White Water to Blue Water WW 2 BW Greg Ruark, USDA National Agroforestry Center

1. White Water to Blue Water WW2BW Greg Ruark, USDA National Agroforestry Center Blue water – marine / estuary ecosystems White water - terrestrial fresh water ecosystems

2. World Summit on Sustainable Development(WSSD) Johannesburg, South Africa - 2002 • 10-year anniversary of 1992 “Rio Earth Summit” • Overarching themes: Implementation; Poverty eradication Integrated solutions

3. A Major WSSD Outcome – Commitment to Partnerships • Voluntary and practical • Public / private collaboration • Integrated approaches… “triple bottom line” (social, economic, environmental) www.un.org/esa/sustdev/partnerships

4. White Water to Blue Water (WW2BW) Objective: To stimulate partnerships that promote integrated watershed and marine ecosystem-based management in support of sustainable development

5. Initial Focus: Wider Caribbean Region Member States: Antigua & Barbuda Bahamas Barbados Belize Colombia Costa Rica Cuba Dominica Dominican Republic European Econ. Comm. France Grenada Guatemala Guyana Haiti Honduras Jamaica Mexico Netherlands Suriname Trinidad & Tobago United Kingdom USA Venezuela Nicaragua Panama St. Kitts & Nevis Saint Lucia St. Vincent & Grenadines

6. 4 Integrated Theme Areas Sustainable Tourism Environmentally Sound Marine Transportation Integrated Watershed Management Marine Ecosystem-based Management

7. WW2BW International Steering Committee Members Governments • Governments of the • Wider Caribbean Region • U.S. • U.K. • France • Netherlands • Canada Int’l Organizations • UNEP-CEP • CCAD • CARICOM • ECLAC • UNEP-GPA • IBRD • UNDP • OAS • IOC-Caribe • PAHO • CEHI • FAO • IMO • CATHALAC NGOs and Private Sector • IUCN • Environmental Defense • EcoLogic • Conservation International • The Nature Conservancy • Wildlife Conservation Society • PriceWaterhouseCoopers • Carib. Conservation Association Universities • Univ. of the West Indies • Univ. of Delaware • Univ. of Rhode Island • Univ. of Miami • Earth University

8. WW2BW Process • International Visiting Teams (IVTs)– visited 20 Wider Caribbean countries to encourage forming interagency “Country Teams” to participate in the Miami Conference • Country Teams –identify priorities and develop cross-sectoral partnerships and management strategies. Made up of representatives of various Ministries (e.g. Environment, Tourism, Agriculture, Finance, Fisheries, Forestry) and private and university partners.

9. WW2BW Partnership Conference • Conference (March, 2004 – Miami, FL) • Over 700 attendees • Mechanism for new partnership development • Gathering of diverse regional partners • Education and training opportunities: • The Institute@WW2BW • 32 “how to” training courses offered by 56 instructors from 12 countries

10. Actions in “Real Time”….

11. NCCR II: State of our Oceans & Coasts

12. A U.S. Link to WW2BW

13. What/where is Gulf Hypoxia? Dissolved Oxygen levels (<2mg/l)

14. When did the issue surface? In 1995, the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund petitioned Louisiana and the US EPA to convene a management conference under Section 319 of the Clean Water Act …to address the serious threat to the resources and people of the Central Gulf of Mexico resulting from non-point nutrient pollution in the Mississippi River.

15. 5-Year Running Avg. (14,000 sq km) 2015 Goal (5,000 sq km)

16. Long-term Trends in Nitrate Concentrations

18. Sources of Nitrogen in MRB Percent Fertilizers 31 Soil Mineralization 31 N-fixing Legumes 21 Atmospheric Deposition 7 Feedlot Manure 6 Municipal 1 Other 3 About 8% of total is discharged into Gulf, mainly from cropland sources (Mitsch et al. 2001)

19. Nitrogen Outputs from Mississippi Basin

20. Nitrate Flux to Gulf is Usually Greatest in May

21. Connecting Science and Practice

23. Coastal Goal: By the year 2015 reduce the 5-year running average spatial extent of the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone to less than 5,000 square kilometers ….a 30% reduction

24. Change farming practices • limit N application • avoid fall fertilization • reduce N-fixing crop acreage • improve manure management • utilize soil nitrogen testing • Mitsch et al. 2001, BioScience

25. Divert Floodwaters • to backwaters • to coastal wetlands • to riparian zones • Rather than relying on engineering to confine floodwaters to river channel • Mitsch et al. 2001

26. Create or Restore Wetlands • 5-13 million acres on existing farmland • especially adjacent to streams • Mitsch et al. 2001

27. Restore Riparian Forest Buffers • riparian forest buffers • bottomland hardwood forests • Mitsch et al. 2001

28. National Academy of Sciences – National Research Council Riparian Areas: Functions & Strategies for Management (2002) Recommendation: … “restoration of riparian functions along America’s waterbodies should be a national goal.” “ …because riparian areas perform a disproportionate number of biological and physical functions on a unit area basis, their restoration can have a major influence on achieving the goals of the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and flood damage control programs.”

29. Riparian Forest Buffers restore ecological processes thatsupport“living streams” contiguous (paired) stream reaches Forested Stream > macroinvertebrates > organic matter processing > pesticide degradation > ammonia uptake Stroud Water Research Center (PNAS 2004)

30. 1991 satellite image of the Republican River in Cloud Co., Kansas Historic Maximum A survey in 1878 by the Kansas State Board of Agriculture reported timberbelts containing oak, cottonwood, ash, hackberry, mulberry, and elm trees that ranged from 165-1320 feet in width (KSBA, 1878).

31. … using agroforestry