A Common Vision of Lake Dümmer

a common vision of lake Dümmer Report of the first stakeholder workshop at the study site of lake Dümmer Osnabrück, February 2020 author: Laura Herzog picture © K. Luttermann 1 Project Partners Funded by 2 Table of Content 1. Introduction – Purpose of the Workshop, Research Project, and their Objectives .......... 3 2. Conceptual Background – What is a Vision? .............................................................................. 5 3. Empirical Background – The Regional Context of the Study Site Dümmer ....................... 6 4. Visions of Lake Dümmer – the First Stakeholder Workshop .................................................. 8 6. Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................... 17 1. Introduction – Purpose of the Workshop, Research Project, and their Objectives Lakes and their ecosystems are under an increasing pressure today. The intensification of agriculture leads to the entry of nutrients and pesticides into streams and groundwater and therefore also lakes, which can lead to eutrophication. There are a number of further impacts on lakes: the expected increase in temperature on land may cause an increase of lake water temperature, with consequences for heat-sensitive phytoplankton and zooplankton and other aquatic organisms; sewage from settlements can harm the quality of inland water bodies and their ecosystem; the intense use of a lake’s ecosystem services, such as intense fishing; overexploitation of a lake’s water for irrigation or drinking water purposes. These factors can affect a lake’s ecosystem and diminish its quality as well as its capacity to provide species and humans with its benefits. The interdisciplinary, international research project LimnoScenES investigates the short and long term pressures due to climate change and intensifying land and water use on north temperate lakes. The project asks about the effects of these pressures on the lakes’ biodiversity and their ecosystem service (ES) provision – like drinking water, food production or recreational use – and investigates lakes’ vulnerability and lakes’ resilience towards such pressures. To do so, the project works closely with the stakeholders involved in lake management or dependent on lakes’ ecosystem services and asks about their management strategies and visions regarding the lakes’ future. In the course of several stakeholder workshops, the goal is to develop scenarios of future human-freshwater interactions that enable the maintenance of lakes’ biodiversity and ecosystem services despite the increasing human-caused pressures. Three lakes and their surroundings serve as case studies: lake Dümmer in southern Lower Saxony, Germany; lake St. Charles, north of Québec City, Canada; and lake Ringsjön in Southern Sweden. The first stakeholder workshop which took place at the case study site of lake Dümmer in November 2019 is the first in a series of three. Its goal was to have the stakeholders of lake Dümmer develop their vision of the lake in 30 years from now, that is, in 2050. The conditions 3 for the vision are that it is positive, solution-oriented, creative and visionary, and describing what the actors want, not what they expect. Through the visions actors articulate their idea of a common future for the lake in which human-freshwater interactions continue to exist without a negative stress on the aquatic ecosystem. The workshops are part of the project’s second working group which carries out the stakeholder workshops in the three case study regions to identify future scenarios of human-freshwater interactions.1 The first workshop serves to identify the actors’ visions regarding the lake’s functions and ecosystem services, their management approaches and their understanding of their role within this social-ecological system in a future in 30 years from now. In the second workshop, we will investigate the steps needed to reach the stakeholders’ common vision of the lake. Based on the current state of the lake, we discuss the steps towards the common vision. In the last workshop, we consolidate the acquired knowledge and develop scenarios of future human-freshwater interactions and adaptive management strategies that are capable of maintaining the lake’s biodiversity and its provision of ecosystem services. LimnoScenes at a glance Research Project Title: „Developing improved social-ecological scenarios for biodiversity and ecosystem service changes in north temperate freshwater ecosystems over the next half century (LimnoScenES)” Funding: The research project is funded by the Belmont Forum and the DFG: BiodivScen, a BiodivERsA and Belmont Forum Joint Call on “Scenarios of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services” Duration: February 2019 – January 2022 Participating institutions: Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB); Department of Biology, Lund University; Institute of Environmental Systems Research (IUSF), Osnabrück University; Research Chair in Ecological Transition and Group for Interuniversity Research in Limnology (GRIL) and Research Chair in Ecological Transition, University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM); Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC) Two further working groups conduct complementary research to the transdisciplinary research process mentioned above. The project’s first working group (based at IGB, Lund University and UQAM) classifies the vulnerability of lakes by investigating the resilience of the lakes’ clear water state. Based on this, it analyzes the effects of short and long term disturbances on lake biodiversity and the lakes’ ES provision. The analysis is based on data from 30 lakes in Québec 1 The institutes responsible for the second work package are the Institute of Environmental Systems Research (IUSF) at Osnabrück University and the two Chairs at the University of Quebec at Montreal. 4 as well as on the EMLS consortium and the GEISHA lakes data banks which provide data on over 400 European lakes. The third working group (based at the SRC) brings insights from the two former groups together and develops coupled agent-based and system dynamics models to simulate ecological feedbacks in combination with human behaviour and decision-making. Through the models, stakeholders and researchers alike can understand the coupled dynamics within a lake’s social- ecological system (the human-freshwater interactions and the external disturbances) and how a shift towards an undesirable state of the lake may be prevented. 2. Conceptual Background – What is a Vision? A vision can be defined as “a description of a desirable future (…) [that is] an exploratory and normative (ie value-laden) view of a possible future (…).” (O’Brien and Meadows 2007, 560). Humans need visions, because „If we don‘t know where we want to go, it makes little difference that we make great progress.“ (Donella Meadows 1994, 1). Visions are thus the visualization of a future state that one wants to achieve. The purpose of a visioning exercise is manifold. A vision generates a common goal, hope, and encouragement and offers a possibility for fundamental change (gdrc 2000; O’Brien and Meadows 2007, 557). Furthermore, visioning gives people a sense of control, can generate creative thinking and passion (gdrc 2000), prompts new ways of thinking about sustainability problems (Davies et al. 2012, 57), can create “awareness of dissatisfaction with the way things currently are” (O’Brien and Meadows 2007, 557), and may reveal that stakeholders are concerned about different issues and “hold a different and possibly conflicting set of values that could influence their choice of a preferred future” (O’Brien and Meadows 20007, 560). Moreover, “a vision is a necessary precondition for effective strategic planning” (O’Brien and Meadows 2007, 557). Formulating a vision, its elements and characteristics, thus helps understand what needs to be done in order to reach the envisioned state of the future. In a visioning exercise, participants are asked to create a common vision of a defined object, as for instance the state of a lake, the agricultural sector, or a company’s future. The common vision actors create enables them to a. realize what they wish the lake and the human-freshwater interactions to look like in the future; b. express their ideas about a positive future of the lake and the human-freshwater interactions therein; c. learn what kind of visions and ideas other stakeholders have about the lake’s future; d. see the similarities and differences that these visions have; and e. come to terms with their peers on a common viewpoint on how the aquatic social- ecological system should look like in the future. 5 Through a visioning exercise, one thus develops desirable future perspectives and subsequently works out steps towards these perspectives. The exercise helps to gain new insights into the nature of the problems and possible solutions to it (Sondeijker et al. 2006, 15) and to identify possible paths towards more sustainable practices (de Gues 2002). Based on this common vision, one can then elaborate the measures and actions needed to achieve the vision – a step we plan to do in the second stakeholder workshop. 3. Empirical Background – The Regional Context of the Study Site Dümmer Lake Dümmer lies in North-Western Germany, in southeastern Lower Saxony. Its area belongs to the administrative district Diepholz while its catchment area, the Hunte basin, lies within the administrative district Osnabrück. The lake has a surface area of 13.5

Load more