WaterWired

Thursday Twofer! The GGG Opines: Groundwater Visibility, Invisibility and More!

So who should email me about yesterday's post? One of my favorites - friend and colleague Sharon B. Megdal, Director of the Arizona Water Resources Research Center. We get along unlike most New Jerseyites (she) and New Yorkers (me) do. 

But GGG? What? Groundwater Governance Goddess/Guru - that's the moniker I gave her a few years ago. We've got two papers from her today.

 

1) Here is a one-pager article she wrote in 2016, The Invisible Water:

Download The Invisible Water

The first two paragraphs:

Water policy discussions around the globe are focusing on groundwater and how to improve its governance and management. Growing water demands and changing climate’s influence on temperature and precipitation patterns have underscored the importance of groundwater – the invisible water.

Groundwater meets about 40 percent of Arizona’s annual water uses. While the Colorado River, which also satisfies about 40 percent of Arizona’s annual needs, is receiving a lot of attention, with the Central Arizona Project’s “Protect Lake Mead” campaign and other efforts to raise awareness of work being done to forestall and maybe even avoid shortage, efforts to manage our groundwater resources wisely deserve at least equal attention. Those of us who work in the water sector in Arizona know how important groundwater is to communities and economic activities throughout the state. We regularly cite the centrality of Arizona’s 1980 Groundwater Management Act, which implemented a strong regulatory framework for groundwater utilization in designated Active Management Areas. But because these provisions do not apply statewide, even here in Arizona, where groundwater management seems second nature, groundwater overdraft continues to be a challenge.

Cutting to the chase...

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention the important work on groundwater assessment being carried out along the US-Mexico border. The binational Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Program has produced a report on the San Pedro Aquifer in English and Spanish and is completing a similar report for the binational Santa Cruz Aquifer.

Groundwater is a critically important resource for Arizona and much of the world. People are coming together to emphasize the need to understand this resource and manage it better. At the University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center, we endeavor to contribute to efforts to share best practices for groundwater assessment, governance, and management. Please visit http://wrrc.arizona.edu/programs-research to find out more.

2) She also sent me this excellent open-access paper: Invisible Water: The Importance of Good Groundwater Governance and Management, npj Clean Water, Volume 1, Article number: 15 (2018). It was published in the online journal npj Clean Water. I posted it about 2 years ago. Click on the graphics to enlarge them.

Download Megdal FINAL Invisible Water npj Clean Water

Abstract
This paper summarizes the results of efforts to bring attention to the importance of understanding and improving groundwater governance and management. Discussion of survey work in the United States and global case studies highlights the importance of focusing attention on this invisible water resource before pollution or depletion of it causes severe economic, environmental, and social dislocations. Better governance and management of groundwater are required to move toward sustainable groundwater use.

Introduction
The growing population’s increasing demand for water for food, energy, and other human uses and changing climate’s impacts to both water supplies and demands are resulting in increasing reliance on groundwater. In many places groundwater is being depleted faster than nature replenishes it, and its quality is being compromised. Groundwater “mining” can have negative implications for meeting long-term water needs of people and natural systems. At the same time that groundwater from deeper and saltier aquifers is eyed for meeting future drinking water needs, aquifers are being identified as repositories for waste streams from desalination and energy processes as well as carbon sequestration sites. As dependence on groundwater increases, water managers and policy makers must pay careful attention to both groundwater quality and quantity. This paper focuses on efforts to bring attention to the importance of understanding and improving the governance and management of this invisible and increasingly relied-upon resource. It is essential that water users focus attention on this invisible water resource before pollution or depletion of it causes severe economic, environmental, and social dislocations. Better governance and management of groundwater are required to move toward sustainable groundwater use.

Cutting to the chase...

Concluding Remarks
Groundwater, the invisible water supply, is becoming more visible in dialogues on the challenges of meeting the world’s food, energy and water needs. The governance and management of this resource will often be at the scale of the source aquifers. Many across the globe are working hard to bring greater attention to the importance of good governance and management of this oftentimes non-renewable resource. As the state-level survey work demonstrates, quality considerations are paramount to those responsible for regulating groundwater. Along with other factors, quality considerations will determine groundwater’s usability. The case studies discussed underscore that groundwater is largely a local resource, with its governance and management vital to the livability and productivity of regions around the globe. Water policymakers, users, researchers, and citizens must focus attention on this invisible water resource before pollution or depletion of it results in severe economic, environmental, and social dislocations.

I jokingly refer to Sharon as the Groundwater Governance Goddess (or Guru). But it's no joke; she is! Read more of her work here and here and here. 

Enjoy!

"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. " - Carl Sagan

Water, Volume 12, Issue 8 (August 2020) - Treatment & Reuse, Hydrology & Hydrogeology, Urban Water Management, Hydraulics & Hydrodynamics, Water Use and Scarcity, Management & Governance, Agriculture, Contamination and More!

Here are the featured papers for Water, Volume 12, Issue 8 (August 2020).

Just a few of the 243 articles are shown here. You can access all the papers - click here.

Enjoy!

Cover Story

Article: Determination of Actual Evapotranspiration and Crop Coefficients of California Date Palms Using the Residual of Energy Balance Approach

Aliasghar Montazar, Robert Krueger, Dennis Corwin, Alireza Pourreza, Cayle Little, Sonia Rios and Richard L. Snyder

Water 2020, 12(8), 2253; doi:10.3390/w12082253

Featured Papers

Review: Seven Good Reasons for Integrating Terrestrial and Marine Spatial Datasets in Changing Environments

Mariacristina Prampolini, Alessandra Savini, Federica Foglini and Mauro Soldati

Water 2020, 12(8), 2221; doi:10.3390/w12082221

Article: Probabilistic Prediction of Significant Wave Height Using Dynamic Bayesian Network and Information Flow

Ming Li and Kefeng Liu

Water 2020, 12(8), 2075; doi:10.3390/w12082075

Article: Photolytic Degradation of Tetracycline in the Presence of Ca(II) and/or Humic Acid

Si Li, Yiyan He, Fanguang Kong, Weiling Sun and Jiangyong Hu

Water 2020, 12(8), 2078; doi:10.3390/w12082078

Article: Understanding the Key Factors That Influence Efficient Water-Saving Practices among Tourists: A Mediterranean Case Study

Maria Torres-Bagur, Anna Ribas and Josep Vila-Subirós

Water 2020, 12(8), 2083; doi:10.3390/w12082083

Article: Potential Enhancement of the In-Situ Bioremediation of Contaminated Sites through the Isolation and Screening of Bacterial Strains in Natural Hydrocarbon Springs

Pietro Rizzo, Matilde Malerba, Antonio Bucci, Anna M. Sanangelantoni, Sara Remelli and Fulvio Celico

Water 2020, 12(8), 2090; doi:10.3390/w12082090

Article: Dune Systems’ Characterization and Evolution in the Andalusia Mediterranean Coast (Spain)

Rosa Molina, Giorgio Manno, Carlo Lo Re and Giorgio Anfuso

Water 2020, 12(8), 2094; doi:10.3390/w12082094

Article: Development of an Environmental Decision Support System for Enhanced Coagulation in Drinking Water Production

Jordi Suquet, Lluís Godo-Pla, Meritxell Valentí, Marta Verdaguer, Maria J. Martin, Manel Poch and Hèctor Monclús

Water 2020, 12(8), 2115; doi:10.3390/w12082115

Article: Precipitant Effects on Aggregates Structure of Asphaltene and Their Implications for Groundwater Remediation

Christian B. Hammond, Dengjun Wang and Lei Wu

Water 2020, 12(8), 2116; doi:10.3390/w12082116

Article: Removal of 17β-Estradiol by Activated Charcoal Supported Titanate Nanotubes (TNTs@AC) through Initial Adsorption and Subsequent Photo-Degradation: Intermediates, DFT calculation, and Mechanisms

Taobo Huang, Baozhu Pan, Haodong Ji and Wen Liu

Water 2020, 12(8), 2121; doi:10.3390/w12082121

Article: River Water Quality of the Selenga-Baikal Basin: Part I—Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Dissolved and Suspended Metals

Nikolay Kasimov, Galina Shinkareva, Mikhail Lychagin, Natalia Kosheleva, Sergey Chalov, Margarita Pashkina, Josefin Thorslund and Jerker Jarsjö

Water 2020, 12(8), 2137; doi:10.3390/w12082137

Article: The Relationship among Precipitation, Application of Salt in Winter Road Maintenance and the Quality of Waterways and Soil around Motorway

Vilma Jandová, Martina Bucková, Jitka Hegrová, Ivo Dostál, Jiří Huzlík, Karel Effenberger and Roman Ličbinský

Water 2020, 12(8), 2206; doi:10.3390/w12082206

Article: An Improved Immersed Boundary Method for Simulating Flow Hydrodynamics in Streams with Complex Terrains

Yalan Song, Yong G. Lai and Xiaofeng Liu

Water 2020, 12(8), 2226; doi:10.3390/w12082226

Article: Exergy Optimization of a Solar Collector in Flat Plate Shape Equipped with Elliptical Pipes Filled with Turbulent Nanofluid Flow: A Study for Thermal Management

Sara Rostami, Mohammad Sepehrirad, Amin Dezfulizadeh, Ahmed Kadhim Hussein, Aysan Shahsavar Goldanlou and Mostafa Safdari Shadloo

Water 2020, 12(8), 2294; doi:10.3390/w12082294

Article: Analysis of Barriers and Opportunities for Reclaimed Wastewater Use for Agriculture in Europe

Enrique Mesa-Pérez and Julio Berbel

Water 2020, 12(8), 2308; doi:10.3390/w12082308

General

Review: Separating the Impacts of Climate Change and Human Activities on Runoff: A Review of Method and Application

Feng Zeng, Ming-Guo Ma, Dong-Rui Di and Wei-Yu Shi

Water 2020, 12(8), 2201; doi:10.3390/w12082201

Article: Spatial Predictions of Debris Flow Susceptibility Mapping Using Convolutional Neural Networks in Jilin Province, China

Yang Chen, Shengwu Qin, Shuangshuang Qiao, Qiang Dou, Wenchao Che, Gang Su, Jingyu Yao and Uzodigwe Emmanuel Nnanwuba

Water 2020, 12(8), 2079; doi:10.3390/w12082079

Article: Sustainable Use of Groundwater Resources in the Transboundary Aquifers of the Five Central Asian Countries: Challenges and Perspectives

Yu Liu, Ping Wang, Hongwei Ruan, Tianye Wang, Jingjie Yu, Yanpei Cheng and Rashid Kulmatov

Water 2020, 12(8), 2101; doi:10.3390/w12082101

Article: Water Quality Index of Suceava River in Suceava City Metropolitan Area

Andrei-Emil Briciu, Adrian Graur and Dinu Iulian Oprea

Water 2020, 12(8), 2111; doi:10.3390/w12082111

Article: Spatio-Temporal Variation of Drought within the Vegetation Growing Season in North Hemisphere (1982–2015)

Zhaoqi Zeng, Yamei Li, Wenxiang Wu, Yang Zhou, Xiaoyue Wang, Han Huang and Zhaolei Li

Water 2020, 12(8), 2146; doi:10.3390/w12082146

Article: Stream Restoration for Legacy Sediments at Gramies Run, Maryland: Early Lessons from Implementation, Water Quality Monitoring, and Soil Health

Katie Mattern, Alyssa Lutgen, Nathan Sienkiewicz, Grant Jiang, Jinjun Kan, Marc Peipoch and Shreeram Inamdar

Water 2020, 12(8), 2164; doi:10.3390/w12082164

Article: Accuracy Analysis of IMERG Satellite Rainfall Data and Its Application in Long-term Runoff Simulation

Chongxun Mo, Mingshan Zhang, Yuli Ruan, Junkai Qin, Yafang Wang, Guikai Sun and Zhenxiang Xing

Water 2020, 12(8), 2177; doi:10.3390/w12082177

Article: Behavior of Water Mass Beneath the Tsushima Warm Current in the Japan Sea

Xiaorong Fang, Yutaka Isoda, Isao Kudo, Takafumi Aramaki, Keiri Imai and Naoto Ebuchi

Water 2020, 12(8), 2184; doi:10.3390/w12082184

Article: Site Fidelity, Habitat Use, and Movement Patterns of the Common Carp during Its Breeding Season in the Pearl River as Determined by Acoustic Telemetry

Yingqiu Zhang, Yuefei Li, Lili Zhang, Zhi Wu, Shuli Zhu, Jie Li and Xinhui Li

Water 2020, 12(8), 2233; doi:10.3390/w12082233

 

“If surface water can be compared with interest income, and non-renewable groundwater with capital, then much of the West was living mainly on interest income. California was milking interest and capital in about equal proportion. The plains states, however, were devouring capital as a gang of spendthrift heirs might squander a great capitalist's fortune.” – Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert, p. 457 (1986)

Lisa Beutler: What to Do about Wicked Water Problems

Lisa Beutler is a friend and colleague of mine, a former president of AWRA, among other things. She is now at Stantec (formerly MWH Global) where she is a Senior Principal and executive facilitator. When it comes to wicked water (or other) problems I cannot think of anyone better. She's 'da one'. 

So why I am telling you this? Because in yesterday's post, another A-lister, Sharon Megdal, referred to Lisa's keynote address at the 2016 WRRC Annual Conference.

Here goes:

It’s a rare day when western water managers don’t check the weather. A defining feature of this geographic region of the United States is a lack of precipitation. A second feature is great faith by its people in a technical solution to whatever problem a lack of rain creates. 

Long before Europeans arrived, predecessors to the Hohokam people migrated from central Mexico to southern Arizona, bringing domesticated crops and their knowledge of irrigation with them. Their descendants constructed networks of diversion dikes to capture runoff rainwater and cultivate fields. Mission priests expanded and enhanced the historic systems, building new rock dams and small earthen reservoirs. In 1902, the U.S. Reclamation Service (later changed to Bureau of Reclamation) was created to advance a federal effort of “irrigation works for the storage, diversion and development of waters”— to irrigate arid and semiarid lands in 16 Western states and territories. 

It worked. The West bloomed. Planners and engineers crisply defined, understood, and fixed problems through technical solutions. It was not simple, yet problems were solvable. Either solutions worked or they didn’t. 

Lately, more and more water problems seemingly defy standard solutions. This typically occurs for four reasons: incomplete or contradictory knowledge, the number of people and opinions involved, the large economic burden, and the interconnected nature of these problems with other problems. These are wicked problems. Wicked problems are often hot potatoes tossed back and forth among policy makers, and decried as too substantial for grand solutions. 

Wicked problems are not solved—they can only be mitigated through an approach that emphasizes empathy, abductive reasoning, and rapid prototyping. It is not possible to present an elegant solution and be done. 

Horst Rittel, one of the first to formalize a theory of wicked problems, cites ten characteristics of these complicated social issues 

1. Wicked problems have no definitive formulation. The problem of poverty in Texas is grossly similar but discretely different from poverty in Nairobi, so no practical characteristics describe “poverty.” 
2. It is hard, maybe impossible, to measure or claim success with wicked problems because they bleed into one another, unlike the boundaries of traditional design problems that can be articulated or defined. 
3. Solutions to wicked problems can be only good or bad, not true or false. There is no idealized end state to arrive at, and so approaches to wicked problems should be tractable ways to improve a situation rather than solve it. 
4. There is no template to follow when tackling a wicked problem, although history may provide a guide. Teams that approach wicked problems must literally make things up as they go along. 
5. There is always more than one explanation for a wicked problem, with the appropriateness of the explanation depending greatly on the individual perspective of the designer. 
6. Every wicked problem is a symptom of another problem. The interconnected quality of socio-economic political systems illustrates how, for example, a change in education will cause new behavior in nutrition. 
7. No mitigation strategy for a wicked problem has a definitive scientific test because humans invented wicked problems and science exists to understand natural phenomena. 
8. Offering a “solution” to a wicked problem frequently is a “one shot” design effort because a significant intervention changes the design space enough to minimize the ability for trial and error. 
9. Every wicked problem is unique. 
10. Those addressing a wicked problem must have authority and responsibility for their actions. 

Water planners and managers play a central role in mitigating the negative consequences of wicked problems. They will be required to position efforts in new and more desirable directions. This will not be easy, quick, or solitary. It requires methodical, rigorous iteration focused on the system qualities of the problem. Interdisciplinary collaboration that captures a broader knowledge of science, economics, statistics, technology, psychology, politics, and more is necessary for effective change. 

Water managers and planners will also need to more actively utilize abductive reasoning in addition to deductive  and inductive approaches. 

Abductive reasoning begins with an incomplete set of observations and proceeds to the likeliest possible explanation for the set. This method yields the kind of daily decision-making that does its best with the information at hand, which often is incomplete. In court cases, judge and jury consider whether the prosecution or the defense has the best explanation to cover all the evidence. While reasonable, it is subjective. 

Whereas deductive reasoning creates certainty and inductive reasoning quantifies uncertainty, abductive reasoning attempts to create meaning when uncertainty exists. 

Managing wicked problems is a new kind of work. It requires changing the questions, managing uncertainty, and creating resilience. It does not solve existing problems but instead drives to a desired future state. 

Reframing water issues as wicked problems will be essential for moving forward to a healthy water future. It begins with considering issues and solutions at the system scale. Water projects can no longer be solely the domain of the water community. Creating a change in one part of the water system will change the entire system, including the dependent social and environmental systems, sometimes in unexpected ways. This will require yet another solution to address that situation. It is an adaptive, iterative exercise. Solutions to wicked problems are never one and done. 

Traditional approaches that focus on solution-proposing will need to transition to a process that defines a desired state. Solutions then balance and reconcile tradeoffs while considering self-interests of the parties. 

Given that issues must be addressed at the system scale, collaboration and interdisciplinary approaches are key. The way the parts work together are as important as how they work individually. While this degree of upfront engagement may seem time consuming, it takes far less time than the rework required when a lack of integration creates problems. 

The largest hurdle may be reframing the public’s perception of water management. The faith in the technological solution and the ability of the water professionals to create certain outcomes, while well deserved, does not match the emerging reality. 

Introducing a wicked problems framework and the need for adaptive management is key. Also needed is an understanding that solutions for wicked problems are only good or bad, not true or false. This requires a change to previous approaches for defining success. 

Moving forward, water managers will continue looking at the weather. The good news is, there are new ways of thinking about how to manage what it brings. 

Enjoy!

“Managing wicked problems is a new kind of work. It requires changing the questions, managing uncertainty, and creating resilience. It does not solve existing problems but instead drives to a desired future state.” - Lisa Beutler

More Sharon B. Megdal Reflections: On Wicked Water Problems

Dr. Sharon B. Megdal, Director of the University of Arizona's Water Resources Research Center and a friend and colleague, published this piece earlier this month and I am repeating here.

She also asked if the Water Buffalo symbol should be retired and would like your opinion by 24 August. What are we talking about? Go here,  

Download Reflections-wicked-water-problems_August 2020

Hare is Sharon's piece:

Although my spring-summer sabbatical lecture tour did not take place as planned due to COVID-19, I did deliver more than a dozen lectures and participated in several programs and interviews. My topic of wicked water problems was the most requested and one on which I will continue to focus. Not only does this topic afford me an opportunity to explore significant water challenges at varying geographic and geopolitical scales, it enables me to focus on the process for forging pathways to addressing them.

I begin my discussion of wicked water problems by citing Lisa Beutler’s excellent 2016 article, which was based on her keynote lecture at the Water Resource Research Center’s 2016 annual conference. I encourage all to read her concise exposition. These quotations are particularly salient. “Lately, more and more water problems seemingly defy standard solutions. This typically occurs for four reasons: incomplete or contradictory knowledge, the number of people and opinions involved, the large economic burden, and the interconnected nature of these problems with other problems.” Beutler points out that the necessary collaborations must involve more than water managers. She adds that “[i]nterdisciplinary collaboration that captures a broader knowledge of science, economics, statistics, technology, psychology, politics, and more is required…” to mitigate the negative consequences of wicked water problems. A key characteristic of wicked water problems, therefore, is that they are mitigated rather than solved, meaning that finding a pathway is the goal rather than trying to identify an ultimate solution. While partial or short-term solutions are implemented, the work continues.

(Click on the graphic to enlarge it)

Before fleshing out some examples, which I do not have space to do so in this essay, I point out the importance of context to analysis of wicked water problems. I often show a slide listing several of the factors that determine “on-the-ground” water policy and management. Among these are laws, regulations, and policies. The legal and institutional framework, including the degree to which decision-making is centralized, will be region-specific. Thus, maps always help clarify the geographic and geopolitical context for water issues of any kind, especially those that span

shared borders. In recent lectures, I have discussed four examples from the Colorado River Basin: overcommitment of groundwater in the Pinal Active Management Area; shortage of Colorado River flows relative to demands within Arizona and across the basin; limited consideration of water for natural systems; and the Navajo Nation’s inadequate water infrastructure, which has been spotlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Additional examples of wicked problems I mention involve water in the Middle East and include Lower Jordan River flows and the Dead Sea, water and wastewater services, and water scarcity, particularly in Jordan. While many more wicked water problems can be identified – and I ask listeners to think about what water problems they would identify as wicked – these examples enable me to discuss factors that contribute to mitigating them.

Process is very important to the search for pathways to solutions, which are often common across the regions I discuss. Solutions include conservation, augmentation, reuse, water transactions, and other actions at individual, community, and regional levels. Partnerships are critical to developing information collaboratively so that the parties can be “on the same page”. Whether within states and regions, across states, or across national boundaries, functioning cooperative mechanisms are critical. I emphasize the word “functioning” because it is not enough to have cooperative mechanisms on paper. Effective partnerships are built on respect and trust. Trust depends on mutually respectful, positive collaborative experiences. Stakeholder involvement is key. We are definitely seeing more inclusive processes, yet there is often room for improvement. Though live streaming of meetings had been increasing before the COVID-19 pandemic, since the demise of in-person meetings, meeting virtually has become the norm. Interestingly, this situation has enhanced participation of stakeholders who may not be officially “at the table” or able to travel long distances to in-person meetings. Good communication of all kinds is imperative to identifying and understanding the potential of alternative actions that contribute to mitigating wicked water problems. Because there are no quick fixes, both patience and persistence are necessary when working on complex matters over long periods of time.

For many years, I personally have had the opportunity to share lessons learned – both good and sometimes not-so-good – across different geographic and sociocultural communities. I have organized sessions for cross-regional learning and sharing, including but not limited to the 2009 Arizona-Israeli-Palestinian Water Management and Policy workshop in Tucson, the 2016 Middle East visit of the International Boundary and Water Commission commissioners, the 2017 Tel Aviv joint American Water Resources Association – Tel Aviv University conference on wicked water problems, and the 2019 Tel Aviv conference panel on implementing technologies across borders. All of these events are chronicled in previous Public Policy Columns and Reflections. During the 2019 panel, I asked panelists: What are the most important variables or factors that contribute to collaborating on implementing technologies across borders? Very high on their lists were functioning relationships. Several noted that being able to get to know your partners through sitting down together for meals fosters the friendships and relationships that can facilitate the work required to forge formal agreements. There can be peaks and lows. Identifying win-win opportunities can be difficult, and when working with neighbors of different cultures and languages, good communication, sincerity, and leadership are essential.

In her article, Lisa Beutler states, “Managing wicked problems is a new kind of work. It requires changing the questions, managing uncertainty, and creating resilience. It does not solve existing problems but instead drives to a desired future state.” Technology and economics are determinants of pathways to solutions, as are processes for working with and through stakeholders. Efforts to educate at all levels will contribute to identifying and evaluating options. Good work is continuing. But my recent webinar lectures on wicked water problems (see, for example, my May 2020 WRRC webinar) ended with this question, which is reflective of the COVID-19 times in which we live: When will we be able to meet and eat with our partners?

Last month Sharon gave an AWRA webinar: Developing Pathways to Solutions to Wicked Water Problems. Click here to access this recording. Here is the PDF of that PPT: 

Download Megdal_AWRA_WIckedWaterProblems_15July2020

Good stuff!

Enjoy!

"It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone." - John Steinbeck

GAO Report: 'Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Plan: Improved Communication and Adaptive Management Strategy Could Help Address Stakeholder Concerns'

Just published on 23 July 2020: 'Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Plan: Improved Communication and Adaptive Management Strategy Could Help Address Stakeholder Concerns'.

Download USGAO_Highlights_StLawrence_23July2020

Download USGAO_Full_StLawrence_23July2020

Want to read a great book about the Great Lakes? Try Dan Egan's 'The Death and Life of the Great Lakes'. Here's my review: click here.

Here we go:

Fast Facts
The Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River waterway supports multiple users in the U.S. and Canada that live, visit, or conduct business in the region. Representatives of both countries serve on a commission that implements Plan 2014, which governs water releases from the lake into the river.

We found that the commission doesn't effectively evaluate its efforts to communicate with stakeholders about these water releases. It also hasn't developed a comprehensive plan to assess and improve Plan 2014.

We recommended that U.S. commissioners work with their Canadian counterparts to develop more robust plans for communicating and for assessing Plan 2014.

Examples of Users of the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Waterway

Highlights

What GAO Found
The International Joint Commission's (IJC) process for developing and selecting the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Plan 2014 (Plan 2014) was generally consistent with relevant essential elements of risk-informed decision-making. During the 18-year process, IJC took steps to define objectives and performance measures to be used in its decision-making, identify various options, assess uncertainties like climate change, and engage with stakeholders, among other steps. These steps are all essential elements of risk-informed decision making.

Plan 2014 Affects Various Users of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River, Including (from Left to Right) Commercial Navigation, Coastal Development, and Recreational Boating, Including Marinas

IJC uses two mechanisms—a communications committee and a strategic communication plan—and a variety of methods—such as its website, social media, and public meetings—to communicate with stakeholders about its implementation of Plan 2014. Nevertheless, 12 of the 14 stakeholders GAO interviewed expressed concerns about IJC's communication. GAO found that IJC's strategic communication plan and related documents partially align with best practices. For example, the communication plan and related documents do not comprehensively identify target audiences or include mechanisms to monitor and evaluate the effectivness of their communication efforts. Updating its strategic communication plan to align with best practices and principles for risk communication could help IJC ensure improved stakeholder communication.

Of the 14 stakeholders interviewed, nine expressed concerns about the rules and criteria in Plan 2014 and 10 expressed concerns about its implementation. For example, seven stakeholders told us that they do not believe that the Plan allows IJC to act proactively in anticipation of future water conditions. IJC has taken initial steps to develop an adaptive management process that may help address stakeholder concerns and approved a long-term adaptive management strategy in March 2020. However, the document does not fully incorporate the key elements and essential characteristics of an adaptive management process that could help IJC transparently and effectively assess Plan 2014 and adjust future actions to achieve the plan's objectives. For example, the Plan does not fully incorporate a communication strategy for engaging stakeholders throughout the process or information on how IJC will determine if adjustments to the Plan's rules and criteria are warranted.

Why GAO Did This Study
Water releases from Lake Ontario into the St. Lawrence River are determined by a set of regulatory rules and criteria called Plan 2014—issued pursuant to IJC's Supplementary Order of Approval and the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909. The IJC—a binational commission—developed and issued the Plan and Order with the concurrence of the United States and Canada. The rules affect a variety of users of the waterway, including ecosystems, hydropower, and municipal and industrial water use.

After flooding from the lake and river in 2017, GAO was asked to examine the process IJC used to develop and evaluate Plan 2014 and how IJC has addressed stakeholder concerns. This report examines (1) the extent to which IJC's process to develop and select Plan 2014 was consistent with essential elements of risk-informed decision-making, (2) actions IJC has taken to communicate with stakeholders about its implementation of Plan 2014 and stakeholder concerns regarding IJC's communication, and (3) stakeholder concerns about Plan 2014 and the extent to which IJC has developed a process to assess and adjust Plan 2014. GAO reviewed Plan 2014 and other IJC documents, interviewed IJC and federal officials and a nongeneralizable sample of 14 stakeholders, selected for a variety of user interests and stakeholder types.

What GAO Recommends
GAO is making three recommendations, including that the U.S. Section of the IJC work with its Canadian counterpart to ensure that the communication plan aligns with best practices and the adaptive management strategy fully incorporates key elements. IJC agreed with our recommendations.

For more information, contact J. Alfredo Gómez at (202) 512-3841 or gomezj@gao.gov.

Enjoy, eh?

Thanks to Tim Smith for sending this my way.

"Nature abhors a moron." -- H.L. Mencken