Author: riverlab

22-26 June 2020, Beaumont du Ventoux, Provence FR

https://institutbeaumont.org

This shortcourse/workshop emphasizes understanding geomorphic process as a sound basis for planning and designing river restoration projects and programs, with specific applications and field visits to Mediterranean and mountain environments. The course draws heavily on innovative process based river restoration and management experiences in France and elsewhere in the EU, complemented by experiences in North America. Instruction includes lectures, field exercises, problem sets and workshops on approaches to planning and implementing process-based restoration, with instructors drawn from both sides of the Atlantic.

The Columbia River Treaty between the US and Canada has been recognized as an innovative example of the bi-national management of the water resources of an international river. However, when the Treaty was ratified in 1964, it did not adequately consider the rights and responsibilities of tribes and First Nations or local residents, ecological functions such as fish and fish habitat, instream flow needs, river processes and ecology, etc. Additionally, the treaty did not address issues such as water requirements for municipal, industrial and agricultural uses, river transport and recreation, water quality, or potential changes in runoff characteristics and water temperature as a result of climate change. The United States and Canada are currently renegotiating the Columbia River Treaty and incorporating ecosystem function into the agreement, which was originally designed for hydropower generation and flood control, is a central theme. Both parties agree that an adaptive management framework will be critical to achieving these multiple objectives and treaty renegotiations are widely seen as providing an opportunity to modernize the treaty by including consideration of the above issues.

On May 9, 2019 the UC Berkeley Canadian Studies Program, Institute of International Studies, and Riverlab hosted a workshop on incorporating adaptive management (AM) into a modernized Columbia River Treaty. Scientists, policy experts, and representatives of First Nations and Tribes from Canada and the US met at UC Berkeley to present and discuss principles of adaptive management, successful precedents, and consider issues of legal perspectives, climate change, and power management relevant to revising the 55-year old treaty.

Reflecting the conclusions of the workshop was a one-page communiqué sent to US and Canadian negotiators in Washington and Ottawa. A more detailed summary of the workshop recommendations is available below:

Columbia River Treaty 2019 Workshop – Summary of Recommendations

The program for the workshop is available here, and PDF versions of the presentations from the workshop are available below:

• Clint Alexander: Enabling Adaptive Management in A Noisy World
• Barbara Cosens: Adaptive Governance
• Matt Kondolf: Basin-Scale Dam Analysis
• Lynn Kriwoken: Mackenzie River Basin Water Agreements
• Kai Lee: Columbia River Treaty & Adaptive Management
• Wendy Leger:_Great Lakes Adaptive Management Challenges & Successes
• Mike Miles: Past and Future Columbia River Conditions
• Greg Utzig: Adaptive Management for Ecosystem Function
• Bill Werick: Prerequisites for Adaptive Management of Water Resources
• Ted Yuzyk: Adaptive management of transboundary water levels and flow

02 November 1030a-1p, Rm 223 Moses Hall

Presented by Professor Hsiao-Wen Wang (National Cheng Kung University Taiwan), currently a Fulbright scholar at Berkeley working on conflicts between renewable energy and ecological values.  Like California, Taiwan has highly seasonal precipitation with high interannual variability, so reservoir storage is essential to provide water in dry months and dry years.  But the sediment yields in Taiwan are among the highest in the world, resulting in rapid filling of reservoirs, motivating Taiwan to implement sediment management measures sooner than elsewhere (Wang et al. 2018).  What can we learn from Taiwan’s experience?

This seminar is part of the interdisciplinary faculty seminar series, Water Management: Past and Future Adaptation, presented under the auspices of the UC Berkeley Institute of International Studies.  As both the developed and developing world confront intensifying demands on rivers and other water resources, impacts are evident from extractions of water for human uses, proliferation of dams, mining sediments from river beds, and intensified land-use impacts, all exacerbated by climate change.  Accelerated erosion of coasts and deltas (e.g., from sediment starvation, groundwater pumping, accelerated sea-level rise) are among the manifestations of these impacts.  Our seminar takes an interdisciplinary approach these challenges by examining how societies have adapted to variability in the past (uncertainty in water supply, flood risk, etc) and considers the tools we have to manage future variability in river flows and sediment loads, including variability in water supplies, increased flood risk, and the existential threat to many coastal areas.

References Cited

Wang, H-W, GM Kondolf, D Tullos, and W-C Kuo.  Sediment management in Taiwan’s reservoirs and barriers to implementation.  Water 10(8), 1034; doi:10.3390/w10081034

Friday 26 October 1030-1p, Rm 223 Moses Hall.

The seminar will feature contributions from Carrie Monohan (Sierra Fund), Katherine Stone (MWGJF, retired), Mark Capelli (NOAA), and discussant Holly Doremus (Boalt).  Dams and instream aggregate mining interrupt the continuity of sediment in river systems, with consequences including coastal sediment starvation and consequent accelerated erosion and delta subsidence.  The concept of ‘sand rights’ has been proposed as a legal doctrine to protect downstream and coastal interests from interruption of their natural sand supply (Stone 2000).  In northern California, the legacy of sediment accumulation from 19^th and early 20^th century gold mining continues to present challenges, including problems created by the ‘debris dams’ (such as Englebright Reservoir on the Yuba) constructed to prevent sediment generated by hydraulic mining from moving downstream.

This seminar is part of the interdisciplinary faculty seminar series, Water Management: Past and Future Adaptation, presented under the auspices of the UC Berkeley Institute of International Studies.  As both the developed and developing world confront intensifying demands on rivers and other water resources, impacts are evident from extractions of water for human uses, proliferation of dams, mining sediments from river beds, and intensified land-use impacts, all exacerbated by climate change.  Accelerated erosion of coasts and deltas (e.g., from sediment starvation, groundwater pumping, accelerated sea-level rise) are among the manifestations of these impacts.  Our seminar takes an interdisciplinary approach these challenges by examining how societies have adapted to variability in the past (uncertainty in water supply, flood risk, etc) and considers the tools we have to manage future variability in river flows and sediment loads, including variability in water supplies, increased flood risk, and the existential threat to many coastal areas.

References Cited

Stone, K. 2000. Sand rights: a legal system to protect the shores of the sea. 29 Stetson Law Review 709, 732 (2000).