EXPERIENCE AND CAPACITY IN INTEGRATED WATER AND COASTAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

Over the past 20 years, USAID has led the international donor community toward a new understanding of water as a scarce resource whose management requires integration across disciplines, sectors, and political and social boundaries. During that time, DAI has progressed with and complemented the Agency, becoming a leader in introducing institutional strengthening, capacity building, and community participation to water and other natural resource management projects. We have applied these core strengths as the development paradigm has shifted from a pure sectoral focus to one calling for local management and privatization, to one calling for integration of environmental, economic, and social concerns.

As the paradigm has shifted, DAI has consistently served USAID on its most innovative efforts. In the agriculture and irrigation sector projects of the late 1970s and early 1980s (such as Tanzania Arusha Planning and Village Development and Pakistan Irrigation Systems Management), we promoted community operation and maintenance of irrigation works and introduced economic rationalization of water use to irrigation schemes. In the environmental management projects of the late 1980s and early 1990s, we promoted agricultural intensification and watershed conservation in the tropical forests of Latin America (for example, Development Strategies for Fragile Lands) and provided the technical leadership for one of USAID's premier water contracts, the centrally funded Irrigation Support Project for Asia and the Near East (ISPAN). In the mid-1990s, in the newly liberalized economies of Eastern Europe, we organized local governments and citizen groups to jointly manage water supply and wastewater facilities (for example, Macedonia Public Administration). Today, we are working with USAID on one of the most exciting and challenging projects in the Agency's water portfolio, Fostering Resolution of Water Resources Disputes (FORWARD).

In the following sections, we examine DAI's experience in water and coastal resources management. To demonstrate the breadth of our expertise, we describe our work on USAID and international-donor-funded projects in four categories: water supply and use, water quality, ecosystem integrity, and integrated water resources management. (These categories are simply an organizing framework that reflects the work our clients have requested in the past. We recognize the overlap that exists among the categories.) We also include text boxes demonstrating specific experience in key activity areas and cross-cutting themes relevant to this IQC.

Water Supply and Water Use

DAI's approach to the design and implementation of water resources management projects stresses sustainability and strengthening human and institutional capacity. From 1988 though 1995, DAI led three related USAID projects in eastern Sri Lanka: Mahaweli Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD I), MARD II, and Mahaweli Downstream Support (MDS). Teamed with Harza Engineering Company, a DAI team completed construction of irrigation infrastructure on 4,600 hectares of Mahaweli System "B" and worked on adaptive research, organization of water users, extension, and marketing for the entire left bank portion of System "B" (26,000 hectares). DAI's objective on MARD I, MARD II, and MDS was not simply to increase agricultural output, but to foster social development and environmental sustainability. Therefore, we worked closely with our Mahaweli Economic Agency counterparts to prepare, with stakeholder input, operation and maintenance plans that relied on farmer operation and local financing. We then fostered the formation of water user associations (WUAs) and trained their members in water management. With the objective of environmental sustainability, we worked with our government and WUA counterparts to improve water use efficiency, resolve drainage problems and aquifer contamination, and introduce appropriate high-value crops.

In the 1990s, as governments have attempted to devolve their responsibilities over nationally funded irrigation systems, DAI's clients have often requested our assistance in building local capacity through WUAs. For example, in the Krygyz Republic (1996-1998), a DAI/Training Resources Group (TRG) team established viable WUAs in three oblasts, wrote model by-laws for WUAs that are now in use around the country, and drafted a law for the country that provides the legal basis for WUAs and the eventual creation of river basin management units. Similarly, in Albania (1995-1996), a DAI team trained WUAs to rehabilitate 21 irrigation schemes and 18 drainage projects in seven coastal districts. The team also prepared an eight-volume set of environmental impact reports detailing how drainage rehabilitation would improve run-off quality flowing into the sea.

Water Quality

DAI's strengths regarding issues of water quality lie in assessment and in building the capacity of management institutions to address problems of industrial pollution, municipal sanitation, and agricultural contamination. For example, in 1993, six other DAI home office staff members assessed water quality in major tributaries and aquifers in the coastal areas of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan surrounding the Aral Sea. Parts of the territory of six countries fall within this fragile international lake basin, and the actions of upstream users, particularly for agriculture and irrigation, are having serious consequences for downstream municipal users and the lake ecosystem. The DAI team assessed the water quality of the surface water and groundwater of Uzbekistan's Amu Darya Delta as part of a prefeasibility study to provide potable water to 200,000 people.

Under FORWARD in 1997, DAI received incremental mission funding to produce consensus among Jordanian authorities on important technical and policy issues related to water-quality variations in the Jordan Valley. As part of the Water Quality Impact Assessment Activity, our team determined the impacts of water quality differences on productivity of farms, on-farm management practices, and marketing of agricultural products. The team then modified a model for the Jordan Valley Authority's tariff structure to price water of differing quality appropriately.

We have also introduced a sensitivity of water-quality issues into projects that otherwise were not concerned with environmental management. For example, under USAID's Morocco Agribusiness Promotion (1992-1998), our team advised the managers of agricultural product processing plants on mitigation measures for effluent treatment. Similarly, under USAID Bosnia Business Finance (1996-1998), DAI's environmental impact assessment specialist advised Bosnian entrepreneurs on effluent treatment measures that needed to be undertaken before they could receive loans for light industrial plants.

Ecosystem Integrity

The new paradigm of integrated water and coastal resources management recognizes the importance of ecosystem integrity for sustainability. This includes issues such as watershed management (including urbanization, deforestation, agricultural extension, and soil conservation), over-exploitation of fisheries and marine pollution, and habitat destruction (including wetlands, estuaries, mangroves, and coral reefs). DAI's approach to the design and implementation of ecosystem protection programs has stressed the development of sustainable resource management techniques and organizations that provide near-term income for local people, while preserving the productivity of the entire watershed resource base.

Our work in this area includes examples from Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. Under the ongoing Bolivia Cochabamba Regional Development (1992-1999), the DAI team assessed the downstream consequences of fungicide spraying of bananas to combat the black sigatoka virus. The team showed that fungicide run-off would cause serious damage to fish spawning grounds as far away as Brazil and that disease-resistant banana species would be more economically profitable as well as environmentally sound. In Côte d'Ivoire, a DAI team assessed the impact of building a 120-kilometer road between the towns of Sassandra and Grand-Lahou. The proposed road would have reached into the least disturbed and biologically richest coastal wetlands of the country but, also, would have facilitated local development and tourism. DAI recommended run-off mitigation measures to ensure the productivity of adjacent estuaries.

Currently, under USAID's Philippines Natural Resource Management II (1995-1999), we have helped the Philippines evolve from a forest management system based on timber extraction to a system that is now regarded as an international model for community-based forest management. With USAID leadership, DAI played a major role in developing the national policy and building the local capacity that enables communities to establish tenurial rights over their lands and removes many restrictions that limited the economic options for these areas. To date, project staff have worked in 97 community forestry sites and brought 360,000 hectares under community management. Among the important watersheds falling within our project area is the Dupinga River Basin, one of the sources of water for the "rice bowl" that feeds Metro Manila. The DAI team assisted the Dumagat indigenous group in developing an ancestral domain management plan in an area covering 14,470 hectares, the whole of the drainage basin.

Integrated Water and Coastal Resources Management

Truly integrated water and coastal resources management requires consideration of multiple environmental, social, and economic issues throughout a watershed. By definition, it involves questions of policy, institutions, human resources, water quality, water quantity, and pricing, and it demands stakeholder participation. Two of our projects, in Jordan and Brazil, have sought such integration, and two contracting vehicles, ISPAN and FORWARD, facilitate an integrated approach.

In USAID's Jordan Water Quality Improvement and Conservation (1994-1998), DAI, working with Harza, TRG, and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), has addressed multiple issues surrounding management of the Zarqa River basin, the country's main source of water. Under the leadership of Edwin Stains, our Water IQC Project Manager, the DAI team: (1) developed a national water monitoring system; (2) developed an integrated management information system within the Ministry of Water and Irrigation for use in operations and decision-making; (3) upgraded the central laboratory of the Water Authority of Jordan; (4) demonstrated the feasibility of artificial groundwater recharge techniques; (5) encouraged industries to adopt clean technology and pollution control measures; (6) promoted conservation of irrigation water through improved on-farm management; (7) assisted the government in the promulgation of five major national water policies; (8) trained 1,300 participants in topics ranging from leadership skills to spectro-chemical analysis by atomic absorption; and (9) launched a major public education campaign for water conservation in which 40,000 people have participated in workshops, seminars, lectures, and special events.

In 1996-1997, the World Bank and the Government of Brazil asked DAI to use eco-regional planning methodologies for Sustainable Environmental Management Plan for the Ilha Grande Bay Watershed in 1,700 square kilometers of Brazil's Atlantic coastal rainforest. We promoted integrated coastal zone management in this biodiversity "hotspot," an area under severe pressure from rapid and unplanned growth in tourism, agricultural encroachment, and discharge of untreated municipal and industrial waste. To address these issues, a DAI team compiled baseline data to analyze the critical environmental, demographic, social, and economic issues. Using a geographic information system (GIS) and an environmental simulation model to facilitate analysis, our team led workshops of community groups, NGOs, municipal and state officials, and members of the private sector to develop a regional environmental plan and policies. We prepared local action plans that focus on land use planning, biodiversity conservation, mangroves, waste disposal, environmental education, and impact monitoring.

Through ISPAN (1987-1995) and FORWARD (1996-2001), DAI has managed two of USAID's most progressive integrated water resources management contracts, and the two contracts that are most similar technically to the Water and Coastal Resources Management IQC. Despite its name, ISPAN focused less on irrigation and more on strengthening of the private sector, de-emphasizing government responsibility, policy development, and strategic planning in the management of water resources. Under the technical direction of Peter Reiss and in collaboration with CDM, Harza, and TRG, the project produced 120 technical reports and undertook 150 long- and short-term assignments in 13 of the 16 countries covered by the Agency's Bureau for Asia and the Near East. Assignments included multiyear policy development contracts in Tunisia, Sri Lanka, and India; the Eastern Waters Study, which gave Nepal, India, and Bangladesh options for addressing the flooding of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers and was the basis for a multidonor flood-control action plan; and an examination of radical policy changes in Chile, Mexico, and California to support the creation of water markets and their application for water-poor countries.

As ISPAN evolved, it began to examine water resources disputes; FORWARD is its natural successor. In its third year, this contract under the direction of Peter Reiss and implemented in collaboration with TRG, CDM, CDR, and Environmental Quality International (EQI), is an experimental USAID regional project that works with stakeholders in the Middle East and Asia to bring long-standing water issues to resolution through collaborative problem-solving approaches. Through efforts to create agreements among parties in water disputes, the DAI team is also improving stakeholders' skills in negotiation, creating a cadre of trained and experienced mediators, and developing culturally and politically appropriate approaches for resolving water issues. FORWARD is the first donor project of its kind to merge alternative dispute resolution, as practiced in the United States, with local and national methods of settling conflicts in the Middle East and Asia and to apply them in actual cases. The dispute resolution methods we practice mandate an integrated approach that makes issues of water quality, quantity, and policy transparent to all stakeholders.

Photo Credit: Copyright 1994 PhotoDisc, Inc.

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