Transcript Sustainable resource management: A Pressure-State

Sustainable resource management:
A Pressure-State-Response framework
for sustainability in the urban
environment
Ian Boothroyd
Golder Kingett Mitchell (Golder Associates Ltd.), Auckland;
and School of Geography, Geology and Environmental Science,
University of Auckland.
and
Maree Drury
EnviroVentures Ltd., Auckland
Urbanisation
• > 85% of New Zealanders live in urban areas
• Nearly 72% live in the 16 largest urban environments
(Statistics NZ 2006)
• > one million people (>30% of New Zealand’s
population) living in Auckland (< 2% of New Zealand’s
land area).
• Housing, commercial and roading intensification within
towns and cities.
• Growing demand for lifestyle living in areas surrounding
urban centres (i.e., peri-urban development).
• Increasing pressure on the existing, and often already
limited or highly-modified natural resources.
• While at the same time demanding increasing service
from these ecosystems (i.e., for stormwater runoff or
wastewater disposal).
Urban Sustainability
Urban sustainability involves creating better
places to live, work and play, while solving
problems caused in and by our settlements
(MFE 2003).
New Zealand’s urban areas have not received
the attention they need to promote sustainable
urban environments and infrastructures (PCE
2002).
Driving Forces
In urban areas, community well-being is at
the heart of sustainability initiatives.
Examples:
• The overarching principle of the Greater Christchurch
Urban Development Strategy is sustainable prosperity.
• The Auckland Regional Growth Strategy aims (amongst
four key goals) to sustain strong and supportive
communities.
Generic issues identified for sustainable urban living
(adapted from Greater Christchurch Urban Development Strategy and Auckland Regional Growth Strategy)
•Drawing a defined boundary between urban and rural areas.
•Maintaining the character of communities.
•Preserving, creating and linking urban and rural open space including parks
and recreational areas.
•Protecting outstanding landscapes.
•Protecting the quality and quantity of groundwater and surface water
resources.
•Protecting and enhancing ecological systems.
•Reducing and preventing air, land and water pollution.
•Maintaining a secure and productive resource base, including minimizing the
loss of productive land.
•Provision of more transport options, including walking, cycling and public
transport.
•Moving goods and people efficiently, making effective use of transportation
and service corridors.
•Ensuring good stewardship of land, sites and structures with cultural heritage
value.
•Ensuring adequate, affordable and appropriate housing.
Sustainable Catchment
Planning
• Most catchment planning has provided
little focus on the social-emotional
context of sustainable management.
• On average New Zealanders consider
our environment to be moderate to
good.
• Improving the state of our urban
waterways and environment are high
priorities for urban dwellers.
Sustainable
Catchment
Planning
The Pressure State Response (PSR) framework
• Based on the concept that human activities exert
pressures on the environment, changing the quality
and quantity of natural resources
• These changes alter the state of the environment
• The human responses to these changes include
organised behavior, which aims to reduce, prevent or
mitigate effects on the environment
• OECD Model
Direct pressures
Biological stresses
Indirect pressures
Human activities
Natural events
State
of the environment
and natural resources
Pressures
Pressures
on the environment
Global
National
Regional
Local
Responses
by Society
Central Government
Local Government
Policies & actions
Community sector
Individual/households
Attitudes & actions
Information
Perception of
the state of the
environment
Pressure-State-Response framework for environmental reporting
in New Zealand (from MFE 1997).
What does PSR provide management
• A means of quantifying pressures on the environment, thereby
providing a way of measuring change, and the impact of policies and
programmes.
• Means of quantifying and measuring change in state
• Means of determining whether pressures and state are related, and
whether management intervention has been worthwhile.
• Where to focus intervention.
• State of the environment reporting.
• Is it a cause-effect relationship?
• Establishing cause-effect may be impossible in complex multicomponent ecosystems.
• Can we separate pressure, condition and response indicators?
Indicators
Effectiveness
of PSR:
Auckland streams
Volume of
WWOF m3/km2
Annual vehicle
/count/SMU
Indicators
Measurement
% Imperviousness
SMU
Estuarine sediment
contamination
Pressure
State
Land use
of the
Environment
Number of SW outlets
>375mm i.d /km2
%Land area of SMU
with stormwater
treatment
%Continuous riparian
margin & % riparian
margin > 10m.
Habitat
Im
ple
me
nta
tio
n
Management
objectives
and/or
anticipated
outcomes
Response
change
Building blocks
Standard methods
Standard indicators
Interpretation
Standard thresholds
QA/QC
Water quality (clarity,
ammonia, temperature, pH,
nutrients, heavy metals)
Co
m
mu
nic
ati
on
Tools
Record of implementation of works and services
Plan implementation
Non regulatory programmes
Macroinvertebrate
biotic indices
Riparian vegetation
Fish
Building blocks
Standard methods
Standard criteria
Interpretation
Relationship with
Stream types
Training
QA/QC
•Alignment between pressures and ecological health
indicators is good.
•Estuarine sediment better water quality indicator than surface
water parameters (long-term changes).
•Quantifiable pressure and state indicators developed with
threshold values (long-term changes).
•Monitoring programme designed to detect changes in state
related to pressures.
•The outcomes clearly show a relationship between increasing
urbanization and a loss of sustainability, as measured by
various water, sediment and ecological quality indices.
Source: EVA et al. 2003
Disadvantages of PSR
• Static framework.
• Minimises significance of natural
pressures.
• Ignores societal perceptions and desires.
• Assumes cause-effect?
• Rarely a single unifying indicator or
response.
PSR:
Natural vs Human
influence indicators
Long-term vs Short-term
Scale
Socio-economic-environmental
frameworks
•Existing PSR anthropogenic focus
•No natural pressure indicators
•Two parallel systems – environmental and social
Benefits:
1. There is an explicit link to the goal of pursuing human and ecosystem
well-being together.
2. It recognises that people are part of the environment/ecosystem
although for the purposes of analysis they are held separately.
3. It stresses that what has to be managed is human activity/behaviour.
4. Portray and assess benefits achieved by what people do to the
ecosystem, and what the ecosystem provides to human/societal wellbeing.
PSR enhancements?
•
Natural capital which includes the natural environment, ecosystem
services, all aspects of nature and those resources which we take from the
environment and use either in their raw form or in a production process.
•
Produced economic capital which include all products that are harvested
or manufactured, physical infrastructure that has been constructed, cultural
and intellectual property, and financial resources.
•
Human capital which includes all community members, their age structure,
physical/mental well being, education, knowledge, skills, capacity to
contribute through production, decision making, developments/use of
technology, social interaction, innovation etc.
Enhancement of individual and collective wellbeing:
• Economic outcomes comprise ‘material well being’ and ‘productivity’
• Social outcomes comprise ‘physical well being and health’, ‘safety’, ‘place in
the community’, ‘emotional well being and mental health’, ‘intimate
relationships’ ‘culture and recreation’.
PSR enhancements?
• Framework needs to incorporate:
– major economic (e.g., transport, energy),
– social (e.g., housing) and
– environmental (e.g., ecosystem enhancement) drivers
• Incorporate concepts of resilience, adaptability and
diversity
• As sustainable development initiatives shift focus from
the responsive and corrective approach to a more causal
approach, there is likely to be more integration of
resources and planning for sustainable development.
Ecosystem health may be tied to an
ecosystem’s ability to use stress
(pressures) creatively (i.e., resilience,
adaptability, diversity) than its ability
to resist stress (pressures)
completely.
Acknowledgements
• We thank Annabel Barnden and Roland Payne for
assistance with the collation of literature and search of
websites for additional material on urban sustainability.
• Bruce Williamson and Geoff Mills for discussion and
debate on PSR framework.
• MFE for funding Auckland SOE report.