Unlocking a backstory to the hegemony around the ecosystem services of headwater wetlands

This article unlocks a backstory around ecosystem services and natural capital. It is intended to trigger concern, and so to open doors to dialogue. It may take 15 minutes of your time to read it - but hopefully the impact of you doing so will last very much longer.

I attended the 6-day Stockholm World Water Week event at the end of August, drawn by its theme on 'Water, Ecosystems and Human Development'. The event rightly gave prominence to certain areas of science where man has intervened to make more of nature's processes, for example, around microbiological compositions to engineer more effective wastewater treatment.

The Stockholm World Water Week (SWWW) has been running for over 25 years now. Its overarching theme is being tied more and more to the theme of the annual UN World Water Development Report which gets released in March each year. This year, that UN report focused on 'Nature-Based Solutions for Water'. That theme can include man's interventions - such as the microbiology of wastewater treatment - but also embraces a different issue of nature's 'natural services' - services that benefit man, but without man needed to intervene. So, to distinguish the difference - the performance of natural wetlands in their natural state - in terms of floods and flow regulation is one branch of nature-based solutions. That is a different branch from where man intervenes, by constructing artificial wetlands to enhance wastewater treatment, for example.

A significant question within the human development agenda is the value of natural wetlands. They are certainly extensive, with African headwater wetlands covering an area equivalent to 20 African countries, so their values are significant. In their unaltered state, natural wetlands have been ascribed high values in flood reduction and flow regulation. These values do not stem from man's intervention into nature - they stem from their natural hydrology. Indeed, it is argued these values are diminished by man's intervention that alter natural wetland properties, so depriving man of their natural benefits. On such ground is the case built for wetlands to become protected areas.

Readers of my previous articles will know my big bugbear over this. For those who havent read the previous ones, I will restate. Yes, there has been a number of studies of natural headwater wetlands that demonstrate those particular ecosystems services - of flood reduction and flow regulation. But, there are as many that show that they dont - that the wetland role is insignificant. Moreso, there are two, even three (in Africa), times as many scientific studies that demonstrate that headwater wetlands perform the opposite hydrological services - of generating rapid response river flow and of retaining soil moisture during dry period with depletion principally by evapotranspiration. My articles show also that there is a hegemony around the former case, which has regrettably permeated into policy and advocacy - well beyond its legitimacy and scientific integrity, in my opinion. Previous LinkedIn articles have shown that to include the flagship Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report, and numerous policy and advocacy spin-offs since then.

This hegemony was at the root of the policy case of this year's 2018 World Water Development Report. It was also embedded into the background material leading up to this year's Stockholm World Water Week conference .

I participated at Stockholm this year NOT with any intent to influence content. Session organisers had invested a lot of effort in pre-arranging speakers into their sessions. Scientific positions has been stacked up way before August 2018, and content during the week is heavily pre-determined.

So, the purpose and justification for my attendance at Stockholm was to engage with people in order to unlock out the back-story of why the balance of science was not being brought forward - and why the long-standing hegemony was being continued despite strong scientific evidence to the contrary. Participating that way was not my first choice approach. These opportunities for a particular water issue to attract such high profile come around so rarely, and the messaging from SWWW is a powerful event. But it is not easy to be influential at such events without months of preparation.

So, I took a set of actions over the course of months since January, before the WWDR was released in March, to seek to influence 'from within' - with the SWWW Organisers, with session convenors, by putting data and information freely onto LinkedIn and with a development financer, but none really bore fruit in terms of being able to influence content at SWW in advance.

I was not surprised by my first hours at Stockholm and a quick tour of the 'Take-away' materials on show. These materials were available from the numerous organisational stands. They were always going to be a key indicator of organisational messaging. Positions and evidence that are important to those organisations have to be distilled onto a 4 page glossy, with perhaps a 1,000 words of text. These materials are Important to organisations as they are the messages that they want their readers to take away. So, one key example is the 'Primer' on Nature-Based Solutions for Water Management issued in the name of UN-Environment (DHI Centre on Water and Environment), IUCN and UN Environment Programme. This is a document that I would say displays classic hegemonic characteristics - in relying solely on the minority science case - "the ability of wetlands to store large amounts of water and release it slowly plays a key role in the natural regulation of water quantity". "Wetlands can 'slow' flood waters, reducing potential flood damage downstream". "In periods of drought, they can function as retention basins, providing water through slow release of stored water". Like other hegemonic cases, it carries a caveat that not all wetlands perform these functions - in this case 'The retention capacity of different types of wetlands varies and needs to be evaluated individually'. And like other hegemonic cases, it claims a provenance that lacks an inclusive evidence base - "it is drawn from a growing body of work, most recently reviewed in the World Water Development Report 2018". It's the kind of document that illustrates clearly that the hegemony is not only being sustained, but also promoted into SWWW.

So, over the course of the week, I held substantive dialogue with around a dozen key individuals from within key international water institution and/or with experience of ecosystem services on that very issue of sustaining and promoting the hegemony, to the exclusion of the dominant science and evidence-based position. Almost all were aware of the evidence base that I have brought to the table over the years. Not one in any way challenged the fundamentals of that science balance. I am not going to attribute here the feedback that I received to named individuals. For continuity and ease of reading, I present the feedback as if it were a conversation with one person, with one question/answer following another for ease of readability. In reality, discussions with any one individual centred on just one or two aspects. In the interests of full disclosure, one dialogue took place several months before Stockholm, and one in the weeks since. While the "conversation" is a body of feedback, I cannot say that each individual would have answered every question in the same way:

 

Q1: So, why do organisations continue to run with the over-generalisations and not reflect the science balance?

A: The explanation is grounded in repetition and entrenchment. We have stated our position so many times, in high-profile publications, that it is now entrenched. It is difficult for us to even consider undermining our long-standing organisational position. Let alone change to an alternate. And remember, we are primarily concerned with environmental conservation. Some people are beginning to change what they say in public.

 

Q2: Environmental management based on myth is a very risky path isnt it?

A. The conservation lobby are pushing for environmental services as a justification for conservation. Key amongst these are the perceived flow regulating effects of wetlands and disaster risk reduction. It is the same story with forests - people want to conserve and so generate stories to that end. There is a tendency for a lot of myths to be circulated and the same old perceptions are being pushed now harder than ever. Mostly academics - to my mind with a very blinkered approach - often citing stuff without full understanding. A gathering of an ecosystem services group is a pretty scary experience - total disregard for evidence except that which fits preconceived ideas. The WWDR has the same things. Some have pushed for a more scientifically defensible document.

Q3: The UN World Water Development Report describes itself as 'evidence-based', so how does that dominant hegemonic stance taken by the Report square with the evidential dominant science balance?

A: The UN World Water Development Report has to demonstrate impact. These short version reports focus on particular impact areas. They cannot confuse readers by introducing scientific debate.

 

Q4. The UN World Water Development Report is prepared and issued in the name of UN-Water, which is many different agencies and programmes. I know that a number of UN-Water member organisations may hold views that differ from the hegemonic position. So, why hasnt the collective UN ironed this out among them?

A. There is an Agency within UN-Water that could be said to have played an over-dominant role in the report preparation.

 

Q5. How does your UN organisation assess the content of the Report?

A. We are not happy with it. It just repeats the 'same old, same old'. We wanted something different.

 

Q6: So, did the UN World Water Development Report take steps to base policy on a scientific review?

A. The first step of WWDR was to frame the policy positions that would underpin the report. There would be no process of reviewing the science. There was to be no audit trail from policy back to the evidence base that underpinned that policy. The Report would be policy-led selective science, not evidence-based policy.

 

Q7. Your organisation carries the policy position forward into programmes and actions on the ground. What would your financers think of that if they were aware of the policy:science divergence?

A. We are very much tied by financer interests. We have received funding because we have taken a particular stance on the impacts we can deliver.

 

Q8. How does that pan out when you actually work on the ground ... when you know the real hydrological science on the ground is likely to be contrary to your organisation's policy position. On wetlands, or on forestry?

A. We have to be pragmatic. Organisationally, we promote forestry at a high-level as a key catchment measure to enhance water availability - to attract finance. Climate finance is very closely linked to carbon. In reality, we know that we need to do the opposite on the ground. In actuality we need to thin existing forests if we are to see any increase in water availability on the ground.

Q9. So, what other factors might contribute to this narrative of policy:science disconnect?

A. Some senior influential people within the water sector are arguing for a uniquely engineering approach. That needs to be countered. So, the debate is being framed around two extremes. We take this stance in order to counter those who just want to invest in concrete.

Q10. A major missing piece of the debate is around the environmental services that could be unlocked from wetlands acting as low storage areas. Those benefits could be substantially greater to economy and society than the value from the hegemony of services grounded in disaster risk reduction.

A. Conservationists think that if you aren't arguing to conserve wetlands because they are regulators, then you are anti-wetlands. If you argue a different case, then you would be perceived as only arguing for policies to drain them or to concrete them over.

 

So, as August turned to September, I walked away from Stockholm World Water Week with a major frustration. Frustrated that the international water community had gone through that whole process - a World Water Development Report and a global conference - wearing blinkers on some major parts of their foundations, content and relevance. There had been one good hook to make the case. The session best framed to tackled this - a debate about green and grey infrastructure. But that session took a set back as a credible route for messaging at the very outset when it was made clear that speakers would be merely role playing and not expressing their own or institutional positions.

Another reason that Stockholm proved to be frustrating was because it was such a major success as a highly engaging and inclusive Conference. Stockholm convenes and enables a generation of young professionals - imbued with energy and opportunity, and rightly positions them into key influential roles in setting out the findings. What a lost opportunity to have shown the importance of science. But it is furtherance of the hegemony.

I did though came away from Stockholm with three real positives.

The first is less tangible - but it is evident to me that actors involved have been willing to reveal their own individual concerns to me. The people I spoke to nearly all sought to explain the reasons why their organisations instead focus on the narrow hegemonic position. That is a fundamental difference that I picked up - in many cases, the individuals seemed to want to separate themselves from their organisational positions - but felt constrained by them. Organisational interests of policy-oriented institutions, but also policy interests of financers. But no financer I know of would ever want to be working against the science mainstream. Therein may lie a key to the solution of this, which will undoubtedly need to come, and come soon.

The second is the commitment to achieving social and economic outcomes for citizens that was conveyed so strongly during the African-led events throughout the Stockholm event - on issues they were discussing, be it groundwater or sanitation. This was not vague policy discussed in an academic Conference bubble. Rather, the continuing pursuit of political commitments by African governments to take action to improve lives and livelihoods.

The third is that a leading African institution has listened. They have taken on board the evidence, the situation and they are open to understanding and exploring the implications. They have recognised that it is an African-led process that may well be needed to carry this forward, and to unlock the realities. But it wont be easy, as the waters have been muddied, and there may be strong vested interests among global actors with whom they partner. Hopefully the back story within this article will help build confidence to take action.

Despite all of the other routes that could have been taken over the past two years that are now mostly closed, it is that African-led route that now offers the best hope towards a process needed to unlock this. Because they and the African institutions they work with cannot afford to carry a misplaced evidence base or ill-informed policy positions into the fulcrum of real development.