Prioritizing Long-term Watershed Management Strategies Using Group Decision Analysis

There is a growing consensus that an effective way of enhancing long-term water resources management and environmental sustainability is through locally based planning at the watershed scale. Managing watershed resources for particular uses requires interactive dialogue among all stakeholders who have different objectives. Therefore, the resolution of inter-group conflict should be an acknowledged task of the planning process. In this paper, an integrated framework for prioritizing watershed management strategies is proposed. A case study is employed to highlight the challenges of using group decision analysis in strategic planning and to illustrate the interaction between different stakeholders on watershed issues. In particular, two group decision-making approaches are used to assess and analyse different stakeholders' preferences for various strategies and alternatives. Professional experts, government agencies and community leaders constitute the different parties included in the framework. The main focus is on the application of group decision analysis in the long-term watershed planning process. The results of the overall preference analysis show that water resources development is the most important strategy followed by agricultural and range management.     

流域综合治理方案制定的基本理论及技术框架

针对我国流域综合治理方案制定过程中理论和技术框架缺失问题,从宏观、中观、微观尺度探索提出了流域综合治理方案制定的基础理论,即宏观的可持续发展理论、中观的流域“自然社会”二元水循环理论以及微观的“木桶理论”;构建了流域综合治理方案制定的基本原则,即流域统筹、单元控制、系统均衡;以流域面临的水问题为导向,系统构建了由机理分析、量化模拟、规划集成和方案确定4个关联耦合层次构成的流域综合治理方案制定技术框架;对流域综合治理方案制定主要层次的未来发展趋势进行了展望。     

基于经济学视角的流域环境管理

以自然流域为单元的管理体制是水环境管理的发展趋势,以经济学视角研究流域环境管理是从根本上解决流域的环境问题并制定有效环境经济政策的基础。从经典经济学和新制度经济学的基本理论分析可知,流域环境资源是公共物品,市场对于流域环境资源的配置不能达到帕累托最优状态,机制设计理论可以在信息不对称的背景下指导流域环境管理机制设计,提高流域环境管理效率,以此衍生出的流域环境经济学,是一门重要的环境经济学分支,将成为一个新的学科增长点。     

Watershed Management Technique to Control Sediment Yield in Agriculturally Dominated Areas

Abstract

Non-point source pollution is recognized internationally as a critical environmental problem. In Illinois, soil erosion from agricultural lands is the major source of such pollution. The erosion process, which has been accelerated by human activity, tends to reduce crop productivity and leads to subsequent problems from deposition on farmlands and in water bodies. Comprehensive watershed management, however, can be used to protect these natural resources. In this study, a discrete time optimal control methodology and computational model are developed for determining land use and management alternatives that minimize sediment yield from agriculturally-dominated watersheds. The solution methodology is based on an interface between a genetic algorithm and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Soil and Water Assessment Tool. Model analyses are performed on a farm field basis to allow capture of different, local stakeholder perspectives, and crop management alternatives are based on a three-year rotation pattern. The decision support tool is applied to the Big Creek watershed located in the Cache River basin of Southern Illinois. The application demonstrates that the methodology is a valuable tool in advancing comprehensive watershed management. The study represents part of an ongoing research effort to develop an even more comprehensive decision support tool that uses multi-criteria evaluation to address social, economic, and hydrologic issues for integrative watershed management.     

A GIS-Based Score System for Siting and Sizing of Created or Restored Wetlands: Two Case Studies

Water bodies are impacted by watershed loads in terms of nutrients and xenobiotics. This impact impairs the designated uses of the water body. Often preventive actions and end-of-pipe treatments do not reach the acceptable load to ensure the water quality standard in the water body. Wetlands are suitable tools for improving the self-purification capacity of a water system and can be used as a tool to reduce pollutant loads in a river network.This paper presents a methodology for the Siting and Sizing of created or restored wetlands at the watershed level, based on Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technique and estimations of wetland required area. The final outputs of the methodology are a Land Score System for Siting and a first rough estimation for the Sizing. The combination of these two elements is expected to be useful as a planning tool for watershed management and wetland planning.In order to assess the reliability of the procedure two very different case-studies are considered.     

Flood Vulnerability to Climate Change through Hydrological Modeling

Abstract

Determination of flood vulnerability to climate change is one of the most critical issues for regional water management. Most of the previous studies related to system vulnerabilities to climate change were either a qualitative assessment without the support of hydrological modeling or too complex to apply them to real-world systems. In this study, a modeling and assessment system is proposed to tackle flood vulnerability to the climate change through the incorporation of future climate change scenarios, rainfall-runoff simulation, and vulnerability estimation within an integrated frame. The developed approach is applied to provide decision support for flood management of the Swift Current Creek watershed in Western Canada. The approach not only is useful to determine relative flood vulnerabilities to climate change for supporting flood control planning in the watershed, but also can be extended to estimate vulnerabilities of water quality and water supply to climate change.     

美国的水土保持及小流域治理

在分析美国水土资源及开发情况的基础上，系统评述美国水土保持及小流域治理的管理经验及技术措施，对中、美两国的国情及治理模式的差异进行对比，分析并提出了在水土保持及小流域治理方面可以借鉴的经验。     

Watershed management in Thailand: concepts,problems and implementation

Problems of water resource management are becoming increasingly severe in most countries of the developing world. Already from early in this century it was recognised, wherever water resource management problems began to manifest themselves, that the most appropriate level upon which to study and confront these problems was the river basin. This paper reviews various approaches that have been taken to river basin management and the way in which these have surfaced from the particular range of problems and the political context from which they emerged. Since the end of the 1970s, the rapid development of Thailand has brought into focus the need for integrated resource management as a basis for overcoming increasingly severe problems of drought and flood. Deforestation is seen as a major cause of these problems and so it is in watershed management that the first initiatives are being taken. The paper describes in some detail the system which has been adopted and finally discusses the political and administrative problems facing implementation of the system. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

流域一体化下的生态文明先行示范区建设探索

以抚仙湖流域为研究区域,通过系统收集分析流域多年水量水质监测数据,诊断流域保护与发展面临的主要矛盾,并基于流域一体化管理思想,提出了流域保护与发展的可能路径:1创新抚仙湖流域生态文明示范区行政管理体制,从发展思路确立抚仙湖流域实施"严格环境保护、创新生态发展"的转型战略,真正树立和实现"大景区"环境保护和"大旅游"产业发展的生态文明建设理念;2在全面实现生态发展战略的前提下,建议将流域实施分区管控,调减农业用地面积,积极发展现代观光农业和旅游业;3通过生态搬迁,优化城乡布局,实施抚仙湖流域全域"大旅游景区"战略,实现生态资源-资产-资本的良性转化。     

小流域坝系优化规划模型及其应用

在水土保持治沟坝系规划中，采用非线性规划方法，建立了适用于新建坝系规划和已成坝系改造规划的小流域坝系优化规划模型，利用该模型可求出坝系中诸坝较优的建坝高度和适宜的建坝时间。以孙家沟流域为例，对建立的优化模型进行了验证。     

Integrated Water Resource Development Plan for Sustainable Management of Mayurakshi Watershed, India using Remote Sensing and GIS

Integrated watershed management requires a host of inter-related information to be generated and studied in relation to each other. Remote sensing technique provides valuable and up-to-date spatial information on natural resources and physical terrain parameters. Geographical Information System (GIS) with its capability of integration and analysis of spatial, aspatial, multi-layered information obtained in a wide variety of formats both from remote sensing and other conventional sources has proved to be an effective tool in planning for watershed development. In this study, area and locale specific watershed development plans were generated for Mayurakshi watershed, India using remote sensing and GIS techniques. Adopting Integrated Mission for Sustainable Development (IMSD) guidelines, decision rules were framed. Using the overlay and decision tree concepts water resource development plan was generated. Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS-1C), Linear Imaging Self Scanner (LISS-III) satellite data along with other field and collateral data on lithology, soil, slope, well inventory, fracture have been utilized for generating land use/land cover and hydro geomorphology of the study area, which are an essential prerequisites for water resources planning and development. Spatial data integration and analyses are carried out in GIS environment.     

Joint Application of Artificial Neural Networks and Evolutionary Algorithms to Watershed Management

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have become common data driven tools for modeling complex, nonlinear problems in science and engineering. Many previous applications have relied on gradient-based search techniques, such as the back propagation (BP) algorithm, for ANN training. Such techniques, however, are highly susceptible to premature convergence to local optima and require a trial-and-error process for effective design of ANN architecture and connection weights. This paper investigates the use of evolutionary programming (EP), a robust search technique, and a hybrid EP–BP training algorithm for improved ANN design. Application results indicate that the EP–BP algorithm may limit the drawbacks of using local search algorithms alone and that the hybrid performs better than EP from the perspective of both training accuracy and efficiency. In addition, the resulting ANN is used to replace the hydrologic simulation component of a previously developed multiobjective decision support model for watershed management. Due to the efficiency of the trained ANN with respect to the traditional simulation model, the replacement reduced the overall computational time required to generate preferred watershed management policies by 75%. The reduction is likely to improve the practical utility of the management model from a typical user perspective. Moreover, the results reveal the potential role of properly trained ANNs in addressing computational demands of various problems without sacrificing the accuracy of solutions.     

流域生态修复科学性思考

流域生态系统规划已经成为流域相关研究中的重点内容,科学的流域生态系统规划理论和方法为流域的健康和可持续发展提供了丰富的研究途径和思路。基于生态学理论,强调了非生物要素作为生物要素的基础,阐述了水文、地形、土壤等对生态修复的作用。倡导基于自然解决方案的流域生态修复,强烈主张以水文修复作为生态修复的基础,以流域水文规划为主导的多专业协同的流域生态保护及修复方法。建议生态修复首先要理解自然生态要素之间的关系,然后统筹规划流域范围内的生物和非生物要素,并协调人类生活和生态系统保护之间的关系,为流域生态系统的健康、稳定和可持续发展提供科学性解决方案。     

Spatial Decision Support System for Watershed Management

A prototype spatial decision support system (SDSS) is presented for watershed management. The SDSS integrates landuse/landcover derived from the remote sensing data, real-time hydrological data, geographic information system, and a model-based subsystem for computing soil loss, land capability classification and engineering measures. A graphical user interface has been developed to allow effective use by decision makers. The model-based subsystem employs a process-based soil erosion model to compute soil loss in spatial environment. Computed pixel-based soil loss information is an input to the land capability classification and watershed management modules. The developed SDSS can help the end users in avoiding the laborious procedures of soil erosion calculations and analysing various thematic layers to get suitable watershed management practices. The SDSS for watershed management is applied to the Tones watershed in India to compute soil loss, to prioritise watersheds, and to suggest various watershed management practices.     

三峡库区下岸溪小流域水土流失现状评估

 以三峡库区下岸溪小流域为研究区,在GIS软件的支持下,利用2008年SPOT5遥感影像和1∶5万DEM数据,提取坡度因子、植被覆盖度因子和土地利用类型因子作为水土流失风险评估指标因子,结合土壤侵蚀分级标准,生成研究区水土流失风险分级图,利用改进的工程侵蚀模数计算模型,对小流域土壤侵蚀量进行了估算。结果表明：①本流域以水力侵蚀为主,占研究区总面积的88.81%,其中中度侵蚀面积占该流域总面积的38.49%;②开矿等引起的工程侵蚀对该小流域土壤侵蚀量贡献率很大,占该流域水土流失量的41.43%。因此,在开矿和矿区基础设施建设等工程施工时,应采取有效的水土保持措施。     

流域水权初始配置模型研究

根据公平、有效及可持续发展的原则,分析影响水权初始分配的主要因素,构建水权初始分配的层次结构图,采用多目标半结构性模糊优选模型研究流域水权初始分配,其研究成果被应用于汉江流域.     

Planning for Implementation of Riparian Buffers in the Feitsui Reservoir Watershed

The Feitsui reservoir is a major water supply source for more than five million people in Northern Taiwan. The reservoir water quality has been good, but is threatened by eutrophication due to excessive nutrient input and siltation due to sediment loads. Recently, the water authorities in Taiwan have made considerable efforts to devise strategies using watershed conservation practices for the protection of Feitsui reservoir water quality. The control of non-point source pollution (NPS) represents one of the major strategies and the use of best management practices (BMPs) is under careful consideration. The objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness and cost of a full Feitsui watershed implementation of riparian buffer strips and other appropriate conservation practices. Based on the use of watershed simulation models and a statistical relationship between pollution reduction rate and the width and slope of a buffer strip, a methodology for the planning and design of riparian buffer strips was addressed. Data from field experiments were used to calibrate the coefficients of the regression equations. Several planning scenarios were evaluated by means of cost-benefit analysis coupled with net present value method. Data on local construction and maintenance costs for the selected design and location of buffer strips were used in the analysis. Based on several cost-benefit analyses, the scenario for installing buffer strips with 30 m width and 5% slope along both sides of tributary streams in the sub-watersheds with high nutrient (phosphorus) loadings was found to be most cost effective.     

陕西渭河流域水资源和水环境管理模式演进与管理方法研究

回顾了陕西省渭河流域水资源管理的理论与实践演进过程，并分析了渭河流域水资源与水环境的现状，在借鉴了成功流域管理经验的基础上，对渭河流域的水资源可持续性管理提出了意见和建议，以期对未来陕西渭河流域的水资源管理工作有所参考。     

塔里木河流域水资源利用与管理分析

在进行塔里木河流域水资源开发利用分析的基础上,总结了近年来塔里木河流域开发治理方面所做工作。指明了源流区大量开荒。自用水量急剧增加,导致汇入干流的水量减少;干流区上游引水过多,下游来水量急剧下降;流域内水利基础设施薄弱;缺乏流域总体规划等水资源开发中的主要问题,提出了提高水资源利用效率的措施包括实行全流域水资源的统一管理和配置;借助于水价和水权交易等手段,实现交易主体“双赢”;依靠技术创新和工程建设。实行维护生态与发展生产相结合等。     

Watershed characteristics, land use and fabric: The application of remote sensing and geographical information systems

Integrated watershed assessment, especially relying on remote sensing (RS), is a newly established procedure in developing countries. It is proving to be a major component in river‐basin environmental management. The recurrence of environmental problems in the Akkar El Kabir River watershed, as well as the lack of proper data on sources and sinks of pollutants, and the extent of human interference, led to the current study. Advanced geoinformation tools, such as RS and geographical information systems (GIS), prove to be a valuable asset in securing data on the fabric of the Akkar watershed in relation to its natural setting and anthropic interference. This is particularly true in the current study as the river constitutes the boundary between Lebanon and Syria. Remote sensing captures the watershed characteristics and land use on both sides without constraints. The natural fabric includes geology, drainage, hydrogeology, forest and soil. The anthropic fabric includes settlements, utilities, roads, agriculture and land use. If it were not for geoinformation techniques, the task of securing such data would be difficult. Also, these techniques show the impact of malpractices from excessive human interference that result in degradation of land and water quality. Changes in the watershed, such as environmental deterioration, are observed as water pollution, soil erosion, forest decline and socioeconomic imbalance. Obviously, this is the outcome of malpractices in a multisectorial system. A major challenge for RS and GIS is to quantify, model and predict, if possible, the extent of these changes. Remote sensing inherently captures the impact of interaction between nature and human beings. Detection of change is a major indicator that RS can contribute to the evaluation of the state of the environment. The application of it on this watershed reveals that significant changes have occurred over the last 10–15 years, most of which are anthropic.