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Thinking Laterally: Strategies for Strengthening Institutional
Capacity for Integrated Management of Riparian Resources 1
C. David Loeks 2
Abstract.--The primary goal of environmental management
is to maintain the capacity of the environment to meet human
needs and aspirations.
This goal is best achieved when environmental management is both integrated and differentiated.
Efforts to manage differentiated environmental resources such
as riparian ecosystems are most successful when they are integrated with the management of larger environments which
subsume the relevant factors that affect the differentiated
resource.
General strategies to strengthen institutional
capaci ty to achieve such integration in the management of
riparian resources are discussed.
INTRODUCTION
5.
The main argument of this paper can be summarized in five basic points.
1.
The impacts of activities associated with
human settlement generate the primary source
of stress on riparian resources.
~1anaging
such impacts are the primary concern of
riparian resource management.
2.
However, in many cases, the activities which
generate the impacts on specific resources
can't be managed "on-site". Such impacts are
"driven" by social and economic and physical
development forces and imperatives which
transcend the scope of concern of the specific resource being managed and therefore
the institutional responsibilities of its
managers.
3.
4.
We can do better.
In an open, pluralistic
society, the strategic generation and dissemination of scientifically based knowledge
which clarifies environmental interdependencies in ways in which affect public perception and will to act,
is an essential
precondition for creating the institutional
resources and capabilities required for Integrated
Riparian
Resource
Management
(IRR~!) .
There.
I've put my cards on the table. My
premises are that IRRM is a good thing, we don't
have it, that we would be better off if we did,
and that we can and should do better than we are
doing.
In summary, the objectives of this paper are
threefold.
They are:
(1) to discuss the need
for strengthening institutional capacity for
IRRM; (2) to identify some preconditions for
achieving the institutional capacity for IRRM and
(3) to suggest some strategies for the strengthening of such institutional capacity.
Adequate institutional resources and capabilities are not in place for integrating the
management of a specific resource such as a
riparian ecosystem with the strategic management of the environment as a whole.
Also, a comment concerning the vantage point
from which I speak is in order. My field is urban
and regional planning. My intellectual concerns
are with the processes of policy and design which
clarify the ends to be pursued and the means to
be employed in maintaining the capacity of the
environment to meet human needs and aspirations.
Al though my intellectual concerns are as broad
as the topics subsumed by the human condition
that we are trying to improve, my technical competence is not in physical science.
Rather, it
is in the coordinated use of policy and design
in the context of management to resolve resource
allocation conflicts that reflect competing values involved in the use and adaptation of the
environment.
The acquisition of the institutional resources and capabilities for more integrated
management of the environment as a whole
should be a matter of primary concern.
Without such capacity, efforts to manage individual components of the environment such
as riparian resources are severely limited,
and in some cases, doomed to failure.
lpaper presented at the First North American
Riparian Conference - Riparian Ecosystems and
Their Management Tuscon, Ariz.
April 16-18,
1985.
2Professor and Chairman, Graduate Program
in Urban and Regional Planning, VPI & SU,
Blacksburg, VA.
13
Hy focus is normative.
That is, I'm concerned with the development of consensus about
the "ought" statements.
My ability to do this
is totally dependent on the intellectual products
of science which focus on the substantive or "is"
statements concerning what we have, how it works,
how it got that way, and how it is changing and
might change in the future. I am not one of those
who argue that scientific inquiry should be constrained by pragmatic considerations or that its
justification must depend upon a demonstration
that it solves human problems.
However I will
cheerfully confess to the bias that it's perfectly alright if science is used for that purpose.
Incidentally, since segments of the
scientific community are of different minds on
this issue, this is not a viewpoint that I urge
upon junior tenure tracking science faculty colleagues in my university.
However, because the
title of this conference comes right out and uses
the word management (gasp!), I am sustained by
the assumption that there are enough people in
this room who feel that it is ok to do science
to solve human problems that we can have a
fruitful inter-professional dialog on this subject. In any event, I just want to make it clear
that it is not within my professional competence
nor my intent to explain how to manage riparian
ecosystems. Rather, I wish to discuss how over
time we might acquire the institutional capacity
to make it possible to manage such systems in
more integrated and therefore more effective
ways.
This
brings
us
to
the
concept
of
management. Here I would like to quote from the
report of the Hudson Basin Proj ect, a major
Rockefeller Foundation supported study on the
subject of environmental management which I directed " ... management , .... can be defined as the
activity - more or less skillful - of controlling
or handling something.
As a species man is
unique to the degree in which he is able to manage
his environment.
Host environmental management
is collective in the sense that it is governed
by institutions. In our society we tend to think
of institutions in terms of formal organizations,
but the term can -refer to any well established
social arrangement or practice, even if it is not
formally embodied in law or in a particular organization.
" ... Are institutions part of the environment?
Certainly as much or more than the physical environment, they are among the things that
act on or influence man. So, too, are the values
and attitudes embodied in institutions since
these shape our perceptions of the environment
in relationship to ourselves.
Thus, the environment, any environment, is a dynamically and
infinitely complex network of interacting influences both physical and non-physical.
Issues
that are generally regarded as "environmental"
may revolve around questions of economics, ethics, or social policy, as well as around validity
of scientific data or concepts about the physical
world. Nevertheless, whatever the focus of conflict, environmental issues ultimately tend to
involve rights or interests in physical things"
(Richardson and Tauber, 1979).
THE NEED FOR IRRH
At the risk of sounding pedagogic let's
start with some basic definitions of the terms
used in the consideration of this topic. First,
environment.
In its broadest ecological sense
it denotes the totality of things, forces or
conditions that act upon or influence an organism
or a group of organisms. However when we speak
of an environment such as that which supports a
riparian ecosystem we are of necessity referring
to the array of influences on a particular
organism or group of organisms. Thus our interest in the environment, although it may have been
triggered by objective scientific curiosity, is
for our purposes, constrained by the light that
it casts on our ability to manage the forces that
act upon our influence the biota in that environment.
primary function
I. DEFINING GOALS
A.~D
STRATEGIES
I included the above quote in its entirety
because it sets forth in succinct form the philosophical context within which the balance of
this discussion will take place. Now let's look
at management in more concrete terms.
Essentially environmental management is concerned with
the processes whereby its capacity to help, meet
human needs and aspirations is maintained or enhanced.
The term management, as used in this
paper, consists of the discharge of two primary
but interrelated functions.
(1) Figuring out
what needs to be done and how to do it and (2)
doing it.
The relationship of these functions
to the activities that have to be undertaken to
discharge these functions and the fields involved
are presented in the following graphic.
activity
field
dar-ifying meanS/end.S}
relationships
General
(policy)
Specific
(design)
Planning
Hanagement
II.
I~ll'LE~~TATION
resource employment
}
Figure l.--Management defined
14
Adr:linistration
Management can also be understood in terms
of the interrelationships of its components,
which can be schematically illustrated as follows.
marching orders for administration. Administrative capacities in turn constrain what kind of
policies can be adopted and what kind of designs
can be executed. In any event, when these three
Figure 2.--Maoagewellt-interrelatinnships of components
•
(r~ciprocal
•
constr<Jints)
It can be readily seen that the first function,
the definition of goals and the strategies required to implement them, is a planning activity.
That is, it focuses on clarifying the relationship between means and ends.
When means -ends
relationships are articulated in general terms
we refer to them as policies.
By definition,
policies are a settled course of action to
achieve agreed upon objectives. When we express
means-ends relationships in specific and concrete
terms we refer to this as design, which is a means
of stating in specific, concrete and measurable
terms the things that need to be done and the
means that are to be employed in doing them.
basic activities, policy, design and administration are linked in reciprocally interdependent
ways and are discharged in a coordinated fashion,
we can say we are managing effectively. That is,
we are "controlling or handling something".
Under this rubric management is the enveloping
concept. It's easier said than done.
CRITIQUE
In the light of the concepts discussed
above, what critique can be made of our riparian
ecosystem management efforts?
What conditions
are suggested by such a critique which, if
brought into play, would enhance our ability to
strengthen institutional capacity for IRR~l?
First, the Cartesian reductionist empiricism
which constrains modern science has resulted in
most of our knowledge generation efforts being
focused on the differentiation of the constituent
components of the environment.
As the result,
comparatively little effort has been put on the
integration questions which must be addressed if
the environment as an interdependant whole is to
be adequately defined and understood as a basis
for its management. Now, it can be argued that
this state of affairs is understandable and is
in fact as it should be at this point in history,
in as much as it is neces s ary to firs t think
"vertically" (that is, in depth) about the constituent components of a complex system before
one can think laterally and synthetically about
the interrelationships of such components.
As noted in figure 2, these elements are
interrelated by reciprocal constraints.
Policy
provides the agenda for design but design in turn
tests the implications of policy.
Design and
policy are simply different species of the same
genera of mental activity, namely the specification of the relationships between what needs to
be done and how one is to do it. When these two
definable activities are linked in an integrated
fashion, we are planning. The decisions emerging
from the planning effort essentially clarify what
is to be done, how it is to be done and, of
critical importance, what resources are to be
allocated to achieve purposes agreed upon.
Implementation, the second major function
of management, is carried out through administration which is defined as the employment and
expenditure of resources to achieve and execute
defined goals and strategies. Note the reciprocal relationships of these three interdependant
components. Policy and design provide the basic
15
However, one cannot describe and explain and
understand and manage the whole simply by understanding the properties of the elements which
make up that whole.
Humpty-Dumpty has been
pushed off the wall. Much has been learned about
how he works by the meticulous examination and
quantification of his fragments. However, it is
now past time for all the King's horses and all
the King's men to try once more to put poor Humpty
together again.
The intellectual discipline
which is required to do this is integration, that
is, "to make whole". It's not a novel idea, really, the field of mathematics coordinates the
use of both integration and differentiation as a
means of understanding the properties of numbers.
We must now learn to use these two thought processes in a more coordinated reciprocally interactive
fashion
on subj ects
that
do
not
necessarily succumb to precise empirical measurement and quantification.
These essential
ideas are illustrated schematically by the following graphic.
NUT 'I'll IS
~/
I
\
o
o
.
.
.
.
o
.
.
.
Back in the 70's over one hundred and twenty
of the best scientific and public policy brains
in the country spent three years and three quarters of a million of the Rockefeller Foundation's
money examining the interrelationships of the
principal environmental issues confronting the
22,000 square mile Hudson River Basin. The bottom line was that they concluded that these individual environmental issues could not in fact
be effectively managed because we lacked the
fundamental institutional capacity to deal with
the interrelationships and interdependencies
with
other
elements
in
the
environment
(Richardson, Tauber).
. . . NOT TillS
\
o }
/
/'
Differentiation withuut integration
lntegration without
differentiation
Integration and differentiat ion oa l,H1Ct'd
(The yin/yan sulution)
Figure 3.--Essential preconditions for effective environmental management
One does not have to look further than the
current headlines for the evidence that validates
this analysis.
The pollution of the Kesterson
National Wildlife Refuge by irrigation precipitated selenium in Ca1ifornia provides a dramatic
case in point. Few would argue that we did not
have the scientific capability of predicting this
environmental catastrophe or the technological
means to avert it.
If in fact knowledgeable
people knew better, why was this egregious exercise in macro-environmental ecocide allowed to
proceed? It's a complex subject, but it may not
be an oversimplification to suggest that we know
better than we do because of the fragmented institutional setting in which we make our decisions.
Interests with conflicting values in
competition for limited environmental resources
are pitted in an adversarial process which does
not reward compromise. Thus, our resource allocation processes do not have the capacity to effectively balance and resolve such conflicts.
The following matrix, taken from the report
of the Hudson Basin project illustrates the'degree of environmental interdependency and interaction of a single variable, (water resources)
with the other components of the environment.
Similar tables can be made for the other nine
environmental variables studied.
From such
analysis one can gain an indication of the scope
of the interactions with which integrated environmental management must deal.
On the subject of riparian lands management,
Jon Kusler puts it this way "Many Federal, State
and local programs now regulate, protect and
manage riparian lands.
However, these efforts
are handicapped by limited geographical scope,
narrow obj ectives, insufficient data and poor
coordination" (Kusler).
What then might be considered the essential
preconditions for strengthening institutional
capacity for IRRM that are suggested by the preceding material? They can be summarized as follows.
16
POliCY i\PEAS
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';'fA TER
RESOURCES
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','!aste (JlsOcsal
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Pr;INer
imqarlon
-ransoonailon
S8creatlon
B,ologlcal
S"/:3tems
""8S[t;etlcs
F:OCd comrOI
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Indicates Water Resou~ces Suo Area
Significantly arfects PoliCY Area
J
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+-"
!ndlca:es POliCY Area Significantly
affec:s Water Resources Sub Area,
.J
Indicates reCiprocal relatlonSi"1IC
Figure 4.--Inceraction matrix
1.
2.
A knowledge base which clearly defines the
characteristics and behavior of the resource
to be managed as well as the dynamics of the
external forces that are acting on the resource in ways which either enhance or diminish its utility.
STRATEGIES
What strategies which, if pursued over time,
would work to achieve the prime objective of improved institutional capacity for IRRH?
The
Hudson Basin Project participants, (both the
integrators and the discriminators) addressed
this question for the environment as a whole.
Although the conclusions developed are of specific relevance to that region, the process for
strengthening
environmental
decision
making
which was designed has general application. The
first step in the process is to define and articulate the principal environmental needs confronting the region.
Ten basic needs were
identified as being the most important on the
basis of the criteria that these needs appeared
to have the highest component of "unfinished
business." That is to say there is a greater need
for action in these areas compared to other areas
where more progress has been made.
As such it
may be viewed as an initial statement of ten
"planks" in a comprehensive "platform" for environmental management at the regional scale.
Taken together they provide a good sense of the
scope of concerns that such an effort would entail in that region.
The dissimination of such knowledge in terms
which will influence public perception and
will to act and thereby build constituencies
of support for creating the institutional
capacity required for integrated management
efforts.
The Hudson Basin Project concluded that "Studies
by the broad array of planning agencies serving
the basin demonstrate that the area does not in
general, lack the technical capacity to add~ess
the myriad environmental management needs confronting it. What is lacking, in many cases, is
the public understanding necessary to generate
the political motivation and will to address such
needs, and the institutional capacity to implement the plans and programs required."
17
Environmental needs in the Hudson Basin Region.
3.
Increase and strengthen arenas for conflict
resolution.
1.
Rehabilitate inner city environment and control urban sprawl.
4.
Improve
policy.
2.
Reduce health hazards in the work and home
environment.
5.
Strengthen institutional capacity to
late and execute policy.
3.
Improve institutional capacity for
water management.
4.
Fill gaps
lation.
5.
Moderate solid waste generation and improve
disposal techniques.
6.
Protect ecologically
water resources.
7.
Integrate the planning
modes and land use.
8.
~loderate
9.
Strengthen interstate arrangements
quality management.
in
regional
of
land and
energy demand and augment supply.
for air
10. Optimize public and private investment policies affecting the environment.
The Hudson Basin project concluded that the
weakness of environmental decision making lies
in the limited capacity of institutions to identify, assess, and manage the consequences of such
decisions, and recommended five basic strategies
which, if pursued over time, would work to correct such deficiencies.
Strategies for strengthening environmental management.
Improve information management.
2.
Broaden assessment processes.
r
A
PKIME
OAIE(flVE
Improved deu"onnlclkinl.( to
1l1t't'1
the
i<.I1"",ng - - - - - -
of
formu-
Simply
defined,
information management
treats the acquisition of information, its organization for use, formating for storage and
retrieval and its communication to affected interests as elements of a continuous and coordinated process which is designed to achieve
defined management objectives.
Thus, to be effective, information management must have clearly
defined goals and priorities.
It is suggested
that research on riparian resources might be most
effective if organized under four basic headings:
transportation
1.
explicitness
Note that each of these strategies serve as
preconditions for the achievement of those which
follow.
For example, step 5 has been the focus
of major efforts at the national, regional and
local scale.
However the limited success that
has been achieved in this strategy area to date
can be explained in part by the failures to implement preceding steps.
land use planning and regu-
significant
the substance and
1.
Basic Inventories ("What do we have?").
2.
Systems Dynamics ("How does it work, and how
is it changing?").
3.
Prediction ("How might it change in the future?").
4.
Prescription ("What's needed, and how can we
achieve it?")
The overall process proposed by the Hudson
Basin project participants is outlined in Fig. 5
below. It is intended to have general relevance
to the integrated management of large complex
interdependant environments.
B
C
o
ENVIRONMENTAL
RE -;P()N<.,E
MAN'\CE....1ENT NEEDS
')lK.·'TECY
ONE PROGRAMS AND PROjECTS
TO RESOLVE ISSUE':> ,\ND SOL\l
SPECIFIC PKOBLLW;
1 Urban environment
lJnd u-,e mclndW'rllent
J Wdter re.,ourlE'
m.Jn.Jgement
4. Sulld w,bte
5. Crltlcdl areas
protechon
6. PublIC and private
investment
7. Environmental health
8. TrJIl'>por1atlon
9. Air qUdlity
10. Energy
1. Inforll1.Jflol1
TWO: DEVELOP. TfST .... ND
[)ll\\U~) rR, n RhP01';"E
STK·\f(C) U.),'JUP1,) .-\ND
TlCHNI()Ub, A!'.D PRU,'-,\UTE
ACCEPTA:--'CE AND,PPLlC-\ 1ION
m,lfl,I>4l"II1t'nt
2
4
COlltl.( t 'l',OIUliD"
POlll ~ ,ub,I.ln(e
5. In,tlluIiU/l,11
.,trl'n~thenlf1g
Re<,pon~ ,trateKY could
be Implemented by
JUIOI1> Jt Iwo le"..1~-
Requires the following
Over time, such effurts would foster public conSE'nsus re
' - - - - - - - poil(le" progrdms, ,mel IInplel11t'nllllK III'fllllllon, "'hl(h __
would move the region tu"',Hd the pfllIlt' ul>tl"OI\e
----------J
Figure 5.-~Outline of a process to strengthen d eClslon-making
..
environmental
management in the Hudson Basin region
18
environmentally sensitive lines at a geographic
scale that is large enough to encompass more of
the interactions involved. Examples of such efforts include the New Jersey Pine lands Program,
the Green1ine Parks proposal of the American Land
Resource Association, the Adirondack Park Agency,
the Wild and Scenic Rivers Program and Coastal
Zone Management.
Such efforts can provide a
better context for specific environmental management efforts such as riparian resource management.
They offer an excellent array of
prototypical approaches which deserve further
development and application.
At the more concrete level, there is a substantial array of
environmental management
strategies in place that have been designed to
direct and control the timing, character and location of human settlement in ways which avert
and mitigate man's impact on the natural environment.
It would be fruitful to broaden the
scope of riparian resource management to specifically consider the potential contribution of
these growth management strategies in fostering
the achievement of management objectives for
various classifications of Riparian habitats.
Fig. 6 below suggests a possible format and a
general procedure for undertaking such an analysis.
Further analysis might involve a broad
cross -section of experienced riparian resource
managers, land use planners and other policy experts in a form of delphi assessment of the general utility of a broader array of strategies
that might be nominated.
The choice of the appropriate "strategy mix" in relationship to the
management objectives to be pursued in a specific
situation is, of course, a matter of judgement
that is constrained by the context of that situation. The intent of this suggestion is to move
riparian habitat management toward a consideration of a more comprehensive array of management
options that may be employed both on site and
offsite by a variety of institutions working in
the collaborative pursuit of common goals and
objectives.
It should be noted that the problem which
is the focus of this paper has received considerable attention in recent years.
A number of
innovative institutional approaches have been
designed and put in place in a variety of settings. Such approaches improve society's capacity to guide public and private actions along
Examples of Grnwth
Management Strategiei
"'Public Acquisition
-land banking
-fee simple acquisition
"'Public Improvements
-location of facilities to
influence growth
"'Environmental Controls
-critical areas
-development of regional impact
-pollution controls
"'Deve I opment Rights Transfer
"'Restrictive Convenants
-deed restrict ions
-easements
"'Zoning
"'Subdivision Regulations
"'Tax and Fee Sys terns
-preferential taxation
*Annexation
"'Capital Programming Process
*Comprehensi ve Plan
"'Geographic Restraints
*Moratoria
"'Environmental Impact Statement
or Assessment
*Cost/Senefi t Analysis
*Land Use Intensity Rating System
More innovation of this kind is clearly
. called for if the "state of harmony between man
and the land" which A1do Leopold has put forward
as the true definition of conservation is to be
achieved.
In conclusion it must be said that although
the approaches to integrated environmental management outlined in this paper may be difficult
to pursue, it is no exaggeration to suggest that
our survival may well depend on our success. As
Christopher Fry put it:
Thank God our time is now when wrong
Comes up to face us everywhere,
Never to leave us till we take
The longest stride of soul men ever took
Affairs are now soul size
The enterprize
Is exploration into God.
Where are you making for? I takes
So many thousand years to wake,
But will you wake for pity's sake?3
Riparian
Hydroripilrian
Mesoriparian
Xeroripa rian
Procedure:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
List al ternntive management strategies.
List alternative m"nagement objectives.
Assign ohjectives potentially appropriate for each habit type.
Evaluate and rate potential effectiveness of each strategy in
implementing each mAnagement objective in the context of the
habitat types to which it is assigned.
Use product of Step 4 as a chec.klist in evaluating and selecting the mix of management strategies and objectives to be considered for a specific habitat.
1 (Johnson, C'Irothers, Simpson)
2(Urban Land Institute)
1(Anderson, et a1.)
Figure 6.--Pos8ible format for '1ssessing potential effectiveness of alternative growth management strategies on
riparian res""r~e management 3
lChristopher Fry:
19
A Sleep of Prisoners.
LITERATURE CITED
Kusler, Jon A.
1978. A Challenge in Intergovernmental Cooperation. Proceedings of Symposium on Strategies for Protection and
Management of Floodplain Wetlands and Other
Riparian Ecosystems.
Dec.
11-13, 1978
Callaway Gardens, GA.
Anderson, Larz T. and Conn, W. David, and Loeks,
C. David and Randolph, John R.
1981.
Growth Management for Blacksburg's Environmentally Sensitive Areas.
Division of Environmental Systems, Virginia Polytechnic
Institute
and State University,
1981,
Blacksburg, VA.
Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress.
1984. Wetlands, Their Use and Regulation,
OTA-O-26 March 1984, Washington, D.C.
Johnson, Roy E., Carothers, Steven W. and
Simpson, James M.
1981. A Riparian Classification System. Proceedings: California
Riparian Systems:
A Conference on Their
Ecology, Conservation and productive Management.
University of California, Davis
Sept. 17-19,1981.
Richardson, Ralph W. Jr. and Tauber, Gilbert,
(Editors). 1979. The Hudson Basin - Environmental Problems and Institutional Responses Volumes I, II, Report of the Hudson
Basin Project Academic Press 1979 N.Y.
20