CIRF's SESSIONS: Objectives and Expected Results

CIRF's sessions were registered within the Theme "Integrated Water Resources Management" (IWRM)" and their title were "MANAGEMENT of CONFLICTS in ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING AIMED AT RIVER RESTORATION".

Objectives

• to promote river restoration and conflict management in environmental management as indispensable tools to move towards sustainable development

• to promote a dialogue amongst decision and policy makers, managers of water services, end-users (including entrepreneurs who use resources, discharge contaminants, need land and security with regard to hydrogeological events), local population, NGO, and the research-scientific community in order to identify better practices for the management of water, land and ecosystems, and better ways to transfer the managerial capacity to less developed countries , while suitably adapting models established in the “developed world”

• to gain commitment of governments to facilitate communication, dialogue and negotiation, to involve administrators and “actors economically strong”

• to launch a programme to stimulate the spreading of such a culture by fostering a more equitable cooperation

• start an exercise for systematically gathering Best Practices ( identifying examples of good practices and cases of bad practices; evaluating opportunities and constraints)

Expected results from the event are

• acquire a broader knowledge about what’s going around the world in the subject topic

• establish a network of end-users, researchers , practitioners and decision/policy-makers to create partnership and activate synergies

• identify common principles and criteria to improve decision making and to restore rivers and aquatic environments by identifying common areas as well as differences, peculiarities and difficulties, and by identifying and critically discuss the methods and techniques used

• insert a written/spoken shared message in the proceedings and political declarations that will follow the event to rise policy-makers’ awareness

• define and propose an Action plan that supports international organisms , governments, entrepreneurs, investors, local subjects and communities to better focus their actions.

CIRF's POLICY AT THE WATER FORUM

• well functioning ecosystems provide a fundamental base for socio-economic productive activities (e.g. by sustaining fishery, and ensuring good water quality);
• current policy of artificialization of rivers (and watersheds) and attempts to assign them a stable, fixed water course proved to be a failure; indeed, economic-productive activities seriously suffer from a bad state of rivers (flooding, landsliding, damages to infrastructures) and tremendous amounts of money are wasted each year to fix the damages and to implement new hydraulic works in an end-less spiral of increasing costs;
• the demand for recreation in natural environments is high and increasing (at least in “developed countries”) : considerable social benefits and potential economic returns are involved.

1. Avoid and reduce the presence of goods at risk
2. Give back to rivers their space to flood and move
3. Increase the basin capacity of storing water in a diffused fashion
4. Recover the geomorphologic equilibrium (erosion-sedimentation)
5. Learn how to live together with the risk (rather than assuming it can be eliminated)

1. a more “natural” physical setting of rivers
2. a satisfactory water regime
3. good water quality
4. high biodiversity and stable and functioning ecosystems
5. the natural components and the historical-architectonic and socio-cultural elements through which the river characterizes the landscape, its relationship with man and generates beauty

• rationalize the decision making process;
• manage organized , small and large-scale public participation. This includes balancing the State regulatory/control role with the (efficient) initiative of the private sector, while bringing local communities to full responsibility. This implies giving them the power to share decisions and monitor the fulfillment of commitments in implementation and management, together with the burden to apply the principle “who pollutes/uses, pays” (while ensuring equity and accessibility through a transparent solidarity);
• develop conceptual frameworks and applicable methods for integrated evaluation (by unifying, as far as possible, the common features of Cost-Benefit Analysis, Environmental Impact Assessment, Strategic Environmental Assessment, Multicriteria Analysis, and by coordinating in a logical fashion the additional information they provide);
• introduce room for negotiation aimed at conflict resolution;
• acquire and share updated and comprehensive information by exploiting also local, distributed information sources.

• recognizing the mutual advantages of the countries involved, including economic, social, political or environmental benefits (no longer state it just as “the rich helping the poor”);
• ensuring economic sustainability: a successful cooperation tries to raise endogenous resources by stimulating local private and public sectors as well as the local population. At the same time, should not load the shoulders of the poorer country with the burden of extremely costly goods and services mostly provided by the richer country (at its benefit). Furthermore, environmental externalities should be carefully internalized;
• accompanying actions in the poorer country with measures taken in the richer one (e.g. driving consumers to select more sustainable products or to modify un-sustainable life-styles);
• ensuring that short-term benefits will be accompanied by empowerment of local cultural, technical , economic and organizational capabilities , leading on a longer term to develop local autonomous initiatives with added value;
• adapting any know-how or technical skill to the local context, privileging small-scale, replicable and environmentally, socially, economically sustainable actions. In particular , the participatory-communitarian dimension has to increase while passing from industrialized to less developed countries and, within these, from cities to rural areas.

CIRF's MESSAGE AFTER THE FORUM

preserving or restoring rivers serves environmental objectives (nature conservation, landscape, ...) but not only. It is also a prerequisite to achieve socio-economic objectives (hydraulic safety, water availability,...).
In particular, river restoration is a key element to implement sustainable strategies of water management. Therefore, it should not be considered only a priority-2 issue, after main problems have been solved; it rather is a central element of an integrated strategy
• to restore rivers without just doing an "aesthetic make-up", we need to significantly modify the equilibrium between man and the territory , i.e. land-use. This implies making important decisions and touching heavy interests. Its is necessary then to improve decision making processes by merging the need for high technical and scientific standards in the management of resources with high levels of participatory democracy. This is why we need to face and manage conflicts. It is key that decision and policy makers recognize the importance of such changes, but it is not enough: they should also learn how to deal with participatory processes.

AGENDA

SESSION 1 – A FRAMEWORK of CONCEPTS and EXPERIENCES for RIVER RESTORATION (8.45-11.30)

(S1-I) Introduction to CIRF and CIRF sessions - Andrea Nardini (CIRF)

• coordination with official Italian delegation
• organized debate with other IWRM conveners
• organization of the sessions

• outlook on Italian problems (flooding, landslide, ecosystems, quality, water resources use)

• where do we want to go: objectives

• is river restoration a secondary objective? No: it is good not only for the sake of nature and to preserve cultural identity of riverine populations and settlements , but first of all to face floods risk and to allow for economic activities