Third WCD Forum Meeting
25-27 February 2001 - Cape Town, South Africa

Concept Paper: Building Capacity for Assessing and Implementing Environmental Flows
Proposal for a follow-up activity to "Dams and Development"

Proposer: Dr Jackie King, Southern Waters Ecological Research and Consulting, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Contact details: jking@botzoo.uct.ac.za Tel ++27- 21-6503626 Fax ++ 27-21-6503301

Introduction

Environmental flows consist of water that is deliberately left in or released into a river system to manage some aspect of its health. The river-health objective is set by society and may be, for instance, to stabilise banks, maintain river resources used for subsistence, minimise health risks from aquatic diseases, or conserve biodiversity. Using environmental flows to combat river degradation and ensure sustainable use of water is a new practice, but more than 30 countries now use such flows and each year the list grows. The World Commission on Dams (WCD) listed the assessment and implementation of environmental flows as Guideline 15 in its Set of 26 Guidelines for Good Practice on dam projects, and recommended that current and future dam projects should be designed and operated to allow for an environmental flow.

The WCD recognised that for some of its recommendations, existing capacity in many countries may be inadequate to immediately address the issues. The Commission called on the international community to assist in reinforcing institutional and professional expertise in countries seeking to develop capacity .This proposal directly addresses the need to build such capacity , in the field of environmental flows.

In March 2002, the first international conference on environmental flows will be held in Cape Town, South Africa. This meeting provides an opportunity to focus on and discuss implementation of the Commission's recommendation. From across the world, water managers, water engineers, river scientists and social scientists working with riparian peoples will gather for two weeks of activities around the theme of environmental flows. Special features of the conference will include the following.

• Four days of presentations around four themes, all addressing environmental flows:
• ecosystems and people;
• technology: modelling, methodologies;
• rehabilitation: flow re-regulation and conservation of biodiversity;
• policy development; decision-making and implementation.
• A fifth day of parallel, day-long workshops (Attachment I).
• A week of training courses before the conference (Attachment I).

Special efforts are being made to attract specialists from developing countries, as well as to bring social specialists to what would usually be a meeting of bio-physical experts.

Against this background this concept paper proposes the development of a practical guide to environmental flow assessment and implementation. This will be designed for use by countries, institutions and individuals wishing to adopt the Commission's criteria and guidelines, and to use environmental flows as a tool for better management of riverine ecosystems and their natural resources.

Objectives :

• To provide best-practice guidance on the assessment and implementation of environmental flows, with entry points for all those involved in water-resources planning-
• To identify how to strengthen institutional capacity through the encouragement of "regional networks/centres of expertise",

The guide will seek to provide practical advice on how to build the capacity to assess and implement environmental flows. It will be directed towards water managers, water engineers and water scientists in countries or organisations wishing either to begin assessing and implementing environmental flows for new dam projects, or to modify the operation of existing dams.

Proposed Format of the Guide

• An introduction to explain the scope of the topic;
• modules offering entry points for readers concerned with different aspects of water- resource management;
• case studies to illustrate good practice and lessons learnt;
• flow diagram of short and long options of what needs to be done;
• costs to consider .

The proposed list of modules will cover topics such as:

• preliminary assessment of the condition of the river system;
• institutional capacity needed within a country;
• the specialists that need to be involved in a flow assessment, and why;
• draft Terms of Reference for the specialists;
• how to manipulate hydrological flow data and why;
• methods available for the flow assessment, and how to choose a suitable one;
• considerations for dam design;
• subsistence use of river resources by riparian people, and how this is impacted by flow changes;
• parallel activities, such as a macro-economic assessment and a Public Participation Process;
• policy development and environmental flow implementation.

Other modules may be added as the project proceeds and the content is finalized.

Development of the guide

The individual modules of the guide will be drafted by specialists in their fields and edited into a standard format and language. A small advisory team will be appointed that includes people from different sectors (dam management, water resources planning, aquatic ecology , social science, economics). This team will review drafts, to ensure the final product reflects the concerns of the different potential users.

In keeping with the WCD process, the guide will be developed through a consultative process to ensure that it meets the needs of the main actors, and reflects the concerns of different end-users. It will be based on good science, but will be accessible to all sectors.

The document will be submitted in draft form at the March 2002 conference, for refinement, addition and comment by delegates. This will be an unparalleled opportunity to have it appraised by world leaders in this field of expertise. One of the workshops on the last day would be devoted to this, and to initiating the discussion on supporting emerging regional centres/networks of expertise on environmental flows.

Supporting emergence of regional networks/centres of expertise

The first part of the day-long workshop at the conference will be devoted to revision of the guide by the project team, their advisors and all interested delegates. At that stage, the guide will have addressed Objective I. Thereafter, in the second part of the workshop, a briefing document prepared by the project team will introduce the discussion on how to support the emergence of regional centres or networks of expertise in environmental flows. It will outline:

• why regional centres of expertise are needed;
• whether or not they can be "virtual" centres;
• how these centres or networks can be linked to current and planned dam projects; .funding and organisation.

The ensuing discussion will help reinforce existing activities and identify where additional funds or scientific efforts could be directed. The workshop discussion, with any resolutions, will be documented and incorporated into the practical guide. Distribution of the guide could become the first step in establishing centres or networks and international linkages between them.

Estimated Budget

Production of the draft document; revision at the conference; production of final version; report on workshop on regional centres of expertise: US$ 75 000

Attachment 1

Pre-conference training courses: 25 February -1 March 2002

• Environmental flow methods;
• Hydrology, hydraulics, fluvial geomorphology and sediment dynamics for aquatic ecologists;
• Aquatic ecotoxicology;
• Identification and management of blue-green algae; .River health biomonitoring;
• Water policy and the implementation of environmental flows; .River flows for estuarine systems.

Full-day workshops on last day of conference: 8 March 2002

Several institutions around the world are taking advantage of this gathering of professionals to run focussed workshops. The following (with country of their proposers, who may be come convenors) are being considered:

• Negotiation and bargaining skills for the environmental-flows professional (USA);
• Reservoir releases for optimal benefit of upstream and downstream subsistence users (UK);

• Managing flows for tropical fish diversity (Mekong);
• Establishing regional centres of expertise on environmental flows (this proposal, and probably in collaboration with the World Bank and IUCN);
• Fish passage in developing countries (Italy and France);
• modelling mosaics of local hydraulic conditions;
• extrapolation of point data: the issues of scale;
• river-coast interactions (Netherlands).

Workshops will be run to an agreed set of criteria, and each will produce a document.

The proposer

Dr King has specialised in environmental flow assessments for the last 12 years. She led the development of flow assessment methods in South Africa, which culminated in such flows being enshrined in the country's new Water Law (1998) for protection of aquatic systems. She was Project Director of the flow assessment project for all rivers involved in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, was first author of the contributing paper on environmental flows for the WCD's thematic review of Ecosystems, advises, teaches and speaks internationally on the subject, and is Chair of the Organising Committee for the March 2002 Environmental Flows conference.