Abstract
River basin planning in Bolivia is a relatively new endeavor that is primed for innovation and learning. One important learning opportunity relates to connecting watershed planning to processes within other planning units (e.g., municipalities) that have water management implications. A second opportunity relates to integrating watershed management, with a focus on land-based interventions, and water resources management, with a focus on the use and control of surface and groundwater resources. Bolivia’s River Basin Policy and its primary planning instrument, the River Basin Master Plan (PDC in Spanish), provide the relevant innovation and learning context. Official guidance related to PDC development lacks explicit instructions related to the use of analytical tools, the definition of spatially and temporally dis-aggregated indicators to evaluate specific watershed and water management interventions, and a description of the exact way stakeholders engage in the evaluation process. This paper describes an effort to adapt the tenets of a novel planning support practice, Robust Decision Support (RDS), to the official guidelines of PDC development. The work enabled stakeholders to discern positive and negative interactions among water management interventions related to overall system performance, hydrologic risk management, and ecosystem functions; use indicators across varying spatial and temporal reference frames; and identify management strategies to improve outcomes and mitigate cross-regional or inter-sectorial conflicts.
Highlights
Water resources managers worldwide face high levels of natural and human-induced hydrologic variability accompanied by climate change projections [1] suggesting increased risks of water scarcity [2]
We address the following questions: How does the water resources system model respond to water-related decision-making processes and institutional governance design at a range of scales within a river basin? How does the water resources system model contribute to the development of effective water planning instruments?
Our multiscale approach allowed the diverse frames of reference of basin stakeholders such as small OLPES, individual irrigation zones, and municipal jurisdictions to identify their interdependence with other sector-specific goals or regions, including those operating at different scales, and engage in productive negotiations
Summary
Water resources managers worldwide face high levels of natural and human-induced hydrologic variability accompanied by climate change projections [1] suggesting increased risks of water scarcity [2]. Defining future changes in hydrologic variability is highly uncertain, hindering the prediction of extreme events such as floods and droughts [3]. In addition to hydrologic variability, water managers deal with growing long-term demands for water from rapidly expanding urban areas and increased consumption across sectors such as agriculture and energy [4]. Water Development Report [7] stated, “the world’s water crisis is one of water governance, essentially caused by the ways we mismanage water”. Under scenarios of deep uncertainty, water governance approaches should support water-related decision making [1]
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