Water Availability
Page Updated: January 10, 2011
Example of Freshwater Ecosystem Based Adaption—Water Funds
from Rebecca Goldman (December 3, 2009)Water Funds define an ecosystem as including people and nature making them a very powerful EBA approach.
Please note water funds will only truly be an EBA strategy when climate models are run for the particular areas to have a better understanding of regional changes in temperature and precipitation. These models are in the process of being run for the NASCA region.
Maintain Regular Water Supply: Most climate forecasts predict changes in precipitation quantity and timing. In the Andean region, dry season flows of surface waters are already threatened. Conserving ecosystems that are biologically adapted to store and regulate water release are a safeguard against future impacts. A key objective of Andean based water funds are protection of high altitude grasslands, páramo, through investments in strengthening and expanding existing protection (park guard) systems. Páramo soils and vegetation are uniquely adapted to store water and to provide a controlled release of water. The greater extent of this ecosystem we can conserve now, the more likely we will be able to maintain at least some extent of this vegetation type under climate change impacts thereby securing water quantity and regulating water yield.
Enhance People’s Resilience to Change: Water funds invest in people’s resilience to climate change impacts. In the Andean watersheds, most people living in the more rural areas rely on small-scale crop and ranching activities for their livelihoods. They are dependent on income from this resource for much of their household revenue. If this income is threatened, the natural tendency is to deforest nearby areas or encroach on the páramo thereby threatening biodiversity and water services. Water fund strategies help buffer these communities’ livelihoods and therefore the native ecosystems against climate change impacts (such as desiccation of soils or increased inundation and therefore reduced ability to retain water) in two ways:
- Best Management Practices on Productive Systems: By fencing off headwaters, planting trees along water ways, and reforesting or revegetating parts of the landscape, water fund investments provide services to the productive system such as soil stability, soil fertility, water filtration, and water retention. Such services will help maintain productivity as temperature and precipitation fluctuate with climate change. In addition reforestation and revegetation provide connectivity of native vegetation across the landscape thereby ensuring biological corridors into the future.
- Diversification of Resource Availability: Water fund investments reduce communities’ dependence on one source of income thereby enhancing their resilience to climate change since this change can threaten resource access. All families that participate in water funds activities are provided with alternative resources besides farm income (e.g., organic gardens, guinea pig farms, or starting a sewing industry). These alternatives allow families to decrease their spent income since they no longer have to purchase particular goods on the marketplace. In addition, if farm income diminishes due to impacts on the system from climatic changes, families are buffered against this change due to alternatives.
Maintain Integrity and Resilience of the Watershed System: Water funds are holistic in their approach to watershed management investing in the conservation of the source and regulation of surface water flows but also in the watershed users that can alter the hydrologic regime of the watershed. Buffering rivers, protecting headwaters, and stabilizing soils throughout the watershed can help reduce inundations and sedimentation during sudden storm events which greatly enhances the livelihoods of downstream users and protects them against likely climate change impacts. Investing in all water providers (native ecosystems and people) provides a means to adaptively manage the biophysical components of the watershed if climate change causes unpredictable impacts.
Multi-Sectoral Governance Structure: Water funds include a decision-making board that includes representatives from multiple user groups of water resources thereby strengthening the ability of group decision making. This will be particularly important with climate change impacts as it will allow for decisions to be made at the appropriate scale – i.e., considering all water demands, needs, uses, etc. and provides a very powerful means for adaptive management, a key consideration in ecosystem based adaptation.
EXAMPLE PROJECTS from Rebecca Goldman (December 3, 2009)
Any of our Andean water funds fit into the EBA criteria laid out above. The most advanced and well established of these water funds where other NGOs have been working in the watershed already (which now the water funds will help support this work) include:
- Agua para la Vida - Water for Life water fund in East Cauca Valley near Cali, Colombia. This water fund is a particularly good example as this is the water fund where we will first be running climate models and scenarios and really moving forward with an EBA approach. In addition, there is a long history of investment in this watershed in the people and in nature by various river associations.
- FONAPA – Fondo de Agua para la Cuenca de Rio Paute – Water fund for the Paute River Watershed near Cuenca, Ecuador. This water fund is particularly important for climate change impacts as it includes the major hydroelectric company – CELEC – responsible for providing power to the majority of the country.
- Bogota – EAAB – The major water utility in Bogota has been investing in the people of the Bogota watershed for several years and has had great success in protection of the páramo ecosystems. The creation of the water fund will now help advance this work and invest in a decision making structure essential for adaptive management.
MORE INFORMATION ON WATER AVAILABILITY AND WATER FUNDS
Water funds as adaptation:
Water, Climate Change, and Forests: Watershed Stewardship for a Changing Climate. USDA Forest Service: Michael J. Furniss, Brian P. Staab, et al. General Technical Report, June 2010.
