COMITATO SESIA

Freshwater Resources Management for the Restoration of the Hydro-Geological Balance in the Alpine Ecosystems: Strategies and Proposals of WWF

Dr. Walter Wagner, Head of the Freshwater Programme, WWF Switzerland

Summary:

In the last decades, Alpine freshwater ecosystems have heavily been altered by human activities such as flood protection, power generation, transportation, and tourism. In addition, effects of climate change are recently becoming increasingly evident. Alpine freshwater systems are a precious resource both for the Alpine region itself and for large parts of Europe. It is therefore essential to effectively protect or restore the hydro-geological and environmental balance. WWF takes action on a policy, business, and field level to save the integrity and the biodiversity of the Alpine freshwater ecosystems.

Ladies and gentlemen,

First I’d like to thank the organizers for giving WWF, the World Wide Fund for Nature, the opportunity to present our concerns, strategies and proposals concerning freshwater resources in the Alpine region at such a high level conference.

Waters in and from mountainous regions are of paramount importance all over the world. Mountainous regions are the water towers of the world. They enable and support the richness of the world’s biodiversity and human prosperity, both in the mountain areas themselves as well as along the waters flowing from the mountains to the oceans of the world. However, the precious water resources in mountainous regions are often under severe pressure from human impact. Examples for such pressures can be deforestation, overgrazing, mining, hydropower production, tourism, and transportation, just to name some. These pressures often lead to alterations in quality and quantity of the natural hydrological cycle, resulting in an increased risk for floods and erosion and in the loss of naturally species rich mountainous habitats. Climate change, resulting in global warming, adds to the local pressures mentioned before and will in near future lead to enormous additional problems, especially in mountainous regions and the areas downstream of those.

For these reasons, mountainous regions are a focus of the work of WWF all over the globe. In an attempt to safeguard or restore natural biodiversity, WWF carries out or supports numerous projects in mountainous areas in North and Latin America, in Africa, in Asia, and in Europe. WWF considers mountainous regions to play a central role in freshwater and biodiversity conservation as a crucial element of sustainable development.

As a representative of WWF European Alpine Programme, I will now focus on our work in the Alps, to give you an idea of our strategies and proposals to achieve Alpine freshwater systems that can sustainably support natural biodiversity and human development.

If you think of freshwater systems in the Alps, you most probably think of crystal clear mountain lakes, lively Alpine streams, species-rich wetlands, snow-covered mountain ranges and majestic glaciers. Fortunately, all of these elements of our romantic picture of the Alps can still be found. They heavily contribute to the beauty of the Alpine landscape we have in mind. But the contribution of freshwater to the beauty of the Alps is only one aspect of the whole picture. Some of you might also see the freshwater in the Alps as a precious resource, for example, a resource supporting an extremely rich local biodiversity, or a resource to produce electricity from hydropower. Others of you might see the risks arising from freshwater such as avalanches or floods.

But, whatever picture you personally have of the freshwater resources of the Alps, you certainly agree that water has been and is essential for the beauty of the landscape and for the human development and the increasing economic prosperity in the Alps.

However, Alpine freshwater resources are not only a resource of local importance within the Alps. With their high amount of precipitation, the Alps are the water towers of Europe. Four of Europe’s major rivers, the Rhine, the Danube, the Po, and the Rhone, are largely fed by water from the Alpine region. Millions of Europeans, living along these rivers, depend on water from the Alps for their drinking water supply. And a large part of the European economy relies on these water resources by making use of them for power generation, for industrial purposes, or as transport ways. And, of course, the fresh water, flowing from the alps to the sea, is not only a resource essential for human use, but it also plays a central role for the existence of numerous specific habitats for plant and animal species living in or along the waterways throughout Europe. Freshwater from the Alps is essential for human and ecosystem health, as well as for the social and economic development throughout Europe.

But, besides being a precious and irreplaceable resource for Europe, Alpine freshwater is also a threat. Avalanches, mudflows and floods have always been and still are a natural threat to the inhabitants of Alpine valleys. Since decades, the inhabitants have struggled to reduce these threats. To better understand the current situation, I would now like to give you a short overview of the historic developments in the Alps.

In the 19^th century, early industrialization started in the Swiss Alps. The first driving energy source was wood, which was harvested by deforestation of the mountain slopes. The clearance of the forests contributed to catastrophic floods in wide areas of the region in the second half of the 19^th century. This led to a first wave of heavy engineering and channelling of the Alpine streams and rivers and to the reforestation of the hill slopes. Through these measures, the dynamics of the rivers were tamed to such an extent that the valley bottoms became safe for urbanization and agricultural use. Soon after, waterpower was increasingly becoming tapped for industrial and energy purposes. This resulted in a second wave of artificial weirs and channels, which heavily influenced the natural structures and flows of the rivers.

The heavy engineering and channelling of the rivers carried the water quickly and safely out of the region. This was certainly a prerequisite for the social and economic development, which took place in the Alps thereafter. Population growth, industrialization and intensification of agricultural productivity as well as an increasing pollution of the water resources characterized this development phase. Of course these developments had severe consequences for people and the environment in downstream areas. They increasingly had to tackle with more extreme flow regimes of the rivers and with water pollution.

As a result of these developments, we today face a river system in the Alps, which has to over 90 % lost its natural structure and its natural hydrological regime. The rivers have lost their connection with the surrounding land and therefore most of their natural retention capacity. Moreover, the dams and weirs in the rivers make it impossible for organisms to migrate upstream. These are both reasons that many plant and animal species of naturally very species rich habitats in and along the rivers are extinct or close to extinction. In the Toess River, a side arm to the Rhine River in Switzerland, the number of fish species for example declines from 20 to 1 from the confluence to the headwaters. This is mostly the result of the 568 artificial barriers stabilizing the channelized river over its length of approximately 60 km.

Human influence has altered the Alpine freshwater systems to such an extent, that natural biodiversity is highly at risk. Moreover, to ensure a safe use and an adequate flood protection from the Alpine waters for people living within the whole watersheds, increasing investments of money and energy are necessary. And, not to forget, a new large threat is showing up at the horizon, climate change. Global warming will have substantial influences on the Alpine water cycle. Snow and ice cover will increasingly melt away, permanently frozen ground will defrost, and there will, most probably, be more precipitation in the Alps. All of these changes will increase the risk for human settlements along Alpine rivers dramatically and will even more threaten natural biodiversity. The challenge for us to find ways for a sustainable development within the Alps will become even larger.

Facing this dramatic situation of the present and the future state of the Alpine ecosystems, WWF is taking action. As an environmental NGO, our main goal is to protect or restore the dynamics and the diversity of the Alpine ecosystems, especially of the species-rich Alpine freshwater ecosystems. At the same time, we want to support the sustainable use of the resources for human development and we want to minimize the threats to humans and ecosystems arising from natural hazards and human activities. To make this point clear, WWF acknowledges the importance of agriculture, tourism, or hydropower production. However, we call for sustainable tourism, organic agriculture, or green hydropower production, which do not interfere with the natural richness of the ecosystems.

These might sound like a quite ambitious or even unrealistic and sometime contradictory goal, but I would like to give you some examples to show, that this does not necessarily have to be the case. WWF is convinced that sustainable management of Alpine freshwater resources is necessary and possible.

A prerequisite for such a development however is an integrated management on a river basin scale. And since the Alpine region covers parts of eight European countries, there is need for an international agreement on the basic principles of sustainable development for the Alps and for an internationally coordinated legislation to achieve these principles.

With the Convention on the Protection of the Alps, which has been ratified as a framework by the Alpine countries Austria, Switzerland, Germany, France, Liechtenstein, Italy, Monaco, Slovenia and the EU, the Alpine region has an excellent consensus on the baseline of sustainable development. It is now crucial that the countries ratify the nine protocols of the Alpine Convention. Such an international agreement on the development principles in areas such as agriculture, forestry, tourism, energy, and transportation for the Alpine region would certainly be an ideal basis to build on for national or EU legislation. WWF therefore considers the Alpine Convention as an important and valuable step in the right direction and strongly asks the member countries to ratify and fully apply the protocols of the convention without further delay.

WWF also strongly supports the EU Water Framework Directive, a legally binding regulation. The Directive requires good ecological status for all waters until 2015. This includes water quality as well as the dynamics and the structure of the rivers. Integrated river basin management and a strong public and stakeholder involvement are the tools, which are stipulated in the Directive. WWF considers the regulations and the measures of the Directive very helpful in achieving its goals for Alpine freshwater systems. Even if not all of the countries in the Alps are members of the European Union – let’s say, yet -, the Directive will influence the whole Alpine region. The integrated river basin approach calls for an involvement of all the countries in the planning and implementation phase. WWF is actively involved in various working groups of the European Commission, elaborating specific elements relevant for the implementation of the Directive such as the definition of “heavily modified water bodies” and “impacts and pressures” as well as preparing a “common implementation strategy” and guidance therefore. Working within these teams, WWF has identified a number of problems, which might impede the timely and environmentally optimal implementation of the Directive. The major drawbacks for implementation from our point of view are the poor participation of Mediterranean and Candidate countries and the tendency to head for “minimum compliance” rather than for “best practice”. WWF commits itself to the implementation of the Water Framework Directive, without any restrictions in time and in the ecological requirements. We see this as a valuable contribution to the restoration of healthy aquatic ecosystems in the Alpine region and as a prerequisite for natural biodiversity and for sustainable development in the Alps. Therefore, WWF strongly supports the implementation of the ecological requirements of the Water Framework Directive in best practice, in time, and in all the countries of the Alpine region.

However, as mentioned above, hydropower production is of significant importance in the Alps and these infrastructures will be a severe restriction to a full implementation of the ecological goals of the Water Framework Directive. Hydropower infrastructures heavily affect the quality of Alpine rivers and streams. The operation schemes of many hydropower plants, especially of those with storage capacity, strongly alter the natural hydrological regime. The main effects on the water systems are the loss of longitudinal connectivity for species migration and sediment transport through dams, water withdrawals, and insufficient residual water amounts. Moreover, the natural runoff regime, water temperature, and sediment loads are altered in time and space. As a consequence, hydropower infrastructures in the Alps have led to severe impairments of upstream and downstream ecosystems, heavily contributing to the loss of numerous of native plant and animal species.

However, WWF recognizes hydropower as an important, CO2-free energy source for the future. But WWF also sees a high potential for ecological improvement of hydropower infrastructure in the Alps. We therefore do not oppose hydropower in general, but we strongly demand that all hydropower plants are improved to fulfil highest ecological requirements. Of course, national and EU legislation include requirements pointing in such a direction. Yet, for WWF, these existing requirements are not sufficient and too much time-lagged.

Together with partners, WWF is therefore working on a set of criteria for “green” hydropower. Such criteria shall be the basis for the inclusion of hydropower in a possible European green electricity scheme. The role model for this work is the Swiss “naturemade star” label, which includes far reaching ecological criteria for hydropower and which is quite successful on the Swiss electricity market. Hydropower plants carrying the “naturemade star” label have to fulfil a number of basic requirements, defined as minimum standards regarding the environmental impact from power plant design and operation on the local environment. They are differentiated with regard to five ecological domains and five management domains as shown in the picture. Moreover, the labelled hydropower plants have to invest into an environmental upgrading of their local ecosystems. These so called eco-investments shall relieve some of the remaining local environmental deficits in the perimeter of the power plant.

Fig. 3: Ecological domains and management domains relevant for the “naturemade star” label for “green” hydropower

Source: Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology, Duebendorf, Switzerland

WWF considers the requirements of the “naturemade star” label as an efficient and effective possibility to improve the ecological quality of the water systems affected by hydropower production. WWF therefore calls for using such requirements as a basis for a European green electricity scheme, which would significantly contribute to the improvement of the ecological quality of the water systems in the Alps as well as throughout Europe. “Green hydropower” is an ecologically and economically feasible solution to improve the present ecological conditions of Alpine waters.

As mentioned before, WWF is convinced that a sustainable management of the Alpine freshwater resources is both necessary and possible. And, as shown, WWF is trying to work in this direction by actively initiating or supporting activities together with other NGOs, as in the example of the Alpine Convention, from legislators, as in the example of the Water Framework Directive, and from business, as in the example of the “naturemade star” label. Since the Alps are mainly part of countries that have experienced early industrialization, the effects on the natural resources have become evident quite some time ago. The awareness of these problems and the will to tackle them is quite advanced, not only within NGOs but also within governments and the public. WWF therefore strongly feels that its work and involvement in the Alps will not only be of local use. It can also be of help for the management of other mountainous regions, where action possibly can be taken at an earlier stage. The Alps can be seen as a case study to learn for the future development of other mountainous areas of the world.

The model of the Alps clearly shows a development pattern of destruction of natural ecosystems followed by attempts of restoration. It is WWF’s vision to be able to learn from the experience of the Alps for other mountainous regions, where it might be possible to bypass the sacrifice of nature and directly aim at a truly sustainable development.
I do hope that you share and support this our vision.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Trackback URI |