión del agua en España y California" by Pedro Arrojo and José Manuel Naredo (1997). The book has restored my faith in comparative studies, which often fall flat because they lack clear justification or piercing conclusions. Therfore I was pleasantly surprised to find that Pedro Arrojo successfully highlights water management practices in California that may be useful for water managers in Spain. For example, he points out that Californians have protected minimum instream flows for decades, they collect more granular data on water use, and have created an innovative water banking program to redistribute water rights.

Arrojo begins with the hard numbers and makes a case that California and Spain have a remarkably similar storage capacity and consumption patterns.

Without glorifying California's water policy, Arrojo points out that Spain lags in critical areas. At the time of his writing, Spain hardly discussed minimum instream flow protection, whereas Californians made considerable progress in protecting the minimum flows necessary to sustain the ecological integrity of the Sacramento Delta. These conclusions provide hope that significant improvements and efficiencies remain to be made within Spain's water management system.

And while Arrojo convices his reader that California's protection of minimum instream flow is the way of the future, he does not satisfactorily explain what conviced policy makers that this was good policy in the first place, or how this idea matured.

His chapter on groundwater revealed how little is known about aquifer abstraction. Private wells extract unknown volumes from aquifers. Of course, groundwater is a common resource, but it occured to me that groundwater does not have managment institutions to govern the commons as do other resources such as forests or fisheries. Are watershed committee's the response to this institutional deficiency? But don't groundwater users see themselves as in a different category than surface water users? How does watershed planning balance the needs of these two users? And can one manage the commons across a watershed if the form of extraction is so vastly different? While hydrological models can integrate ground water and surface water flows, how do management institutions facilitate this integration?

Finally, the book is now 11 years old, and some of the data is starting to become outdated. In Spain, much has changed since the rise and fall of the National Hydrologic Plan. Catalonia is in a drought, and improvements in desalination technology has changed the economic calculus. It may be time for a revision of his book and a reflection on some of the recommendations made. If Dr. Pedro Arrojo is looking for someone to help him update his book... tell me where I need to send my CV.

Gestio d'aigua a Catalunya

2008-05-10T08:51:00.000-07:00

Podeu escoltar l'entrevista que en Joan Barril fa amb en Dr. Narcis Prat sobre la gestio de l'aigua a Catalunya en el programa El Cafe de la Republica. [Escolta l'entrevista] Es comenta la sequera, la re-utilitzacio, la contaminacio del Llobregat per les mines de potasi, els sistemes d'aigues grises, l'us d'aigua per regadiu i l'us urba.

Un punt de referencia interesant: Un hectometre cubic es aproximadament la cantitat d'aigua que hi cap en el Camp Nou.

I am posting an interesting interview of Dr. Narcis Prat who discusses water management in Catalonia. The interview is in Catalan.

Are some ecosystem services incorrectly calculated as avoided costs?

2008-05-06T20:20:00.000-07:00

Valuing ecosystem services is messy business. A valuation exercise must first clarify the philosophical framework used. The ecosystem services described in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) clearly align with the anthropocentric and utilitarian philosophy adopted by mainstream economists (MA 2003). This philosophical origin is important for understanding the MA’s definition of ecosystem services. Recall that the MA defines ecosystem services as “the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems” (MA 2003). If ecosystem services are defined as benefits to people, then one must review how economists conceive of benefits.

Economists define benefits in terms of willingness to pay and consumer surplus. This description of benefits slightly diverges from everyday usage. As a result, users of the ecosystem services framework have attributed values to ecosystem functions that are misplaced. Proponents of ecosystem services frequently confuse avoided costs with benefits. The difference between these concepts is clear when one considers that the expenses associated with an infrastructure project are totally independent from the factors that determine willingness to pay or consumer surplus. Nevertheless, the confusion between avoided costs and benefits has persists.

The avoided cost method of valuation, if it can be considered a valuation method at all, estimates the value of an ecosystem service by calculating the cost of a human made substitute. The value of a wetland, for example, would be the cost of constructing and maintain a sewage treatment plant that performed similar services. This mistaken logic is even used in the well known example of drinking water in New York City. In the 1990s New York City water managers needed to improve the quality of its drinking water to meet new EPA standards. The initial proposal planned for the construction of a new filtration plant at the cost of USD $6 to $8 billion, plus $300 million per year in maintenance (Chichilnisky & Heal 1998, National Research Council 2000). But city officials found it cheaper to invest in the protection of the Catskill watershed at only a fraction of the cost. The intellectual inconsistency is to claim that the value of the ecosystem service was the avoided cost of constructing the filtration plant, or the difference between the planned expense and the watershed management plan. Such a claim incorrectly adds expected costs to the benefits ledger. There is no question that the watershed protection approach used by New York City officials was a win-win solution for land conservation and municipal finance. This criticism only clarifies what may fairly be considered a quantifiable benefit of an ecosystem function.

The hydrologic service of “water damage mitigation” cited by Kate Brauman and colleagues (2007) is another example that confounds benefits and avoided costs. Flood damage is a cost associated with land development. When homeowners pay to repair damage after a flood, they are paying a cost associated with living near a river or the cost of increased peak flows provoked by impervious surfaces upstream. If homeowners more pay more or less, these expenses should not influence the benefits associated with river protection. The distinction between costs and benefits are critical, and yet this distinction is confused by distinguished leaders in the field publishing in well respected journals (Brauman et al. 2007).

The confusion between benefits and avoided costs is perhaps the most common mistake in the current discussion on ecosystem services. However this distinction should be made clear to maintain consistency and improve academic rigor. This may result in reducing the “benefits” frequently attributed to ecosystem services. The danger in this confusion is that proponents of ecosystem services are inadvertently overstating the value of ecosystem services.

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

2008-04-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-11T07:17:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-04-07T15:06:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

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.

Entrevista Manel Hernandez, Director Agencia Catalana de l'Aigua

2008-03-31T19:58:00.001-07:00

Entrevista de Manel Hernandez, Director de l'Agencia Catalana de l'Aigua. 29 febrer 2008. El Mati de Catalunya Radio amb Toni Basses.

"De la sequera l'hem de convertir en oportunitat." Manel Hernandez.
"We must turn this drought into an opportunity."

The drought is now on the front pages of the newspapers in Barcelona. Shortages are at historic lows. A proposal to transfer water from the Ebre watershed to the Llobregat watershed has upset farmers, and the political opposition is using the issue as an opportunity to attack the Catalan government. The pressure for "answers" is mounting. Where is the pressure for more questions? How can water be managed more effectively? Where are there inefficiencies in the water network? How is the water cycle managed? What is the long term management plan for Catalonia's water resources and watersheds? What are the historic trends in water supply and water demand? What options are on the table to address the water shortages?

Compass and Gyroscope: Integrating Science and Politics for the Environment. Kai N. Lee 1993.

2008-03-30T20:04:00.000-07:00

Kai N. Lee builds on his experience as a member of the Northwest Power Planning Council to argue for adaptive management in public policy making. Lee decribes a policy world which blurs the boundaries between science and policy. Good policy, in effect, draws from the scientific method to ensure individual, social and institutional learning. The most common approach to ecosystem management, trial and error, is simply not good enough. Policies and practices must be directed to test specific hypothesis about how ecosystems work. The institutional context must embrace a learning environment, be willing to admit mistakes, and acknowledge the high degree of uncertainty involved in ecosystem management. Since these institutional conditions rarely hold, Lee outlines general guidelines for managers seeking to apply adaptive management principles in their shop. He speaks first and foremost as a scientist, but as an extraordinarily experienced policy maker as well. The necessary absractions are supported with concrete examples from the management of the Columbia River Basin.

Ann L. Riley 1998. Restoring Streams in Cities: A Guide for Planners, Policymakers, and Citizens.

2008-03-06T17:09:00.000-08:00

Ann L. Riley has an excellent chapter relating planning theory to watershed management. As a student in a planning department, I am surrounded by planners and planning jargon, but until today, I had not yet read anyone who could explicitly connect planning theory with watershed planning. Riley has made this connection by categorizing different watershed planning initiatives according to the planning school that the initiative adopted.

The school of comprehensive planning relies on rational methods, scientific objectivity and the completion of concrete goals. A comprehensive watershed plan will usually start with an exhaustive inventory of the biology, hydrology, soils, geology, industry, zoning etc… Comprehensive watershed plans tend to be expert driven and top down. This also makes them vulnerable to implosion during the implementation phase, without follow up, local resistance, and criticisms of “imposition” and “arbitrary government meddling”. Still, there are examples of successful comprehensive plans in unique circumstances, although Riley tends to favor more participatory approaches.

In contrast to comprehensive planning, incremental planners are more process oriented. Incremental planners look for a decentralized approach that is flexible and permits the integration of new information as it learned. Riley cites Abe Wolman who called watershed planning an "art rather than a science". The modus operandi of incremental planners fits with what ecologists are calling for to manage complex and variable systems under conditions of uncertainty. The incremental planning approach also matches the philosophy of adaptive management of learning by doing.

Then Riley discusses the community-based planning school and its offshoots such as advocacy planning, consensus planning and conflict resolution. Riley notes that, historically, these approaches were called “radical” planning. Of course, these methods have been so mainstreamed that the term “radical” is really a misnomer. After sharing Riley's clasification of community-based planners with colleagues here at the department, they disputed this simplification . It also strikes me that conflict resolution should be a central part of any planning process. Any good watershed planner should have basic skills in conflict resolution, negotiation, mediation and facilitation. These are the soft skills that can disentangle gridlock and catapult projects forward.

The trend is clearly toward more inclusive planning processes. Past mistakes with top down approaches are generating new hybridized models. I also feel that it would be a mistake to totally disregard any of the planning schools completely. They all have a contribution to make, and neither are they mutually exclusive. Different conditions probably call for different approaches. It would probably be wrong to approach watershed planning from a purely ideological perspective, and try to force a particular “school” onto a community. Rather, one should be aware of the pitfalls in each approach, and mix and match to construct an effective process.

Codina, Jaume. 1971. El Delta del Llobregat i Barcelona. & Codina, J. 1971. Inundacions al Delta del Llobregat.

2008-03-02T14:57:00.000-08:00

What distinguishes environmental history and the history of ecology? How do these historical approaches manifest themselves in Europe? Does this distinction exist? If it does, how do Europeans draw the boundaries? If these boundaries have not been drawn, could this distinction offer insight for a new interpretation of the Llobregat’s past? Finally, how does this distinction help inform river restoration?

These questions are in the back of my mind as I read about the history of the Llobregat Delta. El Delta del Llobregat i Barcelona (1971) by the Catalan geographer and historian Jaume Codina, takes readers on a voyage through 400 years of history. This thick and ambitious piece is the culmination of Codina’s doctoral dissertation where he makes a larger argument about the evolving livelihoods of Delta residents and their independence from the influences of Barcelona. Still, the struggle to tame and manage the Llobregat River is a major theme of the book.

The depth of human history on the banks of the Llobregat is astounding. People have been drinking from the Llobregat, washing, urinating and defecating in the Llobregat for thousands of years. Water concessions go back more than 700 years. In 1273, the King of Catalonia and Aragon, Jaume I, gave a water concession to the Abat of San Cugat del Valles to take water from the Llobregat at Sant Boi and transport it to take to the delta for irrigation. In 1321, Jaume II gave a concession for water use for mills.

Codina chronicles the struggle to tame the Llobregat River and minimize flood damage. The overflowing waters of the Llobregat threatened to wash away months of agricultural labor, the winter’s food supply, and often took their lives. The residents of Sant Boi were pioneered the flood control efforts in 1597 by building a stone wall (reclosa) along the river bank to defend their property. Codina reminds us that the towns along the Llobregat were very small, several with only 20 households. Today, Sant Boi, Cornella, and Hospitalet are bustling cities of nearly a million. With such a small populations in the 16th century, the constructions probably represented a major burden on the residents. Nevertheless, these walls didn’t last long, as the river easily flooded them out repeatedly. Eventually, the various towns along the Llobregat, including l’Hospitalet, and Cornella, began building a communal levee system. But alas, they built it too close to the Llobregat, and it too was repeatedly flooded. Plus, they had the problem of sheep and cattle climbing on the wall and breaking it down. In 1638 the towns coordinated to give the Llobregat a 200 meter flood plain on each side. Records show that enormous amounts of money were invested into this project. Still, the Llobregat won out, and flooded the walls. Residents threw up their hands in despair, and the communal wall project was abandoned for 200 years.

An entire chapter is dedicated to the health problems that haunted Delta residents. In addition to the major European epidemics that plagued cities everywhere, the towns in the Delta had local sicknesses that emanated from the still waters pooling in the flatlands of the Delta. Historical documents recall that Delta residents had unusual fevers, and many spent more than ¾ of the year sick with the fever. The deplorable health conditions motivated residents to study a diversion plan from the Llobregat to flush out still water that accumulated in the Delta.

Codina’s book also stands out for what it does not say. There is no mention of how the pollution from salt and potassium mines upstream impacted populations downstream. I was looking for a connection between the mines and the quality of life of river dwellers, and at least in Codina’s history, this connection does not surface. He does mention the first industries to arrive to the lower Llobregat River Valley.

Year Industry Name Sector Location
1903 Jaime Trías y Cía Textiles L’Hospitalet
1914 Compañia Roca Sanitaris Gavà
1917 La Papelera Española Paper El Prat
1925 La Seda de Barcelona Textiles El Prat

As a social geographer, Codina does not divorce human interventions and river evolution. I would categorize Codina as more of an environmental history than a history of ecology.

The environmental history of Europe lacks the dramatic wilderness narrative that dominates the United States. Humans have interacted with the Llobregat River before Roman times. Pre-Roman civilizations such as the Ibers lived in Sant Boi del Llobregat on the banks of the Llobregat river.

Codina’s small booklet Inundacions al Delta del Llobregat meticulously covers historical references to flooding events in the Llobregat Delta. Codina counts references to floods since the 12th century up to 1971. He tallied them by season, and it was surprising to see that 54.7% of the floods were in the summer. Only 16.5% were in the winter, also 16.5% in the fall and merely 12.3% in the spring. This is counter-intuitive since the rain pattern in this part of the Mediterranean is in the spring and fall. Plus, one would assume that spring melting in the Pyrenees would contribute to flooding. This does not seem to be the case. More than half the floods occurred in the dry season when, in theory, it rains least. This suggests that rainfall volume and rainfall intensity are inversely related. Summer brings little rain, but it is very intense.

Aigües Freàtiques a Catalunya Ràdio amb Antoni Bassas, Josep Niñerola, i Enric Vazquez-Suñé

2008-02-28T20:04:00.000-08:00

El 27 de febrer del 2008 en Antoni Bassas va entrevistar en Josep Niñerola (Agència Catalana de l'Aigua) i l'Enric Vazquez-Suñé (UPC) per comentar les condicions de les aigues soterrànies a Catalunya. Entre altres dades interesants, s'afirma que a tot Catalunya, el 35% del aigua que es consum es d'aigua soterrània.

També es evidencia una gran contradicció de l’actual sequera. Hi falta aigua pels rius, conreu i consum, pero hi sobre aigua sota la ciutat de Barcelona. Allà on hi ha la major demanda de l’aigua potable a Catalunya – la ciutat de Barcelona – també hi ha un problema d’inundacions soterrànies. No es poden regar les plantes, pero a la vegada ens sobre l’aigua a uns quants metres sota el carrer.

Per tant, s’ha de bombajar aquest aigua perque no sigui una molestia pel metro i les infrastructures soterràneas. Afortunadament, en Josep Niñerola i l’Enric Vazquez-Suñé ens expliquen que es tornen a aprofitar aquest aigua que tenim tan aprop, litaralment, sota els peus.

[The drought in Catalonia region of Spain is attracting media attention. Here I include a radio interview of two water experts discussing groundwater extraction and the recovery of old wells that were abandoned 40 years ago. Since the abandonment of these old wells, groundwater levels have increased beneath the city streets of Barcelona, causing problems with underground infrastructure such as subway lines. This has created the ultimate contradiction. Not enough water for ecological, agricultural and urban uses, yet "too much water" beneath the city streets. It highlights poor water management, and a dependence on engineered systems that bring water from afar, while not effectively managing water locally.]

How much is river restoration worth?

2008-02-26T17:41:00.000-08:00

Ecosystems are undervalued. In practice this means that ecosystems provide us with valuable services that we rarely pay for. As a result, these ecosystems are degraded or destroyed. Once the ecosystem stops providing a service we depended on, then we might realize that our bank account is being degraded too.

Water purification is a good example of an ecosystem service. Undisturbed hydrological systems, those without the impacts of urbanization, are more likely to provide cleaner water for human consumption. The idea is that nature does part of the purification for us. That is, bio-geochemical processes assist us in our objective of obtaining clean water. Therefore it is in our interest to maintain healthy hydrological systems in order to protect these processes and reduce water purification costs. But what exactly is the relationship between "healthy hydrological systems" and reduced water treatment costs? Who has defined the marginal savings attributed to marginal improvements in biogeochemical processes? Does it make economic sense to protect lands and restore rivers? Does it make economic sense to protect biodiversity? These are hot questions, and within the academic community there is a race to figure out how to define the relationship between ecosystem protection and the economic benefits it brings.

New leaders in this effort include Gretchen Daily, Peter Kareiva, and Taylor Ricketts from the Natural Capital Project. Spearheaded by Stanford University, they are working with World Wildife Fund (WWF) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to create practical tools to assess the value of ecosystem services and incorporate that information into the policy world. They have a lot of money and an amazing team so chances are good that something important will come out of this project.

But here is my question for them: Can we be sure that ecosystem services really provide economic benefits, or are they avoided costs? Economists make a clear distinction between the two, and the inclusion of avoided costs in the benefits column breaks the rules in a Cost-Benefit analysis. I posed this question to Robert Stavins, my environmental economics professor at Harvard, who agreed that the valuation of ecosystem services, as presently conducted in the mainstream literature, is in fact an avoided cost. This might be a minor glitch, and it is possible that someone has already responded to this problem. I would be interested in hearing who has.

I would also be interested in connecting with people who have studied the relationship between land conservation, river restoration and water treatment costs.

Water Framework Directive Timeline

2008-02-24T20:37:00.001-08:00

Following up on my reading of Munne and Prat, I looked up the timeline for member states implementing the European Union's Water Framework Directive.

2004: Identification of water areas, including those heavily modified. Revision of pressures and impacts. Identification of sites that risk not meeting WFD objectives. The establishment of a catalogue of protected areas. An economic analysis of water use.

2006: Development of control and operational programs (What does this refer to?)

2008: Publication of draft watershed plans with a preliminary classification of water bodies.

2009: Completion of watershed plans and the classification of water bodies according to ecological status. The programming of restoration measures for each hydrographic area.

2012: Ensure all measures are underway.

2015: Deliver objectives for first river basin management plans and publish second river basin management plans.

And so it seems this is a good time to be conducting watershed planning in European rivers. Watershed plans should be drafted right now.

La Directiva Marc de l'Aigua a Catalunya: Conceptes, reptes i expectatives en la gestio dels recursos hidrics. 2006. Josep Mas-Pla (Coord). Consell Assessor per al Desenvolupament Sostenible. Generalitat de Catalunya. Barcelona.

Munne & Prat. La diagnosis y mejora de los ecosistemas fluviales mediante la DMA

2008-02-24T10:11:00.000-08:00

The diagnosis and improvement of fluvial ecosystems through the Water Framework Directive

In 2000, the European Union released the Water Framework Directive, which required members of the European Union to establish restoration plans for their water bodies. This legislation is the new reference point for most water related activities throughout Europe. It has been heralded as a major turning point, and promises to invigorate the effort to clean up Europe's rivers, lakes, and wetlands. Each member state is responsible for implementing the details. The Water Framework Directive (WFD) only provides broad guidelines and general goals. Most importantly, the WFD has set the target that water bodies achieve "good ecological status".

But what does "good ecological status" really mean and how can member states measure it? These are the two questions that Antoni Munné and Narcís Prat attempt to answer in the paper "The diagnosis and improvement of fluvial ecosystems through the Water Framework Directive". For Munne and Prat, the ecological status of a water body can be broken down into three components:
1) Biological parameters
2) Hydro-morphological parameters
3) Physical and chemical parameters

The problem them becomes combining these three very different parameters into a unified indicator that represents "ecological status". They present a method that gives priority to the biological indicators first.

But even before getting to the stage of combing indicators, Munne and Prat point out that the existing literature on biological indicators does not necessarily fit the needs of Mediterranean rivers. The special climatic conditions, most notably, the highly variable water flow -- torrential rains followed by a long dry season -- has created an ecosystem that is not accurately measured by biological methods imported from northern Europe or elsewhere. In response to this deficiency, for the past 10 years, biologists in north eastern Spain have created their own protocols to assess water quality, biological diversity, "biological quality". These indexes and protocols are referred to by their acronyms IBMWP, BMWPC, IPS, IBD, CEE and of their vegetation index QBR.

This article made me reflect on Walters criticism of reductionism and the tension between the particular and the systemic. Clearly, the challenge is how to integrate these indicators, and the authors astutely point this out.

To complicate things further, the authors argue that not all water bodies should have the same restoration targets. They, and the Catalan Water Agency, propose a more granular restoration plan whereby each water body should reach certain targets depending on the characteristics of that water body. This makes intuitive sense. Not all rivers can be measured by the same metric. The question is how to operationalize this idea.

Again, Munne and Prat offer their solution. River bodies can be categorized into a typology. Catalonia has 5 fluvial systems, of which 3 have subtypes.

1. Ríos de montaña húmedea (Humid mountain rivers)
1a. Ríos de montaña húmedea
1b. Ríos de montaña húmedea sílica (silica)
1c. Ríos de montaña húmedea calcárica (calcareous)

2. Ríos de montaña mediterránea (Mediterranean mountains rivers)
2a. Ríos de montaña mediterránea sílica (silica)
2b. Ríos de montaña mediterránea calcárica (calcareous)
2c. Ríos de montaña mediterránea de elevado caudal (high flow)

3. Ríos de zona baja mediterránea (Lower Mediterranean Rivers)
3a. Ríos de zona baja mediterránea
3b. Ríos de zona baja mediterránea sílica (silica)
3c. Ríos de zona baja mediterránea cárstica (calcareous)

4. Ejes Principales (Principle axis)

5.Torrentes litorales (Coastal torrents)

The method used to define these river types has been published in Environmental Management, and is guiding the selection of restoration standards for each river type. This system contrasts with my understanding of river management in the US, where the EPA or the State sets universal standards for all rivers. I would welcome a correction if this is incorrect.

This article raises interesting questions:

Which indicators most accurately measure "ecological status"?
How are these combined?
Should governments regulate based on all or some of these variables? Which ones?
Will the Catalan government require different standards for each river body?
How will these different standards be communicated to the public?
Why are biological indicators given priority?
Are there examples of improvement in physical / chemical variables not leading to improved biological status?

Finally, the article points out that most of the industrial pollution in Catalan rivers has been in the second half of the twentieth century (1950-2000). Given Spain's long history, I thought that perhaps major contamination could have gone back further, but with more reflection, it makes sense, since modern chemicals and major industry arrived much later.

Munné & Prat. no date. La diagnosis y mejora de los ecosistemas fluviales mediante la DMA
The diagnosis and improvment of fluvial ecosystems through the Water Directive Framework

Environmental History Informing River Restoration

2008-02-22T10:12:00.000-08:00

I suspect that many overlook the contribution that history can make to improve restoration efforts. For others, the value of environmental history to inform restoration decisions may be self evident. Understanding historical uses and abuses seems like the obvious starting point for any restoration project.

Who historically has depended on the resource? Who had access and who was excluded? What was left behind and what was taken away? How quick were the changes to the ecosystem and how long ago were they? Has the ecosystem demonstrated any resilience? What restoration measures have already been tried, and what was the result?

Yesterday I listened to two excellent podcasts from Stanford University's iTunes (itunes.stanford.edu) about restoration work in the Monterey Bay (by Stephen Palumbi) and the San Francisco Bay (Richard White, David Freyberg, Jeff Koseff, Meg Caldwell). Both lectures/discussions emphasized the importance of placing a restoration project within a historical context.

In the case of the San Francisco Bay, environmental historian Richard White reminded us that we cannot recover teh ecosystem that existed centuries ago. That ecosystem is gone. In its place is a new San Francisco Bay that is responding to totally new oscillations and pressures. There was agreement among the discussants that restoration is not about going back, but about moving forward. At the same time, this movement forward must be grounded in an understanding of how historical uses have changed the system, and what those changes imply for its future.

Lee, K.N. 1999. Appraising Adaptive Management

2008-02-19T16:13:00.001-08:00

Kai N. Lee argues that adaptive management has been more influential as an idea than as a practical means of gaining insight into the behavior of ecosystems. [Notice how Lee uses a social science term, "behavior", to describe a biophysical process. This must have been intentional.] Lee arrives to this conclusion by reviewing adaptive management according to 4 criteria: its conceptual soundness, its technical competence, ethical implications and pragmatic concerns. He finds that the concept remains attractive, but it is often implemented in a way that is unlikely to yield results. For adaptive management to work, stakeholders first must agree on the questions being asked and the method to answer them.

Lee is sensitive to the political context in which science must be performed. He recommends that adaptive management be used in a process to resolve conflict, but only after there is consensus that science and experimental design is the appropriate way to move forward.

Both Lee (1999) and Levine (2004) emphasize that adaptive management is costly and slow. Because of these limitations, Lee suggests that natural resource managers carefully evaluate if the scientific approach is in their best interest. But the apparent challenges for managers to integrate science into their daily program only reinforces the need for researchers to reach out to them and provide support. Science can elude managers because they don't have the resources or expertise. Or, they may have the expertise but don't have the time to write and follow up because they are overburdened by other obligations. This need can be filled by timely applied research. Couldn't collaboration between a government agency and an academic institution help fill this void and simultaneously benefit both institutions?

More insight by Lee that caught my attention: Management policies should be chosen in light of the assumptions they test so that the important uncertainties are tested rigorously and early.

As with other articles in Ecology and Society (formerly Conservation Ecology), Lee ends with open ended questions for his readers. Here I highlight one that may orient my dissertation:

Adaptive management appears to be unsuitable unless there is a governmental authority that monopolizes physical access to the resources being managed. This raises the question of what can be learned under conditions of partially open access or limited enforcement of regulations.

Question on my part: What are the methods and research designs that help distinguish treatment effects from background effects (confounding factors) in field experiments? This obstacle is frequently mentioned, but it is not clear what is being done to address this problem.

Lee, K.N. 1999. Appraising Adaptive Management. Conservation Ecology 3(2):3. [online] http://www.consecol.org/vol3/iss2/art3/

Levine, J. 2004. Adaptive Management in River Restoration: Theory vs. Practice in Western North America

2008-02-19T15:56:00.001-08:00

A student at UC Berkeley, Jessie Levine, has reviewed river restoration projects that have applied adaptive management concepts. Levine finds that the benefits of adaptive management have yet to be realized. The concept is still moving from idea to practice. Adaptive management also struggles to distinguish itself from trial and error learning, and practictioners often confuse the concepts. In its purist form, "active adaptive management" are deliberate experiments where managers test a range of hypothesis about how a system works (she sites Walters and Hilborn 1978 & Walters and Holling 1990).

Her review of restoration projects shows that only 3 of 10 projects met the stringent definition of adaptive management. Plus, they were expensive, ranging from $2.5 million to $12 million USD a year. In addition, there appears to be consensus that to gather valuable information, the experiements needed to last for several years or decades.

Levine, J. 2004. Adaptive management in river restoration: theory vs. practice in western North America. Water Resource Center Archives. UC Berkeley. [Available online: http://repositories.cdlib.org/wrca/restoration/levine/]

Challenges in adaptive management of riparian coastal ecosystems

2008-02-13T13:50:00.001-08:00

Adaptive management is the attractive notion that we can learn about natural systems as we manage them. Carl Walters succinctly calls adaptive management "learning by doing". More specifically, he describes adaptive management as "a concerted effort to integrate existing interdisciplinary experience and scientific information into dynamic models that attempt to make predictions about the impacts of policy alternatives."

I can't address all issues Walters raises in the article, but there are definately a few worth highlighting. When Walters introduced the article talking about the importance of creating accurate ecological models, I expected him to laud this approach for answering important management questions. I was surprised then, when Walters pointed out several weaknesses in ecosystem modeling. In fact, he argued that there is too much modeling and not enough field experimentation. Walters laments that few of the adaptive-management planning processes have moved beyond the modeling stage to the field experimentation. He suggests that a disproportiante amount of energy has been dedicated to model refinement, and not field testing.

Walters also argues that more complex models are not necessarily better at providing accurate predictions. Error can be compounded multiplicatively, or the model may fail for being reductionists, while giving the appearance of being wholistic.

As I consider applying the principles of adaptive management to the management of the Llobregat watershed, it was useful for me to think about what problem needs to be modeled. Walters suggests four types of models for riparian and coastal ecosystems:

(1) A hydrodynamic submodel for space-time variation in water flows [water volume]
(2) A hydrochemistry submodel for transport and transformation of key chemical variables such as nutrients and sediments [water quality]
(3) "Lower trophic level" submodels for primary, invertebrate, and small "forage" fish production
(4) Population dynamics submodels for key animal indicator species.

As it stands today, I would probably be most interested in looking at (2) water quality.

Walters is unabashed at pointing out how scientists position themselves strategically to obtain funding research. "An emergent principle of adaptive management is that, for every difficult functional relationship, there is a scientist willing to claim the ability to measure it for you if you will provide enough research money to measure details of how the relationship arises."

Another key point is that the Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management process (AEAM) helps take bad propositions off the table. By narrowing down the field of policy prescriptions, adaptive management permits managers to be more strategic in testing potential measures.

Walters concludes calling for "more creative thinking about how to make management experimentation an irresistible opportunity". He also ends with a few really good questions, including one particuarly relevant for me: "Why is the development of innovative methods for large-scale monitoring not usually considered a good research topic, especially for aspiring graduate students?"

Walters, C. 1997. Challenges in adaptive management of riparian coastal ecosystems. Conservation Ecology [online]1(2):1. Available from the Internet. URG:http://www.consecol.org/vol1/iss2/art1

Landfills and Rubbish!

2008-02-10T11:54:00.001-08:00

In my Urban Ecology course we have read segments from the book Rubbish! by William Rathje and Cullen Murphy. The book reminded me that landfills can be a major source of groundwater and river contamination. Landfills secrete a toxic cocktail called leachate, that is soaked up into the ground and can potentially leak into groundwater. The authors point out that newer landfills are strategically located far from drinking water sources, and lined with plastic and clay to prevent leachate sepage. Unfortunately, most old landfills do not have leachate controls protection, therefore the risk remains.

On the brighter side, their study found that many toxics do not move very far within the landfill matrix. After digging through garbage dumps around the country, including my home town of Sunnyvale California, the authors found that heavy metals such as lead and mercury are unlikely to spread within the dump. This is good news.

Still, the risk of leachate contamination reinforces a watershed analysis of the Llobregat river. As I prepare to conduct my dissertation research, I am still unsure what scale I should use: regional scale (Forman), watershed scale, a river bank, or the scale an experimental project. The scalar choice is an important one, and will define the level of detail I can measure certain variables.

This summer, I hope to beging Field Research in the Llobregat with support from the Tinker Foundation and the Center for Latin American Studies at UIUC. As I move forward, I'll be keeping in mind the potential impact of landfills, and mapping where they are located within the Llobregat watershed.

Vázquez-Suñé et al 2006. Groundwater modelling as a tool for the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) application: The Llobregat case.

2008-02-07T13:41:00.000-08:00

As I dig into the Llobregat River Valley, I found an interesting publication by a large team of Spanish/Catalan researchers modelling the lower Llobregat aquifer. This is a major source of drinking water for Barcelona and surrounding regions. Excessive pumping of groundwater has caused seawater intrusion, which threatens to pollute drinking sources.

The authors distinguish two aquifers in the Llobregat Delta: the Main Aquifer and the Upper Aquifer. The Main Aquifer is divided into three management administrations: Cubeta de San Andreu in the north, Vall Baixa in the center and the Delta.

One challenge for the modelers has been to obtain reliable recharge data. Infiltration from rain and irrigation are the main water sources. River discharge in the Llobregat is estimated at 15.7 cubic hectometers per year. Groundwater extraction from the Main Aquifer is 49.48 cubic hectometers per year. That is, Barcelona pumps 3 times as much water from the ground than what they see flow in the Llobregat River.

The authors recommend a reduction in groundwater pumping, and warn that current withdrawls are not sustainable. They recommend seawater barriers through the artificial pumping of treated wastewater into the aquifer along the coastal fringe. The model predicts that this water will be pumped to the surface again for urban treatment, and not be lost to the sea.

There is also fear that ancient landfills could become flooded if the aquifer recharges too much. This would exacerbate existing contamination problems. Therefore groundwater managers seek to keep groundwater high enough to prevent seawater intrusion, but not so high as to flood brownfields, or cause problems with underground infrastructure projects.

Vázquez-Suñé, E., E. Abarca, J. Carrera, B. Capino, D. Gámez, M. Pool, T. Simó, F. Batlle, J.M. Niñerota, X. Ibáñez. 2006. Groundwater modelling as a tool for the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) application: The Llobregat case. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth. 31: 1015-1029. [Article]

The Llobregat River Valley and Watershed in Barcelona, Spain

2008-02-07T13:36:00.000-08:00

Spain’s deficient water management practices manifest themselves in the Llobregat watershed near Barcelona. This valley provides fertile ground for PhD research on water resource management in arid climates. The Llobregat River is Catalonia’s largest river, stretching from the Pyrenees mountains to the Mediterranean Sea just south-east of Barcelona. It ends in a flat and agriculturally rich delta that has provided food for Barcelona residents for centuries. The Llobregat Valley has historically connected Barcelona and coastal cities to the Catalan hinterland. Today, the banks of the lower Llobregat River are filled with industrial uses, freeways, railways, and major urban infrastructure. Approximately 50 kilometers upstream, salt mines have heavily polluted the river. The saltwater oozes into the Llobregat River from flooded mines and rainwater that washes away salt mountains left in the open air. The salinization of the Llobregat River has been an issue that Catalans have been dealing with for decades (Esteban & Prat 2006). In addition to killing aquatic life, the salt water has increased water treatment costs. Downstream Barcelona depends on the Llobregat River for drinking supplies. The water treatment process to remove the salt leaves a poor taste, making Barcelona’s tap water unpalatable.

The restoration of the Llobregat River valley is a priority for the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (Forman 2004). The river valley has tremendous potential to be a new recreation area for Barcelona residents and visitors. As a first-class European city, Barcelona has been held up as an architectural gem. Yet at the same time, Barcelona has turned its back to the industrial corridor of the Llobregat River Valley.

Richard Forman's Plan for the Barcelona Metropolitan Region

2008-01-29T16:44:00.001-08:00

In the last few days, I have read the growth management plan for the Barcelona Metropolitan Region written by Richard Forman (Harvard University, Graduate School of Design). Unlike traditional plans, Forman remains focused on the big picture. He avoids being bogged down in details, and has the amazing capacity to cut through complexity to propose a coherent growth plan that is founded on basic principles in Landscape Ecology. In particular, Forman is concerned with protecting water pathways, in what he calls: blue-green corridors (these are all my own translations since the document is published in Spanish). Rivers and streams serve as natural corridors for biodiversity, vegetation, water and recreation. He emphasizes protecting the main rivers in the Barcelona area: The Llobregat, Besos, Ter, Tordera, and Foix.

Furthermore, Forman had enough foresight so as to propose 3 different plans: (1) an ideal plan, (2) a middle of the road version, and (3) a minimal plan. The objective of each plan is to protect ecosystem services and the ecological integrity of the landscape. At the same time, he highlights mid-sized towns where compact development would do the least damage to the landscape ecology. These include El Vendrell, Igualada, Manresa, Vic and Mataro. He proposed only limited development in Vilafranca del Penedes, and emphasized the value of the agricultural land in the Penedes wine country. It was reassuring to see an outsider confirm the value of this agricultural land. Personally, I have seen the pressure to urbanize Vilafranca, and I am concerned that it may drastically reduce the quality of life for local residents.

Forman also recommends separating the stormwater system from the wastewater treatment system. He accurately points out that stormwater overflows release untreated sewage into Catalan Rivers. Clearly, this issue needs to be addressed. At the same time, perhaps it is not worth investing in new infrastructure to transport stormwater. Instead, Spain should "leapfrog" stormwater technology, and move directly to on-site storwater treatment technology, or rainwater harvesting. In the Boston Metropolitan area, organizations like the Charles River Watershed Association promote reducing stormwater runoff at the site level. On site treatment of stormwater is the most vanguard and ecologically sensitive form of urban development. Planners in the Barcelona metropolitan region should look into rain gardens, rainwater harvesting, and other low-impact development designs, instead of simply creating a new engineered stormwater system. Still, regardless of the approach used, addressing the raw sewage that runs in Spains rivers is one that urgently needs attention.

Desalinization in Spain

2008-01-27T17:15:00.000-08:00

Spain is gambling on desalinization technology to solve its water problems. In Catalonia alone, 2 new desalinization plants are scheduled to come online within the next 5 years, and the existing plant in Blanes will be significantly enlarged. But desalinization depends on massive infrastructure and huge injections of energy. Where does this energy come from? Largely from fossil fuels, nuclear, some hydro, and even less renewable, such as wind. So desalinization simply shifts the environmental burden onto energy and climate change issues.

At the same time, this raises the stakes for finding a renewable energy source. One could argue, that finding a reliable source of sustainable energy would facilitate water resource management.

GIS and Elections

2008-01-27T15:52:00.000-08:00

This week I recieved a copy of the ArcUser Magazine from Esri in the mail. The cover story is about the "Geography of Elections". I am convinced that GIS holds potential for citizens, democratic political parties and government alike. We're only at the beginning of a major shift, whereby different sectors of society will start to take advantages GIS capabilities. Wait and see.... in four years, I bet that the next Presidential election will be much more sophisticated with its use of geospatial information.

Blog Purpose

2008-01-22T18:07:00.000-08:00

Provide a forum to share ideas about the pressing issues of sustainability. I am especially interested in water resource management issues. Currently, I am searching for the right PhD dissertation topic related to water resource management in Spain. If you are interested in this topic, or have relevant information to share, please do not hesitate to contact me.