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Student Name : Nurul Farahen Binti Ibrahim
Supervisor Name : Dr. Noorul Hassan Zardari
Water Research Alliance
Institute Of Environment and Water Resource Management
(IPASA)
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
81310 UTM Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia.
Programme : Master of Philosophy
Faculty : Faculty of Civil Engineering
Title of Thesis : The Importance of Sustainability Indicators in
Developing Watershed
Sustainability Index for the Selected Malaysian River Basins
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THE IMPORTANCE OF SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS IN DEVELOPING
WATERSHED SUSTAINABILITY INDEX FOR THE SELECTED MALAYSIAN
RIVER
BASINS
Nurul Farahen Binti Ibrahim
Department of Hydraulic and Hydrology, Faculty of Civil
Engineering, Universiti Teknologi
Malaysia, Skudai 81310
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND
Watersheds are vital for both the inhabitants and the wildlife,
though this important fact tends to
be misunderstood or overlooked (Catano et al., 2009). Several
issues which impact water
sustainability in a watershed need to be taken into account
while developing sustainability index.
These issues include: hydrologic, social, economic,
environmental, life, and policy. However,
these issues are often treated separately, and not as an
integrated, dynamic process (Chavez and
Alipaz, 2007; Brown and Matlock, 2011). In order to integrate
the hydrologic, environmental, life,
and policy issues, along with the existing pressures and policy
responses in one quantitative,
dynamic, and aggregated indicator, a watershed sustainability
index (WSI), which uses a pressure-
state-response function, has to be developed for watersheds
(Runge and Gonzalez-Valero, 2011).
The HELP index, developed by UNESCO and further consolidated
into one single variable called
the Watershed Sustainability Index (WSI), is a watershed
specific index that takes into account
cause-effect relationships and considers policy responses
implemented in a given period as part of
the watersheds sustainability. The WSI integrates the Hydrology
(H), Environment (E), Life (L)
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and Policy (P) aspects of a watershed under three parameters:
Pressure, State and Response
(Catano et al., 2009). Pressure addresses the human activities
exerted on the watershed, State
assesses the quality of the watershed in the base year of study,
as well as the quality and quantity
of natural resources and Response examines the societys level of
desire to address ecological
problems in the watershed (Catano et al., 2009). The
Pressure-State-Response structure
incorporates cause-effect relationships and thus provides a more
comprehensive understanding of
the watershed than an index that only examines the State, for
example. Granting equal weight to
each indicator, the simplest linear form of the WSI is:
)1(4
PLEHWSI
Eq. [1] indicates that all watershed indicators have the same
weight (equal importance), which is
unusual as the watershed indicators may not have equal
importance to the society, stakeholders or
even to the state. Thus, weights to the watershed sustainability
indicators should be assigned before
using them into an aggregation model. In this study, we propose
to elicit weights of indicators in
a survey conducted from watershed managers and/or stakeholders.
This practice of weights
elicitation and their usage in an aggregation will bring the
existing format of watershed
sustainability index (WSI) model close to the reality and make
it more practicable for managing
watersheds. It means we will make modifications to the current
equation (i.e. Eq. 1) for computing
WSI by multiplying weights to the indicators and will determine
the weighted average watershed
sustainability index (WAWSI). These weights will be obtained
from watershed managers,
stakeholders, water suppliers, etc. The proposed equation for
the WAWSI model is shown as
below:
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)2(****
POLICYLIFEENVHYD
POLICYLIFEENVHYD
WWWW
PWLWEWHWWAWSI
where WAWSI is the weighted average watershed sustainability
index, and W is the weight
assigned to each watershed indicator. Each of the four main
watershed indicators has a number of
sub-indicators, and a weighting will be applied to indicate the
importance of each indicator.
Watershed indicators will be standardized to the range of 0-100,
which will result in overall
WAWSI between 0-100. The highest WAWSI value, say 100, will be
for the best alternative (i.e.
watershed), and 0 being the worst watershed that should be given
priority in rehabilitation plan.
Furthermore, the selection of proper watershed sustainability
indicators is an extremely important
factor for developing watershed sustainability index (WSI) for a
particular watershed. The
watershed sustainability indicators are commonly selected
through a literature review on previous
sustainability frameworks and existing sets of components and
indicators (Chaves and Alipaz,
2007; Juwana, 2012). Based on those reviews, an initial set of
indicators is identified. This initial
set is then refined through discussion with key stakeholders
(Sullivan and Meigh, 2007). However,
the literature review tells us that the watershed sustainability
indicators were being selected
without following a proper procedure which may resulting in the
selection of some unstable and
irrelevant sets of watershed sustainability indicators. In this
study, however, we will select the
watershed sustainability indicators based on the criteria
developed by Liverman et al. (1988) and
HCTF (2003). Liverman et al. (1988) selection criteria are:
1. The indicator should be sensitive to change in time
2. The indicator should be sensitive to change across space
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3. The indicator should be predictive
4. Reference or threshold values should be available
5. The indicator should be unbiased
6. Data transformation
HCTF (2003) criteria for choosing sustainability indicators
are:
1. Available: The indicator data should be available and easily
accessible. It shall be collected
throughout the watershed, published in a routine basis, and made
available to the public;
2. Understandable: Indicators shall be easily understood by a
diverse range of non-technical
audiences;
3. Credible: Indicators shall be supported by valid, reliable
information, and interpreted in a
scientifically defensible manner;
4. Relevant: Indicators shall reflect changes in management and
in activities in the watershed.
They shall be able to measure changes over time;
5. Integrative: Indicators shall demonstrate connections among
the environmental, social and
economical aspects of watershed sustainability.
In this study, we will also analyze different measurement scales
that many researchers have
previously used for measuring watershed sustainability
indicators. We notice that assigning
numerical values (say 0, 0.50, 1.00) to poor, average and good
respectively do not truly
represent what the stakeholders feel about a particular
watershed sustainability indicator.
Therefore, these imaginary scales for different levels of
indicators may be replaced with true values
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which may be obtained from watershed experts and watershed
stakeholders. For that we have
hypothesized that the actual values for each level of the
watershed sustainability indicators are
unrealistic and not representing the true values of watershed
indicators. This hypothesis along with
other hypotheses will be tested from a survey to be conducted
from a group of water experts and
stakeholders.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
There are several issues which impact water sustainability in a
watershed. Among them are the
hydrologic, social, economic, environmental, life, and policy
issues. However, these issues are
often treated separately, and not as an integrated, dynamic
process. In order to integrate the
hydrologic, environmental, life, and policy issues, along with
the existing pressures and policy
responses in one quantitative, dynamic, and aggregated
indicator, a watershed sustainability index
(WSI) has to be developed for watersheds. Recently, UNESCO
(2005) has developed a framework
that integrates hydrology (H), environment (E), life (L), and
policy (P) issues (HELP index). The
HELP index is also called the Watershed Sustainability Index
(WSI), which takes into account
cause-effect relationships and considers policy responses
implemented in a given period as part of
the watersheds sustainability. However, the HELP index has at
least one weakness, i.e. it does not
take stakeholders preferences into consideration. All
sustainability indicators are assumed to be
equal importance which makes this index unrealistic. Thus,
weights to the watershed sustainability
indicators should be assigned before using them into an
aggregation model. We propose to elicit
weights of indicators in a survey conducted from watershed
managers and stakeholders and will
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modify the HELP index with the new model called weighted average
watershed sustainability
index (WAWSI). The equation for WAWSI is:
POLICYLIFEENVHYD
POLICYLIFEENVHYD
WWWW
PWLWEWHWWAWSI
****
It is not less than surprising that the previous researchers
used sustainability indicators in their
studies without considering proper selection criteria. However,
we will strictly follow criteria
listed in Liverman et al. (1988) and HCTF (2003) to choose
watershed sustainability indicators to
be used in the WAWSI model. The WAWSI model would be a
pioneering advancement in
Malaysian watershed management strategies as such type of
strategy for managing watersheds in
a sustainable way has never been developed before and potential
for its usage in Malaysia remains
high.
STUDY OBJECTIVES
The main objective of the study is to develop a model for
measuring watershed sustainability level
that can take quantitative and qualitative values of
hydrological, environmental and policy factors
together as the current sustainability measurement models take
only one issue at a time and do not
produce a reliable and accurate sustainability level of
watersheds. The main objective of the study
is further disintegrated into three specific objectives as given
as below.
1) To develop weighted average watershed sustainability index
covering hydrological,
environmental, life, and policy issues of a watershed.
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2) To determine the impact of transformation of qualitative
indicators into a uniform
numerical scales of the watershed sustainability indicators.
3) To develop a set of guidelines for eliciting watershed
stakeholders preferences on
watershed indicators that may guide policy-makers to manage
watersheds in an integral
way.
SCOPE AND IMPORTANCE OF STUDY
There is a high potential of application of the findings of the
study in Malaysia. Currently, there is
no systematic procedure or model that could be applied to assess
sustainability levels of the
Malaysian watersheds. The proposed model will help policy-makers
to assess the sustainability
levels of watersheds and prepare watershed management plans that
can integrate all watershed
aspects and produce reliable outcomes once the model is used in
solving a real world problem of
the watersheds. Rehabilitation plans for Malaysian watersheds
could also be prepared with
application of the proposed WAWSI model.
There are high chances that the successful development of the
model may open a new research
field in Malaysia and may bring a dramatic change in thinking of
the policy-makers and/or
decision-makers while making decisions to managing our
watersheds or devising policies for
rehabilitation of the Malaysian watersheds in future.
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METHODOLOGY
We have divided research methodology into three main parts: 1)
integration of hydrological,
environmental, life, and policy indicators into a main watershed
sustainability index; 2) scale
issues while changing qualitative values of the sustainability
indicators into quantitative values;
and 3) development of a new model named as Weighted Average
Watershed Sustainability Index
(WAWSI) with validation in a case study will real data.
In the first part of the methodology, we will review current
indices developed for measuring
sustainability level of watersheds all around the world. The
literature shows that not much work
has been done on putting all previous work into a single and
accessible document. Our study will
result in summarizing the benefits and pitfalls of all the
available models and methodologies that
have been developed by previous researchers and have been
applied for solving various real world
problems especially problems to watersheds. Here we present a
brief review of the watershed
sustainability index (WSI) developed by (Chaves and Alipaz,
2007) and integrated with Pressure-
State-Response model.
The WSI, which attempted to integrate hydrologic, environmental,
life and policy issues, has
shown advantages, both in the process of its development as well
as in the implementation
(Juwana, 2012). In the process of its development, the WSI has
provided decision makers with a
clear and concise framework of water sustainability. During
implementation, it has helped policy-
makers to improve water resources policies and minimize sewage
pollution (Chaves and Alipaz,
2007).
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In the second part of the methodology we will discuss scale
issues that previous studies have used
to solve watershed and water resources problems. Chaves and
Alipaz (2007) used imaginary values
to watershed sustainability indicators for their different
levels of impacts. However, the usage of
such imaginary values is questionable especially when a real
world problem is being solved. We
assume that watershed sustainability index developed from the
usage of those imaginary values of
the indicators may produce unrealistic and vague value of WSI
for a particular watershed. Table 1
shows the imaginary scores for different levels of indicators of
the pressure parameter used by
Chaves and Alipaz (2007).
We propose to assign different levels of sustainability
indicators with real values (or numbers)
rather than distributing each level of the indicator with equal
marginal, which we believe is not a
representative of the indicator level. Table 2 shows a rough
sketch how we will investigate
different scales of the indicators levels.
Table 1. Description of WSI Pressure parameters, levels, and
scores (Chaves and Alipaz, 2007)
Indicator Pressure Parameters Level Imaginary
score
Actual Score
Hydrology
1Variation in the basin per capita water
availability in the
period studied, relative
to the long-term
average (m3/person/yr)
1
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watershed
stakeholders
Environment
- Basin E.P.I. (Rural &
urban) in the period
studied
EPI>20%
20%< EPI>10%
10%< EPI
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In the last part of the methodology we show how the WAWSI model
will be developed. As
mentioned previously that the watershed sustainability index
(WSI) takes into account cause-effect
relationships and considers policy responses implemented in a
given period as part of the
watersheds sustainability. The WSI integrates the Hydrology (H),
Environment (E), Life (L) and
Policy (P) aspects of a watershed under three parameters:
Pressure, State and Response (Catano et
al., 2009). Pressure addresses the human activities exerted on
the watershed, State assesses the
quality of the watershed in the base year of study, as well as
the quality and quantity of natural
resources and Response examines the societys level of desire to
address ecological problems in
the watershed (Catano et al., 2009). The Pressure-State-Response
structure incorporates cause-
effect relationships and thus provides a more comprehensive
understanding of the watershed than
an index that only examines the State, for example. However,
there is a major drawback of the
HELP or WSI index as it does not take different weights to
different components of the model,
which may result in misguiding the policy makers and decision
makers while determining
sustainability index for a watershed. Here we propose that
indicators should be weighted before
putting them into WSI model for calculating index. In this
study, we propose to elicit weights of
indicators in a survey conducted from water experts and
watershed stakeholders. This practice of
weights elicitation and their usage in an aggregation will bring
the existing format of watershed
sustainability index (WSI) model close to the reality and make
it more practicable for managing
watersheds. It means we will make modifications to the current
equation (i.e. Eq. 2) for computing
WSI by multiplying weights to the indicators and will determine
the weighted average watershed
sustainability index (WAWSI). These weights will be obtained
from watershed managers,
stakeholders, water suppliers, etc. The proposed equation for
the WAWSI model is shown as
below:
-
)4(****
POLICYLIFEENVHYD
POLICYLIFEENVHYD
WWWW
PWLWEWHWWAWSI
Finally, we will validate the WAWSI model with a real case study
to be conducted in the Skudai
River basin of Johor State of Malaysia. Following data will be
collected for the Skudai River basin
to validate the model.
I. Determination watershed area
(a) Area, slope at various points
(b) Contour maps at suitable interval
(c) Rate of precipitation
(d) Total area of the watershed
(e) Existing Land use Pattern
(f) Soil Texture
II. Water quality data
(a) Existing water sources and their quality
III. Weather data (monthly)
(a) Humidity and wind conditions
(b) Latitude (degree)
(c) Actual sunshine hours
(d) Mean temperature (0 C)
(e) Mean relative humidity (%)
(f) Average wind speed (m/s)
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(g) Average rainfall (mm)
Figure 1 Gantt chart of research activities
Figure 1 shows the Gantt chart of research activities
Figure 2 shows the flow chart of research activities to be
completed under this project.
Figure 2. Flow chart of research activities
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EXPECTED RESULTS/BENEFIT
It is important to mention that the proposed weighted average
watershed sustainability index
(WAWSI) would be a pioneering advancement in Malaysian watershed
management strategies as
such type of strategy for managing watersheds in a sustainable
way has never been developed
before. The potential for the application of the proposed
strategy (i.e. weighted average watershed
sustainability index) is high. The proposed weighted average
watershed sustainability index
(WAWSI) would be applicable to all watersheds in Malaysia.
Research Publications
It is expected that at least 3 papers will be produced from this
research and will be published in
hydrology and water resources journals. The contents of the
likely publications along with title of
the papers are given as below:
Paper 1: Real values of sustainability indicators and the
development of watershed sustainability
index (WSI)
In this paper, the procedure for computing watershed
sustainability index will be presented. The
paper will also discuss some important watershed indicators
which are thought to be crucial for
managing a watershed. Parameters on which the sustainability
indicators are dependent will also
be presented in this paper.
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Paper 2: Scale issues in transforming qualitative watershed
sustainability indicators into
quantitative indicators
In this paper, we will present the importance of decision-making
in watershed management. A
decision-making process for effective management of watersheds
will be presented. The
developed decision procedure will take stakeholders views and
concerns into account to reach a
final decision for managing a watershed in a sustainable way. A
priority list of indicators that are
important for watershed management will also be given in this
paper. As many watershed criteria
will be used to develop a decision-making procedure, a
multi-criteria decision analysis will be
applied in this paper.
Paper 3: Watershed sustainability index-Case Study of the Skudai
River Basin
In this paper, we will apply the watershed sustainability index
to the Skudai River basin data.
Actually this paper is the application of the model that will be
developed through this study. We
will present the validity and the effectiveness of the developed
watershed sustainability index
(WSI) by applying it to data collected for the Skudai River
basin.
REFERENCES
Brown, A. and Matlock, M.D. (2011), A Review of Water Scarcity
Indices and Methodologies,
White Paper #106, The Sustainability Consortium, University of
Arkansas.
Catano, N., Marchand, M., Staley, S. and Wang, Y. (2009),
Development and validation of the
watershed sustainability index (WSI) for the watershed of the
Reventazon River, Report
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of the Commission for the Preservation and Management of the
Watershed of the
Reventazn River.
Chaves, H.L. and Alipaz, S. (2007), An Integrated Indicator
Based on Basin Hydrology,
Environment, Life, and Policy: The Watershed Sustainability
Index, Water Resources
Management vol. 21, 883-895.
Habitat Conservation Trust Fund-HTFC (2003), Mission Creek
Sustainable Watershed Indicators
Workbook, British Columbia, 22 p.
Juwana, I. (2012), Development of a Water Sustainability Index
for West Java, Indonesia, PhD
Thesis,School of Engineering and Science, Faculty of Health,
Engineering and Science,
Victoria University, Australia.
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Global sustainability: toward
measurement, Environmental Management, 12(2): 133143.
Runge, C.F. and Gonzalez-Valero, J. (2011), The theory and
practice of performance indicators
for sustainable food security: A checklist approach, Working
Paper WP11-2, Center for
International Food and Agricultural Policy, University of
Minnesota, U.S.A.
Sullivan, C. and Meigh, J. (2007), Integration of the
biophysical and social sciences using an
indicator approach: addressing water problems at different
scales, Water Resources
Management, 21(1): 111128.
UNESCO (2005), Hydrology for the environment, life and
policy-HELP (Brochure), Paris, 20 p.