Abstract
Sustainable water resource management is a wicked problem, fraught with uncertainties, an indeterminate scope, and divergent social values and interests among stakeholders. To facilitate better management of Southeast Asia’s transboundary Sesan, Sekong and Srepok (3S) River basin, we used the Freshwater Health Index (FHI) to diagnose the basin’s current and likely future level of freshwater health. We used the conditions for December 2016 as a baseline, where Ecosystem Vitality and Ecosystem Services scored 66 and 80, respectively, out of a possible 100, whilst Governance & Stakeholders scored 43. Thus, the 3S provided a range of desired ecosystem services, but there were signs of environmental stress as well as undeveloped water governance systems and limited stakeholder engagement. We also modelled four hydropower development scenarios and found that increasing development reduced the scores of a subset of indicators. This compromised the future ability of the 3S basin’s ecosystem to provide its current range of services. The FHI helped identify data deficiencies, illuminated important social dynamics, made ecosystem–human–water dynamics more understandable to stakeholders, and examined the long-term dynamics of the basin.
Highlights
There are fewer problems more wicked than maintaining a healthy environment whilst providing our planet’s growing human population with fresh water
As engagement with decision-makers and stakeholders is an integral component of the Freshwater Health Index (FHI), we engaged government officials and staff from non-government organizations from Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam through the IUCN BRIDGE
Stakeholders participated in a series of workshops and completed the Governance & Stakeholders survey along with a weighting exercise that described the importance of each Ecosystem Service and Governance & Stakeholders indicator and sub-indicator
Summary
There are fewer problems more wicked than maintaining a healthy environment whilst providing our planet’s growing human population with fresh water. This arises from the inherent uncertainties, manifold risks, and the diversity of social values placed on water [1,2,3]. The environmental values of freshwater systems have long been neglected in favour of managing water as a physical. Current approaches to water resources management seldom provide sustainable solutions [5]. In redefining our approach to managing water, we must forsake traditional risk and optimization approaches that consider single issues and adopt exploratory analysis of complex trade-offs and real-world systems [1,7]
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