UN Division for Sustainable Development

Case Study Detail Record

Organization type:	Government

Name of Ministry/Agency:	Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada – Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration

Country:	Canada

Name of Focal Point:	Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada-Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, Strategic Alignment Directorate, Analytical Division

Initiative Title:	Watershed Evaluation of Beneficial Management Practices (WEBs)

Internet links:	http://www.agr.gc.ca/env/greencover-verdir/

Scope:	National:

Status:	Ongoing

Timeframe:	Start: April 2004 End: March 2008

Lead Institution:	Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada – Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration

Stakeholders/Partners:	Federal Departments: (Environment Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Health Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Space Agency) USDA CEAP The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) has been underway for approximately the same length of time as WEBs. Both projects have similar objectives, however, CEAP is being conducted on a more expansive basis. The differences in the two approaches are seen by both AAFC and the USDA as complementary. The two projects are collaborating by sharing findings and insights, and participating in each other’s conferences and workshops. Individual Watershed Partners: In addition to the involvement of Ducks Unlimited Canada and local landowners and producers in individual watershed projects, other watershed partners include: Salmon River Watershed (British Columbia) Lower Little Bow Watershed (Alberta) South Tobacco Creek/Steppler Watershed (Manitoba) South Nation Watershed (Ontario) Bras d’Henri and Fourchette Watersheds (Quebec) Black Brook Watershed (New Brunswick) Thomas Brook Watershed (Nova Scotia)

Relevent issues:	- Integrated Water Resource Management - Water Quality, Ecosystem Management, Disaster Prevention - Enhancing agricultural productivity through adequate and sustainable inputs - Water management in agriculture - Research development - Integrated assessments of socio-economic and environmental potentials of land - Information systems and use of GIS - Land conservation and rehabilitation programmes - Management of land and water interactions

Objectives/Challenges:

The overall objective of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Watershed Evaluation of BMPs (WEBs) project is to quantify, on a sub-watershed scale (~300 ha), the relative environmental and economic performance of selected agricultural Beneficial Management Practices (BMPs), on seven watershed sites across Canada.

The need to validate the performance of selected Beneficial Management Practices (BMPs) in a watershed setting was a primary reason for initiating the Watershed Evaluation of BMPs (WEBs) project.

The short-term objective of WEBs is to monitor and assess the relative environmental and economic performance of selected BMPs in seven regionally distributed micro-watersheds (~ 300 ha) across Canada. Modelling these performance parameters is an implicit goal of WEBs, ultimately leading to a better understanding of the benefits of BMPs over larger areas. Linkages to other federal, provincial, academic and NGO interests have been integral to the project, resulting in collaboration with some 40 other agencies.

WEBs long-term objectives involve working towards generating technologies in agri-environmental science by applying innovative research and modeling methods at watershed scale. These technologies will lead to better tools for policy and program decision making. WEBs is well positioned to continue effective long-term watershed research and knowledge enhancement because it has created the necessary infrastructure and partnerships in its seven “living laboratories”.

Lessons Learned:

The WEBs project has encountered various learning opportunities that can be used to improve upon a future phase of WEBs.

Past Project Challenges

•Some key experimental and logistical challenges encountered within WEBs include:

•Timely resource access - assembling appropriate staffing, process protocols, and funding took more time and effort than anticipated

•Partnership agreements - adequate time and resources are required in order to develop close partnerships with individual producers, some watershed groups and research agencies, and between individual researchers

•Other interests and studies – currently lots of interest in the area of BMP research and evaluation. Keeping apprised of other research and working collaboration and avoiding duplication is more challenging than expected

•Watershed scale variables – complicate short-term findings

•Realistic expectations - the WEBs project is ambitious, however, it cannot hope to address all the questions related to BMP effectiveness

•Time - more time is needed to observe long-term effects, and improve modelling outputs. This is a challenge in terms of policy development, as policy makers seek immediate answers.

Operational Experience

Work on the WEBs project to date has highlighted some operational issues that will require attention during any subsequent phase of the project:

•Data – dealing with data gaps and managing large amounts of data is challenging. WEBs is focusing on a good metadata collection rather than centralized data collection.

•Lab analysis - increased capacity and funding required at several locations (delays impeding BMP analysis and reporting). In order to maintain consistency of results, it is important not to switch laboratories.

•Equipment – new technology and equipment require learning curves

•Site manager - to oversee day-to-day site operations and reduce the supervisory work load of the Watershed Leads would be an asset

•Enhanced financing - to allow some producers to adopt more costly BMPs

•Contract/financial monitoring – arranging contracts and agreements, monitoring progress and spending – a significant amount of time and effort required.

•Modifications required – researchers are learning as they go, and finding the need to modify, expand, intensify existing approaches

•Producers – don’t always cooperate as expected, i.e. plans change, land ownership changes – affect how WEBs experiments are conducted.

•Watershed Agencies – involvement is instrumental for site operations and producer buy-in, however, not always an option (i.e. in some cases a functioning watershed group may not be present in the area).

Policy Options:

Current BMP related policy and programming is based on assumptions of BMP performance, however, it is not known if these assumptions adequately predict BMP effectiveness in an actual watershed scale setting, and across various climatic and topographic regimes. As a result, it cannot be stated with confidence whether the BMPs that producers are legislated or encouraged to implement are environmentally and economically sound.

In addition to evaluating environmental performance, the economics of implementing BMPs is also being evaluated. The results of these evaluations will provide policy makers with information on water quality changes resulting from BMPs, as well as the costs of implementing BMPs.

The results of WEBs should be evaluated are preliminary. Due to the short timeframe of WEBs (for some BMPs only 1-2 years of post BMP data may result), a high level of confidence in the findings cannot be expected. While WEBs is working on information and tools to aid policy and program development, more time is needed to refine these tools and datasets in order for policy decisions to be based on sound science. As well, the integrated environmental and economic modelling is only being conducted at two pilot sites, and much caution should be exercised in terms of extrapolating the findings to other watersheds. It should also be noted that WEBs is only testing a selection of BMPs, and will not be able to provide information on the full range of BMPs that exist.

The best policy option would be to give WEBs additional time to provide more confident findings, and to fund additional studies.

The most dangerous option would be to take the findings resulting from the limited time scope of WEBs and make broad based BMP policy and programming decisions based on those findings, as the science simply isn’t strong enough to support those decisions.

Summary:

For many years agri-environmental programs have promoted and often treated the use of BMPs as proven practices, however, their costs and environmental benefits have seldom been measured outside small, highly controlled plot and field experiments. Few BMPs have been evaluated at the watershed or sub-watershed level, where the effects of soils, topography, land cover and adjacent agricultural use may be more variable.

The WEBs project focuses on BMPs supported by the Greencover Canada program such as land conversion, riparian buffer strips, and managed livestock access to water. Surface water quality is the primary environmental indicator of WEBs validation activities as it is a likely predictor of other environmental relationships.

Where possible, WEBs sites are located in areas of historical benchmarking, where long-term background conditions and trends at the sub-watershed level are well understood. The selection of individual BMPs is watershed-specific — tailored to the specific nature of the watershed under study. BMPs are being evaluated for both their individual and cumulative effects.

An implicit goal of WEBs is to model the environmental and economic effects of BMPs in order to better understand and predict their benefits over larger areas. On-farm economic assessments are examining various scenarios through economic models and impact assessments. Farm behavioural factors that might affect BMP adoption are also being examined. Hydrologic modelling is being used to characterize watershed processes under baseline conditions and after BMP implementation. Integrated modelling at two pilot sites will assimilate hydrologic, environmental, economic and farm behavioural aspects into a multi-faceted decision tool at both the sub-watershed and larger watershed scale.

Longer-term goals of the project are to work towards advancing agri-environmental science by applying these innovative research and modeling methods in agricultural watersheds, and to develop better tools for policy and program decision making.

Another inherent objective of the WEBs project is to develop partnerships and collaborative relationships at the national and local levels. Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) is a major national project partner, and over 40 partners (federal, provincial, universities, conservation groups) are contributing cash and in-kind resources to the project.

BMP Testing

WEBs project sites examine a range of BMPs generally recommended for use within AAFC’s National Farm Stewardship Program (NFSP) — specifically those practices designed to mitigate sediment, nutrient, and bacterial loading in watercourses. WEBs assesses both the individual and combined effects of a suite of BMPs specifically chosen to address the local conditions and agricultural management challenges of each watershed site. Water quality is used as the primary environmental indicator. A range of techniques are being used to measure BMP effects, including historic benchmarking, paired watersheds, upstream and downstream monitoring, and edge-of-field testing. Methodologies are designed to enable sound scientific assessment at each micro-watershed. Cost-benefit analysis is also being applied to estimate on-farm economic and societal effects. Given the high degree of variability among study sites, WEBs does not seek to compare the effectiveness of individual BMPs across watersheds.