Browsing by Subject "Water Policy"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
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    Determining the impacts of damming, water-level fluctuations, climate, and landscape changes in Voyageurs National Park and vicinity.
    (2010-06) Bleser, Claire Serieyssol
    In the past century, the border lakes in and near Voyageurs National Park have been subject to anthropogenic and natural stressors. These stressors include logging, damming, hydromanagement, human population growth, and climate change, which can be broadly categorized into three groups: land use, hydromanagement, and climate. In order to determine how these stressors have impacted the lakes, we developed a before-after control-impact paleolimnological study. Lakes included in the study were the dammed lakes of Namakan, Rainy, and Kabetogama, which are all in the Voyageurs National Park region, and undammed Lac La Croix, which is upgradient in protected wilderness lands. One sediment core was retrieved from each lake and analyzed for 210Pb inventory, loss-on-ignition, and diatoms. Multiple statistical analyses (species richness and turnover, cluster analysis, multivariate ordination, diatom-inferred water quality, and variance partitioning) were used to provide a more comprehensive picture of how these lakes were affected uniquely and interactively by the different stressors. Among the various stressors, land use generally explained the greatest amount of variance in diatom communities. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the interactive effects among land use, climate, and hydromanagement were also highly significant. Although hydromanagement is a primary source of concern in this region, multiple stressors and their interactions were identified as drivers of change in the diatom community and therefore must be considered in the management of the border lakes. The International Joint Commission who has been managing this system since 1940 has been mostly re-active in its decision making. However, in the late 1990s enough awareness was raised in regards to the deterioration of biological communities that they choose to modify the water-level rules in the border lakes. This step created a new decision-making process in this region; a move from being re-active to been pro-active. As part of this new rule change, the IJC required local agencies to evaluate the change in the rule curve. The ruling board located in the Rainy-Namakan System also has taken part in the new International Watershed Initiative which approaches the management of watersheds in an ecosystem approach. This step is extremely important as it promotes interactions between all stakeholders and therefore is able to fully integrate concerns in decision-making. Nevertheless, there are still concerns for the management of the resources in a sustainable way. Repeatedly, agencies in the region have raised concerns in the lack of funding from the IJC to maintain monitoring station. These stations are extremely important when making sustainable decisions especially during a time of unprecedented climate change. Thus, it is important that the IJC not only pro-active in its decision-making but also consider long-term sustainability.
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    How law matters to ecosystem restoration.
    (2012-02) Enzler, Sherry Anne
    The 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment reported unprecedented degradation of ecosystems and the services they provide to human well being which, if allowed to continue, could adversely affect human health, security and welfare. Our environmental legal authorities and policies, however, are not well designed to protect the health of our nation's ecosystems focusing instead on clean air, clean land and clean water as single medium, often referred to as the silo approach to environmental protection. Protecting ecosystems requires that we move away from this silo approach to a multi systems approach to environment and ecosystem management in both policy and law. How can we motivate the necessary changes in our legal constructs and political systems? This is a question posed by a number of communities and states struggling with the concept of ecosystem protection. Applying a Modified Destabilization theory this research explores whether and under what conditions the strategic use of litigation by environmental social movements can destabilize established legal constructs to protect ecosystems. Using the Mono Lake and Everglades' restoration event histories the Modified Destabilization Model is used to examine the role law played in struggles to change the political and social systems necessary to protect, restore and rehabilitate ecosystems. This analysis increases our understanding of the elements necessary to move to change the political and social structures to achieve systems approach to ecosystem management and the ability of social movements to mobilize law and litigation to accomplish the political and social change necessary to protect ecosystem.