Environmental Flows Around the World

On the 20^th of April we had the second Water Circle Seminar where Prof. Jay O’Keeffe gave an interesting presentation on “Environmental flows around the world”. Prof. O’Keeffe is a professor attached to the office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor Research and is a Research Associate at the Environmental Research Learning Centre.

To provide some insight as to the global context of this talk, Prof. O’Keeffe was WWF Professor of Freshwater Ecosystems at UNESCO-IHE in Holland, from 2004 to 2006. Over this time he was privileged enough to work on 14 rivers in 12 countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and South America, wherein he used research and training methods developed here in South Africa.

Environmental flows refers to the quality, quantity and distribution of water required to maintain the components, functions and processes of aquatic ecosystems on which people depend. This can be considered the “carrying capacity” or “speed limit” for the river as you can use the river to a point, and then not any more without causing unacceptable damage.

Many of the rivers on which Prof. O’Keeffe worked around the world were formerly perennial rivers but have been managed so badly that there is no more water in some of them. This highlights the importance for the development and maintenance of environmental flows.

: The Lower Yellow River, China

After considering projects such as the Yangtze River in China, the Mara River basin in Tanzania and Kenya, the Great Ruaha River in Tanzania, the Sao Francisco River in Brazil, the Lower Yellow River in China and the Ganga River in India he felt that there were certain general lessons being learned. These were as follows:

Be demand-driven, and work with a locally-based organising team
Use methods appropriate to the local conditions
Try to work with specialists who are committed to continuing the process
Choose methods appropriate to the resources available
Plan an exit strategy, so that the local team have to take responsibility for implementation
A clear, locally tailored, workshop structure is required, applied flexibly
The selection of a local facilitator/coordinator is a key outcome of capacity building
Where EF is being introduced as a new concept to a region, try to start with a relatively simple project (eg in a small sub-catchment not yet over-allocated) – a successful demonstration is worth a lot of theory.
Getting the local stakeholders involved is vital – you can have the best science in the world, but if people don’t understand what you are doing, and why it’s important for them, then you are wasting your time.

These are lessons that I’m sure most environmental projects should take heed of and should be used in management strategies on South African rivers but as Prof. O’Keeffe mentions we must always “recognise that it all takes time”.