Integrated catchment management—interweaving social process and science knowledge

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the Motueka integrated catchment management (ICM) research programme. This research was based on the thesis that achieving ecosystem resilience at a catchment scale requires active measures to develop community resilience. We define a generic adaptive planning and action process, with associated knowledge management and stakeholder involvement processes, and illustrate those processes with observations from five research themes: (1) water allocation; (2) land use effects on water; (3) land and freshwater impacts on the coast; (4) integrative tools and processes for managing cumulative effects; and (5) building human capital and facilitating community action. Our research clearly illustrates the benefits for effective decision-making of carrying out catchment scale science and management within collaborative processes which patiently develop trusting relationships. We conclude that coastal catchments should be managed as a holistic continuum from ridge tops to the sea and that some processes like floods or loss of community resilience have decadal consequences, which support the need for long-term monitoring and investment.

Keywords:

• integrated catchment management
• ICM
• Motueka
• resilience
• collaborative learning
• IWRM
• NRM
• resource management

Introduction

The need for more holistic approaches to land and water management has been recognised since the middle of the twentieth century (White 1964; Schramm 1980; Cullen 1990), driven by intensification of land use and increasing competition for water. Whether labelled integrated catchment management (ICM), integrated water resource management (IWRM), natural resource management (NRM) or river basin management (RBM), these approaches focus on ways to better manage land and water uses across the landscape so their impacts on water quality and the values associated with the natural environment are minimised. That in turn requires people to appreciate their contribution to those impacts through a systems view of the environment.

ICM acknowledges that because the flows and stocks of water, sediment and contaminants are usually contained within topographical boundaries, the river basin or catchment is the appropriate spatial unit—at least from a biophysical perspective—within which to focus that good management (Ferrier & Jenkins 2010). Accordingly, ICM comprises not just the outcome of sustainable levels of resource exploitation, but the ongoing process to achieve and improve sustainability. We summarise ICM as follows:

Integrated catchment management is a process that recognises the catchment as the appropriate organising unit for understanding and managing ecosystem processes in a context that includes social, economic and political considerations, and guides communities towards an agreed vision of sustainable natural resource management in their catchment.

In New Zealand, a continuing decline in water quality and increasing competition for water have led to calls for a more collaborative approach to land and water management (Land and Water Forum 2010). In an earlier (2004) report, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE) called for farmers and communities to work together to manage natural resources and the impact of agricultural and other land management practices on them: ‘Integrated catchment management moves beyond redesigning farming at a farm scale … It offers a way of addressing and understanding the cumulative effects on the environment of all activities within a catchment, only some of which may be farming. An integrated framework is required to ensure that individual redesign efforts cumulatively lead to the maintenance of natural capital … . and recognising that some activities may not be appropriate for the sensitivity of the surrounding environment’ (PCE 2004).

The challenge posed by the PCE and reinforced by the Land and Water Forum was at the heart of a 10-year cross-disciplinary and inter-agency research programme on ICM set in the Motueka catchment. This paper provides an overview of this research and its relevance for improved land and water resource management. The paper introduces a generalised conceptual model for ICM to provide a systematic context for the research described in the other papers included in this special journal issue, and elsewhere (refer http://icm.landcareresearch.co.nz/).

Study site and research design

The Motueka River catchment

Among a range of conceptual and operational challenges for ICM, Rhoades (1998) identified the importance of place-based research. This is because it capitalises on local knowledge and indigenous worldviews and encourages ownership of results. Place-based research has the added benefit that methodological insights will be transferable, while detailed outcomes will be more locally applicable. Recognising these factors, the ICM programme adopted the Motueka catchment—including the interconnected Riwaka catchment and Tasman Bay—as the primary demonstration basin.

The 2170-km² Motueka River catchment in the South Island is a diverse basin in a hydrologically temperate zone (Fig. 1). Its elevation ranges from sea level to 1600 m, its annual precipitation ranges from 1000 to over 3500 mm, and it contributes 62% of the freshwater flow into Tasman Bay (mean flow of 82 m³s⁻¹) (Basher 2003). Since the Māori arrived around 1350 AD and European settlers in the 1800s, 60% of the catchment has been cleared of forest. Today approximately 25% is in exotic conifer forest and 35% in dryland pasture, crops or irrigated horticulture (apples, kiwifruit, berry fruit, hops and—historically—tobacco). Vineyards, marine farming, arts and tourism add to the diversity and productivity of the local economy. The catchment is sparsely populated, with only 12,000 people, including about 7000 in the town of Motueka. However, population growth is among the highest in New Zealand at about 2% per annum. Local Māori tribes (iwi) Te Atiawa, Ngāti Rarua and Ngāti Tama assert their kaitiakitanga philosophy of guardianship over the region's land and water resources, and Māori groups and affiliated companies are active in a range of commercial activities in the catchment.

Figure 1  Geography and land cover of the Motueka and Riwaka catchments.

Catchments and therefore their management challenges may be classified based on current stakeholder values, as either requiring rehabilitation (recovery from an unacceptably degraded state) or protection (to avoid an unacceptably degraded state). This classification is consistent with the definition of sustainable management set out in section 5 of the Resource Management Act, which requires that resource users avoid (protect), remedy (rehabilitate) or mitigate (protect or rehabilitate) environmental effects. Because of the complexity of catchment socio-ecosystems, rehabilitation measures are likely to be more contentious, difficult and therefore more expensive than protection measures. The priority for avoidance of adverse effects in the Act is a practical reflection of the difficulty of remediation or mitigation. Tools and processes for protecting catchments are therefore arguably as important as those for rehabilitation.

The Motueka catchment, like many New Zealand catchments, fits mainly into the protection category, yet is subject to growing environmental pressures (Fenemor et al. 2006). For example, some water resources are regarded as ‘fully allocated’, yet there is continuing unmet demand for water (Fenemor & Sinner 2006). Water quality and habitat have declined over time (Ballantine & Davies-Colley 2009; Young et al. 2011), particularly in the lower catchment, caused mainly by land use changes in dairying, horticulture and ‘lifestyle’ land subdivision. Although subsequently partially reversed, a 70% decline in fish numbers in the internationally renowned brown trout fishery occurred between 1985 and 1995. Sediment losses especially from forestry harvesting have been blamed, but there was little supporting science. In addition, converting pasture to forest has been found to reduce annual stream flows and groundwater recharge on some Motueka terrains by more than 50% (Duncan 1995; Rowe et al. 2002; Davie et al. 2003) putting pressure on previously allocated downstream water resources.

Significantly, research in the ICM programme confirmed that impacts of the Motueka River discharge extend well offshore, effectively extending the catchment beyond the river mouth (Forrest et al. 2007; Gillespie et al. 2011a). The river plume delivers nutrition (Gillespie et al. 2011b), but also deposits sediment (Gillespie et al. 2011a), and results in microbiological contamination of coastal waters (Cornelisen et al. 2011). This can affect the suitability of the water for recreational uses, aquaculture and shell fish productivity, and harvesting in Tasman Bay, where the allocation of sea space for mussel farming and scallop harvesting is already a contentious legal issue (Fenemor et al. 2006).

Based on this summary, many of the issues facing land and water management throughout New Zealand, and indeed in temperate environments globally, are evident in the Motueka catchment.

The ICM research programme

The research challenges for ICM are sourced from the fields of complex systems and resilience (Holling et al. 1998; Berkes et al. 2000; Gunderson & Holling 2002), wicked problems (Brown et al. 2010), post-normal science (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1991), socio-ecology (Anderson et al. 2008), collaborative learning (Allen & Kilvington 2002) and collective governance of common property resources (Ostrom 1990).

Berkes et al. (2000) identify principles for new approaches to resource and environmental management, which when adapted for an ICM perspective have helped to focus components of the Motueka ICM research:

•	management systems which flow with nature;
•	developing local ecological knowledge to understand natural and unpredictable events;
•	learning from indigenous systems which integrate moral and religious belief systems with resource management;
•	enhancing community resilience;
•	promoting self-organisation and institutional learning;
•	adaptive management;
•	adjusting values to be consistent with socio-ecological systems behaviour.

The research team operated as a partnership between science, local government and community. Landcare Research, the Cawthron Institute and Tasman District Council (TDC) led the partnership. Other research institutes NIWA, GNS Science and Scion Research, and independent researchers including facilitators, social scientists and artists, were also involved. TDC involvement and commitment enabled the programme to achieve its research goals in support of the council's resource management goals. The research team included a range of disciplines—hydrology, freshwater biology, marine ecology, computational modelling, geomorphology, biogeochemistry, ecological economics, social sciences, indigenous studies and resource management planning.

Holling et al. (1998) suggest there is a crisis in resource management and advocate rethinking resource management science because of its non-linear, multi-sectoral, multi-scale and dynamic complexities. They advocate systems approaches and adaptive management. The Motueka ICM programme trialled methods to develop this integration. This involved an explicit recognition that land, water and social systems are interlinked - and interdependent. It was hypothesised that ecosystem resilience would be improved if community resilience is developed (Fig. 2). To this end, the programme brought together research on biophysical processes (water, sediment, nutrient and contaminant fluxes and their impacts) with research in the social sciences (social learning, community engagement, Māori values, economics, policy relevance), integrated across land and water (including coastal waters).

Figure 2  Integrated catchment management develops community resilience to build ecosystem resilience (from Fenemor et al. 2008a).

The success of an ICM approach depends on strong stakeholder engagement. Research on collaborative learning techniques aimed to demonstrate the utility of working together to address seemingly intractable problems in resource management (Allen et al. 2011). The collaborative approach focuses on elements of problem-solving such as uncertainty, values and multiple social perspectives that tend to be neglected in traditional accounts of scientific practice. Collaboration allows different groups in an area to contribute their local and traditional knowledge alongside scientific knowledge, to achieve better informed and more enduring solutions to contentious issues.

Community partners included the New Zealand Landcare Trust, Fish & Game NZ, as well as aquaculture and local landcare groups, each of which became actively engaged in different research components within the larger integrated study. Gunderson & Holling (2002) show the importance of novelty (creativity) and wisdom in developing adaptive capacity and fostering engagement. Creative approaches to engagement were trialled in the Travelling River art-science collaboration, and in the Watershed Talk community resilience projects (Kilvington et al. 2011a, b).

The programme also carried out research with Māori (Harmsworth 2005). Iwi members have commented (Barney Thomas, Te Atiawa, pers. comm.) that the empowerment of both Manawhenua iwi and researchers to engage with Māori values through the ICM programme legitimised the importance of the Māori knowledge, the Māori cultural perspective, and its contribution for resource management and for ICM throughout New Zealand. This can be seen by the development of the iwi pan-tribal resource management committee, Tiakina Te Taiao, in the implementation of GIS on marae to aid Māori input into resource policy and resource consents, and the development and incorporation of iwi capability in environmental monitoring (e.g. Harmsworth et al. 2011).

International connections and the ongoing dialogue generated among researchers, policy-makers and stakeholders enabled the sharing of ICM experience with other global catchments. One result of the ICM research design was that the Motueka catchment became a demonstration catchment in the UNESCO-IHP global programme Hydrology for the Environment, Life and Policy (HELP), exploring practical ways to break the ‘paradigm lock’ between science and ‘change on the ground’ (Bonell & Askew 2000; Bowden et al. 2004).

Because this ICM research focussed on integrating knowledge and management at catchment scale, the primary New Zealand audiences were identified as the council through its policies and environmental monitoring processes, and resource users (farmers, foresters, marine farmers, conservationists and recreational land users). The research programme aimed to provide practical methods, tools and insights which would assist the planning, design and implementation of ICM projects elsewhere in New Zealand and overseas.

The applied nature of the research has meant that many of the results have been published as reports, posters, videos and downloadable tools, and made available for immediate use on the programme website at http://icm.landcareresearch.co.nz/. The papers in this special issue are intended to contribute to the advancement of trans-disciplinary approaches to ICM, and to document in the formal literature some of the outcomes of such approaches.

Developing research questions

The ICM research programme was designed to answer one over-riding question ‘How can we use improved understanding of catchment physical and social processes to guide sustainable management in the face of strong development pressure?’ The research design combined existing knowledge, and resource management issues as perceived by the local resource management agency (TDC) and stakeholders, with expert science advice based on an integrative, socio-ecological research perspective (Dunne & Likens 2000).

A generic ICM planning and action process—described below—was designed and applied to formalise this approach. Through a stakeholder survey (Bowden & Wilkinson 2000) and facilitated engagement with stakeholders, we prioritised 37 research issues, which were grouped into five major research themes (Table 1). Collectively, these themes addressed concerns facing the Motueka catchment, but in practice undoubtedly resonate in most New Zealand catchments. The ICM challenge was to address these themes in a holistic and collaborative manner to achieve more sustainable land, water and coastal management.

Table 1  Research themes, research questions and main references related to the Motueka integrated catchment management (ICM) programme (for others, see http://icm.landcareresearch.co.nz/).

Research themes	Research questions	Main references
Allocation of scarce water resources among competing land and instream uses	How do local land uses affect the availability of ground and surface water over the entire catchment?	Davie & Fahey 2005; Cao et al. 2006; Andrew & Dymond 2007; Cao et al. 2009; Fahey et al. 2010
Water allocation reflected tensions between instream flow needs for the river fishery and consumptive needs of irrigation; there are also conflicts between land uses which reduce river and ground water yield (e.g. forestry) and water allocation for irrigation	What is the most defensible way to plan for the allocation of water resources among competing alternative uses?How much water is required to maintain instream values?How do economic returns affect landowners’ and recreational uses of water?	Sinner et al. 2006; Fenemor 2007; Hong et al. 2010; Fenemor et al. 2011Olsen & Young 2009,Dymond et al. 2010; White 2011
Managing land uses in harmony with freshwater resources	How is sediment mobilised to reach rivers, and what impacts does it have?	Ekanayake & Phillips 2002; Hicks & Basher 2008; Dymond et al. 2006; Basher et al. 2011
Water use and land management practices were blamed for sediment, nutrient and pathogen losses impacting on the Motueka River and its tributaries, a nationally and internationally recognised trout fishery	What information is needed to manage river gravel allocation best?What are the threats to freshwater fish populations?How is land use affecting water quality and river health?	Basher 2006, Young et al. 2010; Doehring et al. 2011a, Doehring et al. 2011b; Olley et al. 2011Davies-Colley et al. 2004; Young et al. 2005, 2008; Young & Collier 2009; McKergow & Davies-Colley 2010; Kirs et al. 2011; Harmsworth et al. 2011; Shearer & Young 2011
	Are there simple solutions to water quality contamination by land uses?	Czernin & Phillips 2005; Marden et al. 2005; Smaill et al. 2011
Managing land and freshwater resources to protect and manage marine resources	What are the risks to marine farming from activities on land?	McKergow & Davies-Colley 2010; Cornelisen et al. 2011; Wilkinson et al. 2011
The combined impacts of land and river management were thought likely to threaten coastal aquaculture and fishing industries, in an enclosed area such as Tasman Bay	What factors increase or decrease the production and values of fish and shellfish?Where are the faecal bacteria affecting marine farms coming from?	Christensen et al. 2003; Gibbs 2004; Jiang & Gibbs 2005; Gibbs 2007Tuckey et al. 2006; Forrest et al. 2007; Cornelisen et al. 2011; Gillespie et al. 2011a; Wilkinson et al. 2011
	What are the relative effects of river flows (especially floods) on the river plume ecosystem?	MacKenzie 2004; MacKenzie & Adamson 2004; Gillespie et al. 2011b
Integrative tools and processes for managing cumulative effects	What are preferred development pathways to ensure continued sustainable management at catchment scale?	Dymond et al. 2010
Population growth, increased land subdivision, land use intensification and irrigation, increase tourism and Māori cultural and business opportunities together create uncertain outcomes at a catchment scale.	What are the opportunities for using modelling to predict cumulative effects of land use scenarios?How can models help decision-makers balance environmental impacts alongside social, economic and cultural benefits when planning for further development?	Cole et al. 2007; Dymond et al. 2010Cole et al. 2007; Dymond et al. 2010
	What engagement methods best support integrative, effective decision-making?	Allen & Kilvington 2002; Phillips et al. 2004; Allen & Kilvington 2005; Fenemor et al. 2008a; Allen et al. 2011
Building human capital and facilitating community action	What methods would best motivate environmental stewardship by catchment and community groups?	Fenemor et al. 2008b; Phillips et al. 2010; Kilvington et al. 2011b
There is increasing realisation that policy and regulation alone will not result in sustainable management. To achieve change ‘on the ground’, better ways are needed to engage stakeholders, especially landowners, taking into account their values, knowledge and aspirations	What methods can we use to promote effective interaction between scientists, resource managers, and the community?How can uptake of science knowledge be improved for natural resource management?How can iwi build their capability in the resource management process?	Allen & Kilvington 2005, Cole et al. 2007; Jollands & Harmsworth 2007; Fenemor et al. 2008a; Allen et al. 2011, Phillips et al. 2010; Allen et al. 2011Jollands & Harmsworth 2007; Ulluwishewa et al. 2008; Apgar et al. 2009; Harmsworth et al. 2011
	What innovative examples of community engagement could we use to facilitate enduring community action?	Atkinson et al. 2004; Kilvington & Horn 2006; Atkinson et al. 2009; Kilvington et al. 2011b

Within the themes were specific research questions that the ICM programme addressed. These primary research questions and the salient published research from the programme (including papers in this special issue) are listed in Table 1.

Conceptual models for ICM

ICM means different things to different people. To some, it is a policy process at a river basin scale. To others it is a method for integrating the management of specific land and water resources. To yet others, ICM is the outcome of a voluntary process of collaboration among stakeholders to reach an agreed environmental outcome for their catchment. ICM can be all of these things.

During the 10 years of the ICM research programme, researchers and stakeholders had many debates about the important elements of ICM, primarily at Annual General Meetings of the programme, and in the social learning groups convened as part of the programme (Allen et al. 2011). One of the foci of these discussions was the definition and dimensions of ‘integration’. The second was the nature of ICM as a planning and action process.

Integration, scale and management

Fundamental to any understanding of ‘integration’ are the constraints of ‘catchment’ and ‘management’. As noted in defining ICM, ‘catchment’ constrains the spatial scale geographically. However, catchment boundaries seldom coincide with community or economic boundaries, nor in most cases with boundaries of terrestrial ecosystems. Spatial integration even within catchment boundaries is thus inevitably messy.

‘Management’ constrains the purpose of the ‘integration’ to governance (including policy) and actions addressing land and water issues. Management is people-centric. We manage what we can control and the consequences of what we cannot control, but we also recognise that natural processes continue and may have impacts beyond our capacity to respond. ICM is therefore also risk management.

One of the biggest challenges in ICM is management of cumulative effects. The impacts of land and water use, and associated management practices, accumulate spatially and through time. While scientists have made good progress in providing tools and technologies to predict and where possible reduce specific effects, uptake of those solutions and implementation of multiple solutions to achieve cumulative improvements is often poor. Moreover, sometimes, solving one issue may create new ones; for example, regulating land use to improve water quality may have negative social and economic consequences because landowners are no longer able to intensify land use. At the root of catchment issues is often a clash of worldviews, a contest of the relative importance of different value sets, which, when seen as interlinked through an ICM lens, may also open up options for resolution.

Defining the different dimensions of ‘integration’ is critical to implementing ICM (Jønch-Clausen & Fugl 2001). In the ICM programme, researching across interfaces was where the most creative, innovative and sometimes unexpected insights occurred. Within the programme, integration focussed on five different connections:

•	geographical—land/water, catchment/coast, river/aquifer;
•	social—council/community, science/policy/community action, Māori/European worldviews;
•	landscape—physical environment/people;
•	cross-disciplinary—between scientific disciplines and worldviews;
•	well-beings—environmental, social, economic, cultural.

ICM as an adaptive planning and action process

ICM is by its very nature an ongoing social process, not an output such as a catchment plan, or an outcome such as achieving a water quality target (Allen et al. 2011). Through collaboration between the social and biophysical sciences, ICM can be conceptualised as the iterative process illustrated in Fig. 3 as three linked loops comprising adaptive planning and management (central spiral), knowledge management (inner band) and stakeholder involvement (outer band). While the adaptive management process is illustrated in Fig. 3 as a sequence of steps, in practice, progress may iterate between several steps. In such circumstances, several steps may run concurrently. The following discussion summarises this ICM process of Fig. 3 with respect to the Motueka ICM research programme.

Figure 3  Integrated catchment management (ICM) as a process.

The adaptive planning and management cycle

Every process requires a trigger. Examples include an agency's legal commitment to develop a regional plan, or the threat and response triggered by a contaminant spill or imminent loss of a keystone aquatic species. The pressures on water resources both globally and across New Zealand (Pearce 2007; Land and Water Forum 2010), provide a trigger for the application of ICM and multi-scale collaborative approaches to all aspects of research, planning and management of land and water resources, so avoiding crisis-driven reaction.

The context recognises that no ICM process starts from a blank slate, but builds on communities, cultures, knowledge, values and history. Thus, context conditions subsequent choices in the adaptive cycle. Relevant at the start of the cycle are choice of the boundaries of the catchment(s) and the communities of interest who will engage in the project. These decisions are best made with stakeholders at the next step of process design.

In the Motueka ICM research programme, the main contextual factors were sectoral concerns over a proposed Motueka Water Conservation Order, conflicts between foresters and other water users over how to manage the impact of water depletion and sediment discharges from forestry activities, and legal challenges over council proposals to allocate coastal areas beyond the Motueka River mouth for aquaculture (Fenemor et al. 2006).

Process design is important because it is the stage that institutional support and funding is allocated to projects and programmes. Tailoring project expectations to available funding and resources is critical (Leach & Pelkey 2001; Phillips et al. 2010) at this stage.

An effective ICM process needs to ensure that the issues addressed are not solely dictated by a single entity or lead agency. Scoping of issues is essential to potentially expand or reframe the original agency perspective and may involve processes such as visioning or surveys, and involve techniques such as ‘Strengths–Weaknesses–Opportunities–Threats’ (SWOT; Armstrong 1982), and Pressure–State–Response evaluation (ANZECC 2000; Walmsley et al. 2001). The Motueka ICM scoping phase involved a sector workshop, an expert review (Dunne & Likens 2000), public meetings to discuss potential research issues, and a stakeholder survey (Bowden & Wilkinson 2000). These enabled the establishment of the research themes and questions detailed in Table 1. Some issues raised by stakeholders, such as control of the invasive plant ‘Old Mans Beard’, were excluded because they were considered beyond the available skills and resourcing of the programme. By the end of the scoping phase, some of the context for the programme was also clearer; for example, the connectivity between lower Motueka and Riwaka aquifers. This resulted in the inclusion of the Riwaka catchment within the project.

The information phase reviews what is known about the issues and identifies any knowledge gaps. In the context of the Motueka catchment, this produced a meta-database of 357 references, which was in turn used to compile the ‘Motueka technical report’ (Basher 2003). This then allowed knowledge gaps to be identified and research projects developed to address the issues and questions as outlined in Table 1.

To ensure effective integration, research tasks were framed around the interfaces described above, but with a view to their contribution to the ‘mountains to sea’ and ‘communities of interest’ perspectives. For example, during the first 2 years, water quality was monitored intensively throughout the catchment and its tributaries (Young et al. 2005). This identified the Sherry tributary as microbially polluted—probably because of dairying. Findings were discussed through the programme's Community Reference Group, which led to farmers agreeing to a water quality experiment at a cow crossing in this sub-catchment. This showed Escherichia coli levels rose to 50,000 cfu/100 ml when an average-sized dairy herd (246 cows) crossed the river, effectively quadrupling the daily load of faecal bacteria in the river (Davies-Colley et al. 2004). Those results convinced dairy farmers in the catchment to invest in bridges for their herd crossings and led to more than a 50% cumulative reduction in E. coli concentrations. That piece of research built social cohesion among the landowner community culminating in the formation of the Sherry River Catchment Group. With further research support, the catchment group subsequently completed landowner environmental plans and is working to implement action plans designed to achieve an overall 80% reduction in E. coli that would make the river once again swimmable (NZ Landcare Trust 2010).

Decisions on options for policy and action are identified in Fig. 2 as sense-making (Weick 1995). This is the phase in which a socio-ecological picture based on available knowledge and values can be created or updated based on recent information. Sense-making involves agreeing on a collective purpose and meaning (Wilson 1999), and helps define a potentially acceptable range of options whether a new policy initiative or action by farmers as in the Sherry subcatchment. Sense-making leads to decisions, ideally made collectively, as to which options should be implemented.

The actions or ‘doing’ phase implements the agreed options. If a collaborative learning approach has been followed in the programme, establishing consensus over the best options should be more easily secured. For councils, a mix of policy options (for example, setting compliance limits, incentives, providing monitoring data, application of market-based instruments) is likely to be needed. At the level of the water and land users, those actions with greatest benefit and lower cost may need to be prioritised. For a catchment group, actions are more likely to be successful where there is a champion who leads by example. Success is also more likely where there are strong social networks, environmental impacts are visible, remedial actions are straightforward, information is accessible, and change can be easily measured (MAF 2006).

Finally, the monitoring and realignment phase requires indicators and targets, whether monitoring is of the effectiveness of policy under the Resource Management Act or the achievement of local or catchment targets. These indicators can be environmental, social, economic or cultural (e.g. Harmsworth et al. 2011). Recognising that ICM has clear social dimensions, indicators may well for example measure trends in community cohesion or levels of conflict. In Fig. 3, ‘realignment’ corresponds to adaptation in an adaptive management sense. The spiral in Fig. 3 signifies that while ICM processes may ebb and flow, they are an ongoing commitment. Maintaining that commitment requires new creative and innovative forms of engagement, not just a recipe book approach to the ICM process (Allen et al. 2011; Kilvington et al. 2011b).

Knowledge management loop

Knowledge management, the inner loop in Fig. 3, is presented as a separate part of the ICM process for two reasons. In the Internet Age, the world is subject to ‘information overload’ (Quintas et al. 1997). The transition from data to information to knowledge—and even to wisdom—requires new methodologies such as evidence-based practice (Pullin et al. 2009), best available science (Sullivan et al. 2006) and synthesis. Secondly, the knowledge needed for effective ICM is no longer just provided by biophysical research. Stephenson & Moller (2009) characterise western science as ‘knowledge seeking’ while traditional knowledge, such as Māori ecological knowledge, is described as ‘knowledge holding’. Because catchments and their communities are shaped as much by cultural and social interactions as water and nutrient dynamics local, indigenous and anecdotal knowledge needs to be considered alongside science, so that all types of knowledge can inform debate and enable subsequent actions.

In the Motueka ICM research programme, efforts were made to consider stakeholders’ views about specific issues and to share knowledge in a variety of ways (Kilvington et al. 2011a). Examples where these processes were seen to better inform issues and build stakeholder cohesion include the development of a GIS system with Motueka iwi (Harmsworth et al. 2005), sharing stakeholder perspectives on sediment in a learning group setting (Allen et al. 2011), the use of anecdotal records from trout fishermen to better understand the sediment impacts of large floods (Loftus 2009), and the actions of the Sherry River Catchment Group to improve water quality through improved farm management practices (NZ Landcare Trust 2010; Smaill et al. 2011).

Stakeholder involvement loop

The outer loop in Fig. 3 highlights the importance of the design of social processes in any ICM project. Stakeholder involvement may range from simple engagement processes through to governance and devolved decision-making (Fenemor et al. 2006). In discussion of social processes for ICM and as illustrated in the social science papers in this issue (Allen et al. 2011; Kilvington et al. 2011a, b), the importance of explicit design and use of creative approaches to collaboration are discussed, and are relevant for helping achieve a vision for collaborative governance, such as championed in the Land and Water Forum (2010). Realising this vision requires the design of creative yet purposeful engagement processes based on principles such as trust, respect and open communication.

In the Motueka ICM research programme, effort was made to identify connections between individual research projects or components. This was done using annual general meetings, an online discussion group Confluens, the wide sharing of interim results and progress reports, a community reference group, and liaison with council staff and other stakeholders. Building trust and collegiality to develop a sharing culture took 3 years, but remained an ongoing activity that took and deserved energy, time and resources.

Discussion

Over the 10 years of the Motueka ICM programme, the benefits and potential of collaborative and integrated processes were demonstrated as both necessary and productive for improved management of catchment resources. An independent review of stakeholders around New Zealand highlighted the programme as exemplifying ‘how to design and undertake an integrative research programme at multiple scales for land-water-coastal management’, and this has helped ‘reinforce the value of the ICM approach for other councils giving them confidence to use similar approaches’ (Lawrence 2010).

Pointers from the Motueka research useful for other ICM projects include the value of framing questions from a resource user perspective, the importance of leadership for successful collaboration and continuity, and the benefit of taking time to develop a collegial culture within the project team and catchment communities (Phillips et al. 2010). People—whether scientists, policy analysts or stakeholders—are both the problem and the solution. This research has shown the value of community learning and the value and use of indigenous knowledge, as counterpoints to adversarial legalistic decision-making.

The challenges of implementing ICM processes are significant. Aside from the necessary investment of time and money, is the premise that ICM can create a culture change in which catchment stakeholders see their actions and the consequences within a whole catchment perspective and take responsibility to mitigate those consequences. As the ICM process of Fig. 3 has shown, that requires knowledge management and engagement supporting an ongoing adaptive management process.

The Motueka ICM programme had some specific challenges and times of tension. It is important to engage policy and political leaders early. The work needs to be tailored to the capacity of agencies and stakeholders to participate, although we did observe that when specific projects inspired participants, their capacity to participate increased. This highlights the benefits of creative yet purposeful project design, which we found can be inspired through involving people with diverse skills, such as the artists in the Travelling River project (Atkinson et al. 2004).

Economics drives decision-making and is a prime constraint on the rate at which ICM processes and actions can be delivered. In the Motueka research, landholders’ ability to take voluntary actions to improve water quality depended significantly on the financial position of their businesses. Understanding to what extent economics affects implementation of good practice, in comparison with the effects of community peer pressure and regulation, is a useful focus for any ICM project.

This paper has concentrated on the social process elements of ICM because those elements have received less attention in research and delivery of integrated management projects historically. However, as illustrated in the papers of this special edition, the Motueka ICM research advances our scientific understanding of the biophysical environment of the Motueka River and Tasman Bay while also improving understanding of the complex array of social, economic and political drivers affecting the natural resources of this area. In more pragmatic terms, we now think of ICM as it was defined at the beginning of this paper and our collective learnings as those summarised in Table 2.

Table 2  Twelve key learnings from the Motueka integrated catchment management (ICM) research programme.

Key learning	Explanation
ICM is about people, people, people	He tangata, he tangata, he tangata
Catchments extend off the coast	Integrate terrestrial and marine management
Everything is connected	Particularly land-water-coasts-people
Look at different scales—zoom in, zoom out	Critical processes require management at varied scales
Relationships take time	Allow time to build trust and respect for working together
Collaboration beats confrontation	Social cohesion is a critical indicator of ICM
Involve stakeholders early	Good planning and engagement create an effective project
Communities need to design their future, not wait for it to happen	Proactive catchment and landcare groups can drive  change, to avoid regulation
Critical events (e.g. floods, loss of community cohesion) have long-lasting consequences	A river system or community can take decades to recover  from some events, because they are long cycle processes  with less visibility than immediate impacts
Long-term datasets are critical to understand changes	Understanding long cycle processes (including climate  change) requires long-term monitoring
Water is the new gold	Demand for water is putting pressure on catchment  capacity
Solutions can be found	Multiple acceptable outcomes exist, but those developed  with stakeholders will be the most enduring

In particular, the Motueka ICM research has confirmed the offshore impact of river catchment discharges and in the process shown the difficulty of achieving integrated management when policy, organisational and funding structures divide the landscape into separate parts. An ICM approach must treat the terrestrial catchment and its offshore extension as a single management unit.

Conclusions

Effective ICM cannot be achieved as simply a rational technical process, but as the Motueka case study has fully demonstrated, it is one that has two pillars: science knowledge and social process. It is also cyclical or iterative, not linear. Catchment managers still need ‘traditional’ scientific knowledge about biophysical processes such as water yields, sediment loads, aquatic ecology and economics (Fenemor et al. 2008a). But they also need to understand and respect community values and aspirations, and to engage stakeholders in the management process. The stakeholders bring vital social (including political), cultural and economic dimensions to management. In effect, achieving ecosystem resilience at a catchment scale requires active measures to develop community resilience (Fig. 2) (Fenemor et al. 2008a; Kilvington et al. 2011b).

ICM requires scientists and policy-makers to find ways to walk alongside the people who themselves live and work in the catchment. By working in collaboration, scientists learn to design their research to meet policy/community needs, and communities and policy people learn the value of scientific research. There is mutual learning based on mutual respect.

In summary, the papers in this special issue describe a variety of ways in which the Motueka ICM programme has helped to advance science knowledge and stakeholder engagement to achieve sustainable outcomes. A primary observation from this research is that catchment management is more likely to achieve agreed objectives when it empowers stakeholders, taking into account their aspirations and values, and adapting as those aspirations and values change. Unless an effective social context and decision-making framework is provided, complex or wicked problems like land and water management are unlikely to be addressed or resolved. This not only risks environmental damage, but also a lost opportunity for social cohesion. It may also reduce the potential for social cohesion in the future. Every meeting, every project, every programme should aim to increase the social cohesion to address the next management issues on the horizon more effectively.

Acknowledgements

The research team acknowledges the enthusiastic and constructive efforts of the hundreds of people who participated in this programme, including the Community Reference Group, the Sherry River Catchment Group, the IDEAS stakeholders, the iwi monitors and Tiakina Te Taiao, the Sediment Learning Group, staff and councillors of the Tasman District Council, participants in the Travelling River art-science and Watershed Talk community resilience projects, attendees at ICM annual meetings and the 70 participants in the Confluens on-line discussion group.

The authors acknowledge helpful reviews by Professor Willie Smith (University of Auckland) and Professor Jeff Camkin (University of Western Australia), and insights from the ICM Review Panel report of October 2010. Roger Young developed the 12 original insights of Table 2.

The ICM research was primarily funded under FRST contract C09X0305.