Highlights

Abstract

Keywords

1. Introduction

2. Materials and methods

3. Results

4. Discussion

5. Conclusion

CRediT

Declaration of competing interest

Acknowledgements

Appendix A. Supplementary data

References

Abstract

Amongst different climatic and anthropogenic drivers, water resources management can cause massive changes to the natural regime of a lake after its regulation, thereby affecting the quantity and quality of water intended for satisfying the multiple basin water requirements. Here, we investigate the multi-decadal variation of the water levels and outflows of Lake Garda, the largest in Italy, where the dam operational rules and the related basin water needs heavily altered the annual and seasonal trend of the lake regime since its regulation in 1951. Daily lake levels and outflows were first collected and digitized for the period 1888–2020, thus providing a unique database of 133 years that allowed a consistent comparison between natural and regulated periods. Statistical analyses highlighted a significant change of the inter-annual trend of the lake outflows, which passed from upward to downward after regulation, against a constant increasing trend of the water levels. Conversely, water levels showed a more remarkable shifts on a seasonal scale if compared to the outflows, revealing the influence of summer and winter basin water needs. Additional analyses on the inter-annual variation of the main downstream water demands regulated by the dam, i.e. the irrigation, hydropower and fluvial ecosystem requirements, outlined their relevance in changing the lake regime, influencing dam operational policies, which progressively limited the share of water released for ecosystem integrity. A comparison between the lake levels and outflows recorded for the pre-regulation and post-regulation periods of some selected European perialpine lakes finally highlighted different effects on the lake regime, drawing attention to the importance of defining the role of the dam operational policies within the current scenario of climate change and changing water demands.

1. Introduction

Lakes are one of the major global sources of renewable freshwater (Gleick, 1993), and they have been massively turned into regulated systems since the second half of the XX century (World Commission on Dams, 2000; Gleick, 2003). Despite the potentially high amount of water that can be allocated through lake regulation, efficient management of lake levels and outflows is an increasingly critical issue. Major water demands, like hydroelectricity production (Zarfl et al., 2015) and crop irrigation (Oki and Kanae, 2006), long-standing water interests, e.g. navigation and touristic activities, together with climate change and the need to ensure decent environmental standards for freshwater bodies (European Commission, 2000), challenge the way we manage key lake regulation systems, such as dams, to optimally benefit the human society and the natural environment (Moore et al., 2010). Dam construction, even on previously existing natural lakes, indeed determines relevant alterations both on the downstream riverine system and on the lake itself, affecting a variety of hydrological, geochemical and biological aspects (Ward et al., 1983; Nilsson et al., 2005; Magilligan and Nislow, 2005; Poikane et al., 2020).

1- Introduction

2- Conceptualizing the implementation of stakeholder participation

3- Methodology

4- Stakeholder participation at AOCs: challenges and strategies

5- Discussion and conclusion

References

Abstract

Stakeholder participation is now widely viewed as an essential component of environmental management projects, but limited research investigates how practitioners perceive the major challenges and strategies for implementing high-quality participation. In order to address this gap, we present findings from a survey and interviews conducted with managers and advisory committee leaders in a case study of United States and binational (US and Canada) Great Lakes Areas of Concern. Our findings suggest that recruiting and integrating participants and sustaining participation over the long term present distinctive ongoing challenges that are not fully recognized in existing conceptualizations of the process of implementing participation. For example, it can be difficult to recruit active stakeholders to fill vacant “slots,” to integrate distinctive interests and perspectives in decision-making processes, and to keep participants involved when activity is low and less visible. We present strategies that emerged in the survey and interviews for addressing these challenges, emphasizing the building and leveraging of relationships among stakeholders themselves. Such strategies include balancing tight networks with an openness to new members, supplementing formal hearings with social gatherings, making participation socially meaningful, and dividing labor between managers and advisory committees.

Introduction

Stakeholder participation has become widely accepted as an essential component of environmental management projects. The idea is now commonplace that decision-making can benefit from the participation of both technical experts and ordinary citizens. Fiorino (1990) categorized the benefits of citizen participation as substantive (bringing distinctive and valuable knowledge into the project), normative (honoring democratic rights), and instrumental (making decisions more legitimate and effective). Research suggests that effective participatory processes can generate improved decisions and other beneficial outcomes, including learning, increased trust, and reduced conflict (e.g., Beierle and Konisky, 2001; Danielson, 2016; Reed, 2008; Sterling et al., 2017). However, successful participation depends on both the design of the process and several contextual factors (e.g., Baker and Chapin, 2018; de Vente et al., 2016; Reed et al., 2018; Sterling et al., 2017). In some cases, the difficulty of realizing these benefits and the risks of generating negative outcomes have generated disillusionment about participation (e.g., Moon et al., 2017; Staddon et al., 2015). Consequently, a key question for environmental management is how to design and implement stakeholder participation processes of high quality. A growing literature addresses dimensions of these processes, including identifying and characterizing stakeholders (e.g., Colvin et al., 2016; Mitchell et al., 1997), structuring levels and degrees of participation (e.g., Davidson, 1998; Reed et al., 2018), implementing participatory techniques (e.g., Van Asselt et al., 2001), and evaluating participatory processes (e.g., Rowe and Frewer, 2000; Luyet et al., 2012). However, as Mease et al. (2018, p. 149) point out, little research focuses on “the experiences, perceptions, and stated needs of practitioners themselves”: that is, those who coordinate, manage, and implement participation in practice.

مقاله سال 2016

The Three Gorges Dam is the largest operating hydroelectric facility in the world, generating 83.7 TWh in 2013 and 98.8 TWh in 2014.1 The impoundment project of the Three Gorges Dam was separated into four phases. Beginning in November of 1997, the water level of the Yangtze River was increased to 10–75 m. In June 2003, the second phase of the project, the water level was increased to 135 m. In 2006, the water level was increased to 156 m. After completion of the Three Gorges project in 2009, the water level was increased to 175 m.

Although the extractive use of water in the Three Gorges Dam contributes to the economic growth of China by generating electricity, it causes a severe shortage of water in areas of the lower Yangtze River such as Poyang Lake. Located in Jiangxi Province, Poyang Lake is the largest freshwater lake in China. It connects to the lower Yangtze River through a channel. Fig. 1 shows the average, the highest and lowest monthly water levels of Poyang Lake for the last 30 years (1983– 2012).2 We can see that all three indicators decreased dramatically following completion of the four impoundment phases of the Three Gorges Dam project.

The shortage of water has a negative influence on local agriculture and manufacturing industries and impedes economic growth. To deal with this problem, the local government of Jiangxi Province proposed the construction of a new water conservancy project on Poyang Lake to impound water during drought periods and restore the regeneration capacities of Poyang Lake. The plan attracted international attention, with much of the controversy focusing on the effects of the project on the ecological system of the Poyang Lake Wetland and animal protection. However, few opinions about the relationship between the long-run economic growth and the construction and maintenance costs of impoundment projects were offered.