Priority issues

Linking freshwater to oceans is a broad, cross-sectoral issue. From the policy perspective, some priority issues can be identified.

1. Build capacity and propose effective actions/recommendations for the identified freshwater/marine hotspots, considering both ecosystem and human perspective.
2. Analyse the identified impacts and suggested solutions to short/medium term effects of climate change on freshwater and marine systems (and their transition areas), especially in critical habitats and hotspots.
3. Develop strategies to integrate traditional land and marine planning into effective integrated watershed and coastal area management (including linking upstream-downstream, and implementation).
4. Identify the social and economic costs associated with land-based sources of marine pollution and how integrated watershed and coastal management can provide cost-effective solutions for local/national economies.

Also, addressing positions and strategies to both increase and improve marine exposure at Water fora and freshwater exposure at Marine fora is essential. A comprehensive integration of freshwater and marine-related issues may have an important role in helping achieve some of the marine-related world conservation targets (eg, WSSD, CBD). International commitments and binding/voluntary instruments developed to protect significant coastal ecosystems, as well as the efforts to develop and manage marine protected areas, may not be sufficient if external impacts can affect the health of coastal ecosystems. As is the case in many countries, if coastal management planning does not consider pollution from land-based sources, the consequences may not be foreseeable and the long-term efforts for coastal conservation and sustainability could be worthless. Integrating watershed planning into coastal/marine conservation efforts may be a long process, but it will be more effective in the long-term to help reach both the marine and freshwater global conservation targets.

There is not a unique and standardized methodology that can provide answers to the very complex issue of linking freshwater to oceans, especially taking into account environmental, social, cultural, political and economic variables (in all of them including also the potential impact of climate change). However there is valuable information provided by

• case studies
• documented experiences
• compendiums of lessons learned and recommendations by different types of organizations and experts.

Recommendations for addressing priority issues

Experiences from different ecosystems and/or countries bring different approaches and useful information that can help in building the necessary political awareness and commitment to address the current and future problems of integrated watershed and coastal area management. It is important to have in mind that some general recommendations have to be applied at the local/national level and a custom-made approach may be necessary. For instance, climate change will have a gradual effect and will not have the same impact in all similar areas globally. Local impacts of climate change, risk, water availability and use, and changes in freshwater and marine ecosystems have to be modelled/predicted for each particular case.

Each of the priority issues above could be addressed with some of these questions:

Build capacity and propose effective actions/recommendations for the identified freshwater/marine hotspots, considering both ecosystem and human perspective.

• What would be the priority hotspots (using the natural systems identified by the IPCC) by region that can help to promote the issue of linking freshwater to oceans?
• What is the level of knowledge we have about the potential impact of climate change on the priority hotspots?
• What is (or what is the limit of) the natural adaptation capacity of these hotspots?
• What do we know about the consequences (natural, economic, social) of changing or losing those hotspots?
• What would be the priority actions (research, investments, capacity building, planning) for each one of the priority hotspots?

Analyse the identified impacts and suggested solution to short/medium term effects of climate change on freshwater and marine systems (and their transition areas), especially in critical habitats and hotspots.

• What will be the adaptation strategies to face climate change impacts in the most vulnerable coastal areas (e.g., SIDS)?
• What would be the priorities for international cooperation and funding? Where and when?
• What will be the expected impacts on coastal ecosystems and their associated resources (e.g., fisheries, aquaculture, tourism)?
• What will be the expected effect on coastal communities (e.g., health, economy, migrations, poverty)?

Develop strategies to integrate traditional land and marine planning into effective integrated watershed and coastal area management (including linking upstream-downstream, and implementation).

• What are the incentives to promote integration (e.g., among national agencies, jurisdictions, political levels, stakeholders, and decision makers)?
• How could we be more effective in promoting this integration among political leaders and national planners?
• What are the cultural and political barriers to achieve integration (e.g., inland vs. island societies)?
• How to challenge the current and traditional territorial planning process that separates the inland and offshore interlink (eg, how to see beyond the blue-water spot in the management plan map)?
• How to promote an IWCM planning incentive program among major donor agencies?
• How to link the development of NPAs (or similar instruments) to the requirements of investors and/or donors?
• How to avoid duplication of efforts (among donors and among national agencies) to maximize the planning and implementation resources?
• What are the [most effective] tools to demonstrate the need to achieve integration (eg, economic valuation, economic activity impact, human health cost, ecosystem service loss, etc.)?
• What are the other priority needs (and how to address them), besides funding, required for effective implementation of national/local IWCM plans?
• How to be more “aggressive” in identifying polluters upstream (and their effects on the environment)?
• How can the marine environment community get (and work) together with the inland planners and environmental groups?
• How to link inland management planning with management plans of particularly sensitive coastal areas (e.g., MPAs) or habitats?
• What are the elements and key strategies for developing integrated water educational programs and involvement for key stakeholders and decision-makers?
• What are the most effective mechanisms for sharing information and/or data?

Source: 4th Global Conference on Oceans, Coasts and Islands, Hanoi, Vietnam, 7-11 April, 2008
Policy Brief on Freshwater to Oceans, Pgs 5-7 http://www.thew2o.net/goc2008/freshwater.htm