Rivers play a critical role in underpinning development all over the world. Their waters supply industry, agriculture and domestic users, generate energy and act as arteries for trade. This is achieved often through a high degree of management and regulation. Waters are diverted and sometimes moved between river basins to meet the demands of industry and human use. Barrages and dams are built to divert waters for irrigation to support intensive agriculture that produces cash crops for markets and staples for consumption. Infrastructure is built to generate hydropower and supply energy. Embankments, dykes and dredging keep channels navigable to maintain trade. Where rivers can pose a threat to development through flooding then similarly engineered infrastructure is commonly used to minimize risk of damage and catastrophe. In so doing many parts of the world have clearly benefited from rivers.

Ecosystems, both linked to rivers such as upland peatlands, floodplains, lakes and coastal swamps as well as river ecosystems themselves have also been shown to have a role in development. Especially in developing countries they provide food, water and often building materials for millions that depend on them both in rural areas but also in peri-urban and even urban areas. These resources often serve to keep people out of poverty and often form the important basis for their livelihood and sustainable development. In developed and developing countries they often contribute significantly to regulating river flow itself by storing and releasing water that maintains the river’s regime within expected bounds. As such they form the natural infrastructure that many people depend on.

River basin management has to balance these different, often competing uses. Basin organizations and agencies must provide a platform for stakeholders to cooperate and reach a common vision and approach to river basin management that does not compromise one another’s goals. However, river basin management has insufficiently understood the importance of ecosystems as natural infrastructure. Many river basins are now over-exploited. Indeed many no longer reach the sea, their waters having been allocated to different productive users through the basin, often at the expense of ecosystems. Furthermore, where ecosystems are addressed in policy or planning the common focus is on the maintenance of unique and special sites that support biodiversity. Their wider role in supporting livelihoods and regulating the very rivers themselves is rarely acknowledged and brought to river basin strategy and planning. This problem is partly rooted in traditional understanding of why ecosystems are important which takes a typically site and biodiversity focused approach. This detaches the management of ecosystems from the services they provide and therefore from the very development issues that river basin management seeks to resolve. Ecosystems must be understood as infrastructure delivering development benefits and not simply as water users for nature.

Increasingly this is recognized and is even being translated into practical actions on the ground in some parts of the world. In developed countries where often the loss and degradation of ecosystems has been most significant, moves to restore ecosystems and integrate their role as natural infrastructure alongside engineered development solutions is beginning to gain momentum. Often they have been shown to be cost effective and desirable solutions to development questions. In developing countries this approach has not yet taken root although there are examples where the benefits from ecosystem maintenance and restoration have been balanced against those from traditional development solutions and a middle ground has been found. This target will seek to share solutions including cases, approaches and tools that illustrate the potential importance, costs and benefits of ecosystems to achieving development goals as part of river basin management. It will seek to engage specific river basin organizations over the coming months in dialogue with the aim that by the Forum a plan can be agreed to mainstream ecosystems services into existing river basin planning processes.

*TSG 3.1.4 recognizes potential parallels in approach and solutions as proposed under the PFA 2.1 on balancing multiple uses through IWRM. PFA 2.1 recognizes there’s a need to balance water uses when water resources do not meet the needs of all, including the environment. The need also arises when resource is abundant but subject to competition due to various reasons and may also originate due to increasing recognition of and allocation to ecosystems services water requirements.

PFA 2.1 will thus seek solutions to contribute to improvement of water and other resources and contribute to economic development through different tools and approaches to the IWRM. TSG 3.1.4 thus foresees possible cooperation and integration of approaches and solutions seeking when the PFA 2.1 discusses integration of ecosystems and environmental water requirements in the IWRM.

FINAL 3 1 4 TAP - WI