Peter DeWees World Bank Presentation given at the 6th Regional Nutrient Reduction Conference in the Black Sea - Danube Basin in Ankara, Turkey.

1. Integrated Approaches to
Nutrient Reduction
Protecting Soil and Water Resources
through Watershed Management

2. Why are watersheds degrading?
 Unsustainable
use of natural
resources
 Erosion, soil
fertility decline
 Forest cover loss
 Overgrazing
 Population
pressure/poverty

3. Characteristics of upland watersheds
 Steep slopes
 Isolated areas
 Rural poor predominate
 Soil fertility management
challenging
 Higher agro-ecological
diversity then lowlands
 Less amendable to large
scale investments
 Proximity to forests
 Complex land tenure
systems

4. Review of experience with watershed
management projects
53 watershed management projects and
projects with watershed management
components financed by World Bank (1990 to
2004)
 What types of activities were supported?
 How were they implemented?
 What worked and what didn’t ?
 Are we learning from experience?
 Are there opportunities for better nutrient
management?

5. Lending by the World Bank for
watershed management
WSM Project Lending / Region for 15 Yrs
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
AFR EAP ECA MNA LAC SAR
US$million
00-04
95-99
90-94

6. Objectives and strategies
0 5 10 15 20 25
Biodiversity
Policy, legal framework
Infrastructure
Research
Planning
Participation
Land degradation
Poverty reduction, Income
Agricultural Production
Capacity, Institution
SNRM, SLM

7. Two generations of watershed
management activities

8. Experience with the first generation
 Technocratic and top-down
 Expensive erosion control
 Communities hardly
involved
 Subsidies an important
incentive for participation
 Centralized project
management
 Lack of collaboration across
sectors
 Limited attention to land
tenure

9. Lessons from the first generation
 Clear need to use
participatory
approaches
 Build on existing social
structures and
institutions
 Develop farmer
oriented, integrated
approaches to farming
system

10. Lessons from the first generation
 Apply problem and
demand driven
approach
 Provide larger set of
techniques at low
cost
 Create win-win
situations: combine
environmental
protection with
agricultural
production

11. Influences on
second generation design
 Getting the scale right
 Integrating NRM,
environmental
protection and
agricultural production
 Focusing on
institutional capacity
 Research
 Monitoring and
evaluation

12. Getting the scale right is important
Microwatersheds (<1000ha) are a good size for:
 integration of multiple objectives (NRM,
environmental protection and agricultural
development)
 building community capacity and local
institution strengthening
 participatory approaches
 locally adapted planning
 site specific solutions

13. … but scale does not solve the problem
when:
 existing social organizations
are not well understood;
 equity concerns are not
addressed;
 there is great heterogeneity
in
 land capacity
 tenure regimes
 stakeholder interest

14. Integrating NRM, environmental protection
and agricultural production

15. NRM and agriculture:
what worked?
 soil protection →
improved land
management → higher
production → income
increase
 Intensification and
diversification of rainfed
agriculture
 Low cost techniques
 High technical and
knowledge standards
 Offer a range of
technology options

16. NRM and agriculture:
what hasn’t worked?
Weak impact when:
 farmers’ needs and
problems weren’t well
understood;
 Soil and water
conservation was too
labor intensive and
expensive for farmers;
 There were no short
term benefits;
 Marketing opportunities
for products were
lacking.

17. Participation counts
What worked:
 Community organization
around common interest
(road, water, erosion
control)
 Special attention paid to
poor, women, vulnerable
groups
 Allow for a slow start at
beginning of project,
flexible project design

18. But, participation is hard work
 Often there is only a
limited understanding
of stakeholder interests
and social organization
 Participatory
approaches require
training and retraining
 Many different forms of
Participation

20. Research

21. Research
What worked?
 demand driven, adaptive, farmer based research
 quick results: to be integrated in project activities
 regional computerized monitoring facilities
What didn’t work or was counterproductive?
 Demonstration plots, on-station research
 Studies with little practical relevance and poor
technical quality
 Delay in regional and national environmental
monitoring support implementation

22. Monitoring and evaluation
Most M&E
was ex-post,
not based on
rigorous data

23. Monitoring and evaluation
Need for better measurement
 at the household level of impact of
interventions on income and consumption
 at the catchment level of impacts on
sedimentation, water flow and water quality

25. Moving to the third generation
 Nutrient pollution control and management
 Income generation as a critical element
 Scaling up microwatersheds to macro-
catchments
 Exploiting upstream-downstream connections

26. Challenges for nutrient pollution control
through watershed management
 Mediating interests between upstream
and downstream households
 Strong focus on service delivery: to
poor communities in upland
catchments

27. Making the linkages between upstream
and downstream interests
 Upstream interests: jobs,
income generation, access
to resources (forests,
pastures, irrigation) [High
poverty rates]
 Downstream interests:
livestock improvement,
manure management, crop
productivity [Lower poverty
rates]

29. Adding to the menu of options
 Capitalizing on local
interests in animal health
and hygiene
 Introducing integrating
manure management
systems which return
compost to crops/pastures
 Reducing and controlling
water pollution
 Reducing nitrate levels in
groundwater