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FLOOD MANAGEMENT: A CASE STUDY TO LINK SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
Citation:
Brown, B S. AND R. Pompanio. FLOOD MANAGEMENT: A CASE STUDY TO LINK SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY. Presented at International Symposium on Society and Resource Management, Indiana University, ID, June 4-6, 2002.
Description:
Human living standards are inextricably linked through the economy to the integrity of the natural resources from which they are derived. The complex trade-offs needed to shape sustainable living standards will require a much greater ability to predict the consequences of public policy with respect to both socio-economic and environmental conditions.
Currently, the efforts to link ecology and economics are disjointed and there is no integrating mechanism. EPA is interested in addressing, in collaboration with local decision-makers and stakeholders, the issue of how to build causal linkages between policy decisions and the consequences in the economy and environmental quality. A partnership with CVI would help provide this linkage, as CVI is interested not only in issues at the local scale, but also how the cumulative effects of these issues affect ecoregions, subregions, and the entire Mid-Atlanci Highlands as well as how decisions made at the Highlands scale also affect local scale issues.
Research challenges needing to be addressed include determining the impacts of human activity patterns on human well-being, as well as identifying the information needed to support decisions directed at human and environmental well-being. Two questions of interest include: Is there a common currency that would permit the linkage of ecological and economic attributes? Would this linkage be dynamic, permitting alternative futures to be evaluated as well as current condition?
To date, there has been consensus between EPA/ORD and CVI that an ORD-CVI partnership would:
a. Develop a multi-scale, multi-issue process that would integrate economic and ecological information useful in decision making,
b. Jointly design the approach for developing the process,
c. Illustrate how the process captures the cascading and ascending linkages from a watershed (e.g., Shaver's Fork) to the Highlands Region, and
d. Build capacity in both organizations.
Initially, the common currencies to be tested will be energy (EMERGY) and dollars. The common problem to be used as an organizing principle will be flooding. There are multiple issues that will arise from the flooding problem, which satisfies the criteria of multi-issue and multi-scale. In addition, flooding is one of the major problems identified by stakeholders throughout the Highlands.
Desired outcomes from the joint project include:
1. A process for integrating ecology and economics using a common currency
2. Capacity building in both organizations
3. Assistance to stakeholders in decision-making
4. Transferability of the process to other issues and scales, and
5. Addressing policy-relevant issues at regional scales.