Your search found 4 records
1 Zsuffa, I.; Cools, J.; Vlieghe, P.; Debels, P.; van Griensven, A.; van Dam, A.; Hein, T.; Hattermann, F.; Masiyandima, Mutsa; de Grunauer, M. P. C. R.; Kaggwa, R.; Baker, C. 2008. The WETwin project: enhancing the role of wetlands in integrated water resources management for twinned river basins in EU, Africa and South America in support of EU Water Initiatives. Paper presented at the IWA 11th International Specialized Conference on Watershed and River Basin Management, Budapest, Hungary, 4-5 September 2008. 7p.
Water management ; Wetlands ; Research projects ; Sanitation ; Drinking water ; Ecology ; River basin management ; Stakeholders ; European Union / Africa / South America
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H044730)
(0.05 MB) (48.24KB)
An international project called ‘WETwin’ has been launched in June 2008 within the frame of the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission (EC). The overall objective of the project is to enhance the role of wetlands in basin-scale integrated water resources management, with the aim of improving the community service functions while conserving good ecological status. Strategies will be identified for:
· utilizing the drinking water supply and sanitation potentials of wetlands for the benefit of people living in the basin, while maintaining the ecosystem functions
· adapting wetland management to changing environmental conditions
· integrating wetlands into river basin management
· improving stakeholder participation and capacity building with the aim of supporting sustainable wetland management.
The project will work on 'twinned' case study wetlands from Europe, Africa and South America. Management solutions will be worked out for these wetlands with the aim of supporting the achievement of the above objectives. Knowledge and experiences gained from these case studies will be summarized in general guidelines aiming to support integrated wetland management on global scale. Stakeholder participation, capacity building and dissemination will be essential components of the project.
· utilizing the drinking water supply and sanitation potentials of wetlands for the benefit of people living in the basin, while maintaining the ecosystem functions
· adapting wetland management to changing environmental conditions
· integrating wetlands into river basin management
· improving stakeholder participation and capacity building with the aim of supporting sustainable wetland management.
The project will work on 'twinned' case study wetlands from Europe, Africa and South America. Management solutions will be worked out for these wetlands with the aim of supporting the achievement of the above objectives. Knowledge and experiences gained from these case studies will be summarized in general guidelines aiming to support integrated wetland management on global scale. Stakeholder participation, capacity building and dissemination will be essential components of the project.
2 Johnston, Robyn; Cools, J.; Liersch, S.; Morardet, S.; Murgue, C.; Mahieu, Marie; Zsuffa, I.; Uyttendaele, G. P. 2013. WETwin: a structured approach to evaluating wetland management options in data-poor contexts. Environmental Science and Policy, 34:3-17. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2012.12.006]
Water management ; Research projects ; Wetlands ; Ecosystems ; River basin management ; Stakeholders ; Public participation ; Case studies ; Indicators ; Analytical methods ; European Union / Africa / South-America
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H046060)
(1.36 MB)
This special issue of Environmental Science and Policy presents the outcomes of the WETwin project (enhancing the role of wetlands in integrated water resources management for twinned river basins in EU, Africa and South-America in support of EU Water Initiatives), an international research project funded by the FP7 programme of the European Commission. The project aimed to improve wetland management by maximising benefits from wetland use while maintaining ecological health, using case studies from Europe, Africa and South America.In much of the less developed world, data on wetland functions, processes and values are scarce even while wetlands often provide a critical component of livelihoods. Management decisions on balancing competing demands for wetland use must often be made in the absence of comprehensive information. This paper introduces the approach developed and tested under WETwin to evaluate wetland management structures and solutions in datapoor contexts, summarising a conceptual framework which has evolved from seven very diverse case studies. A structured, modular approach was devised which combined multi-criteria analysis, trade-off analysis and vulnerability analysis, drawing on best available information, including quantitative modelling, qualitative ‘‘expert opinion’’, and local stakeholders’ knowledge and values. The approach used in WETwin has three important strengths: it involves stakeholders at all stages of the decision process, it combines qualitative and quantitative data (and therefore allows inclusion of poorly known and potentially important system components) and finally, it provides a relatively simple and structured approach to evaluate wetland management interventions and integrate impact, feasibility and institutional assessments, vulnerability analysis and trade-off analysis. The overall conceptual framework developed for WETwin was found to be robust and transfer-able to different contexts.
3 Cools, J.; Johnston, Robyn; Hattermann, F. F.; Douven, W.; Zsuffa, I.. 2013. Tools for wetland management: lessons learnt from a comparative assessment. Environmental Science and Policy, 34:138-145. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2013.01.013]
Wetlands ; River basin management ; Ecosystem services ; Assessment ; Stakeholders ; Decision making ; Case studies / Europe / Latin America / South Africa / Austria / Hungary / Uganda / Mali / Ecuador
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H046247)
(0.62 MB)
This paper provides the synthesis of the special issue on the ‘‘role of wetlands in river basin management’’ and reviews lessons learnt from a comparative assessment of the presented case studies in Europe, Africa and Latin-America. Although wetlands are important for local communities and biodiversity, the services and products they deliver for local livelihoods and river basins are insufficiently known, and inadequately valued and understood by authorities. Wetlands are too often perceived as standalone elements and poorly integrated into river basin management plans. In this volume, an analytical framework is developed to formulate and compare wetland management options, also in data-poor contexts and to bridge the gap between science and policy. The framework is a set of tools and processes to structure the information flows needed to identify and score management options in terms of their impact, feasibility, vulnerability to future changes and trade-offs. In practice, it was found that the framework provided a useful set of tools to promote understanding and underpin negotiations. The major barrier for a better integration of wetlands in river basin management was found to be the lack of understanding of what the important issues were and the institutional capacity to organise cooperation and consequent implementation of the agreed plans. This paper presents the following conclusions. Firstly, rapid assessment tools and simplified scoring methods were used and proved useful in explaining issues across sectors and scales, and were important in creating mutual understanding, even though they did not necessarily present new insights for local or disciplinary experts. Secondly, in order to improve the knowledge base, an integrated database is developed, especially with regard to water quantity simulation at the river basin scale and wetland scale, potential habitat availability and the quantification of adaptive and institutional capacity, including the impact of future changes. Data has been compiled from various, scattered sources, including global data sets, sectoral wetland and/or river basin-specific quantitative and qualitative data sets. Thirdly, in case of limited data availability, rather than improving the accuracy of available quantitative data, it is proposed to better use alternative qualitative sources of data, from local experts, authority representatives and wetland users.
4 Zsuffa, I.; van Dam, A. A.; Kaggwa, R. C.; Namaalwa, S.; Mahieu, M.; Cools, J.; Johnston, Robyn. 2014. Towards decision support-based integrated management planning of papyrus wetlands: a case study from Uganda. Wetlands Ecology and Management, 22(2):199-213.
Wetlands ; Cyperus papyrus ; Decision support systems ; Ecosystem services ; Sustainable agriculture ; Vegetation ; Living standards ; Public health ; Ecology ; Land use ; Stakeholders ; Wastewater treatment ; Water quality ; Case studies / Uganda / Namatala Wetland / Namatala River
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H046248)
(0.50 MB)
Management and decision making for wetlands need an integrated approach, in which all ecosystem services are identified, their importance are assessed and objectives are formulated about their desired outputs. This approach has been applied successfully in European wetlands with sufficient scientific data. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the application of this approach in the context of a data-poor, multi-use African wetland. The Namatala wetland in Uganda, a wetland under intense pressure from wastewater discharge, conversion to agriculture and vegetation harvesting, was used as a case study. After characterisation of the wetland ecosystem and stakeholder analysis, three management options, subdivided into 13 sub-options, were identified for the wetland. These options were combined into six management solutions. A set of 15 indicators, subdivided into five categories (livelihood; human health; ecology; costs; risk of failure), were identified to assess the performance of these management solutions. Stakeholders’ preferences were taken into consideration by means of weights attached to the indicators, and a best-compromise solution was derived which consisted of a combination of sustainable agriculture in the upper Namatala wetland, papyrus buffer strips along the Namatala river channel, sustainable land use (vegetation harvesting, fishing) in lower Namatala wetland, and papyrus buffer zones at the waste-water discharge points. Despite differences of opinion among stakeholder groups about the relative importance of the indicators, the same compromise solution resulted for all stakeholders. It was concluded that this systematic approach and the stakeholder dialogue about the management options were beneficial to the management process, although the approach would benefit from more and better data about the wetland system and from model-derived predictions.
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