ADVERTIMENT. Lʼaccés als continguts dʼaquesta tesi queda condicionat a lʼacceptació de les condicions dʼús establertes per la següent llicència Creative Commons: http://cat.creativecommons.org/?page_id=184 ADVERTENCIA. El acceso a los contenidos de esta tesis queda condicionado a la aceptación de las condiciones de uso establecidas por la siguiente licencia Creative Commons: http://es.creativecommons.org/blog/licencias/ WARNING. The access to the contents of this doctoral thesis it is limited to the acceptance of the use conditions set by the following Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en Ph.D. Dissertation Doctoral Programme in Environmental Science and Technology Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA) Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) Directors: Beatriz Rodríguez Labajos (ICTA-UAB) Joan Martínez Alier (ICTA-UAB) 2 A la gent del Ter. 3 4 I am Dídac Jordà Capdevila and am the author of this thesis. I hold a Bachelor degree in Biology (Autonomous University of Barcelona, UAB), a Master degree in Essential and Applied Ecology (University of Barcelona, UB) and a Postgraduate diploma in Geographical Information System (GIS) Technologies (Polytechnic University of Catalonia, UPC). My motivation for studying river functioning and management comes from my involvement in the Projecte Rius (River Project) in my hometown, Parets del Vallès. With this organisation, I participated in an internship Catalonia-Hessen on river restoration and environmental education in 2003 and 2004. Some years later, I gained experience in the environmental consultancy Tecnoma S.A., where I became specialised in environmental flow regimes, fish habitat and populations, river continuity and fish passes, and water management. In September 2011, I started a PhD at the Institute for Environmental Sciences and Technology (ICTA), in the UAB, under the supervision of Dr. Beatriz Rodríguez Labajos and Dr. Joan Martínez Alier. This work has been funded by the project CSO2010-21979, focussed on social metabolism and environmental conflicts, from the Spanish National Program for Basic Research. In particular, this thesis integrates ecological and socio-economic tools and perspectives for understanding water conflicts over river flows. By using an approach based on the ecosystem services concept, I scrutinise the variety of ecosystem services provided by the Ter River and question what effect water flow management has had and will have on the well-being of different stakeholders. In the title “Water flows to multiple stakeholders”, we play with the word ‘flows’, as a verb, but also a noun. Likewise, the word ‘stakeholders’ refers to those groups of people interested in the management of water flows, as well as those that mark with stakes new water transfers as a persistent form of controlling water flows. Part of this thesis is also done in collaboration with the James Hutton Institute, the King’s College of London and the Université de Limoges. The experience at these institutions helped me to address certain parts of the thesis and to overcome some difficulties. Actually, this thesis has represented a major challenge and shift in my career, since it goes beyond the natural science of river ecology to embrace the socio-economic aspects of environmental flows. The performance of social research, including interviews, workshops and the search in historical archives, has been hard but also very rewarding. My understanding of environmental flows is now broader and deeper, but still there is a lot of research to be done. 5 6 First, I would like to say thank you especially to Beatriz, whose comprehensive view and dedication was essential for the development of this thesis. I also thank Joan for being straightforward and pushing me into new challenges. I am also very grateful for having a really nice family, who has always been very supportive and has inspired me for their hard-working, creative mind and happy spirit. Thanks a lot, Conxita, Joan, Gemma, Isra, Blau, Vero and Jordi! I am also very pleased to have been accompanied from the beginning with the fantastic Ictiosaurus group. Thank you Ardjan, Luís, Sara, Marta and Eli for the conversations, the laughs and the vermouths. And thanks a lot to the rest of people form ICTA, especially those from the Ecological Economics and Political Ecology group and those from the Laboratory of Analysis of Socio-Ecological Systems in Globalisation group, who have always stimulated my creativity in the research and help me in the daily work. There is a special place in these acknowledgements for the workers in the ICTA administration as well, especially for Cristina, always positive and caring. I also sincerely acknowledge Julia and Mark for opening the doors of their research centres and guiding me in crucial steps of the thesis. I enjoyed collaborating with them and with other researchers. Thanks Santi, Mònica and Andreu from Barcelona, Klaus and Kirsty from Edinburgh and Aberdeen, Arnout from London, Jamie, Carmen and Régis from Limoges and Poitiers, and Kathleen, among others. Thanks a lot to all my stakeholders, who only for some snacks have kindly participated in long interviews, surveys and workshops. Thank you Teresa, Marc, Lluís, Jaume, Pere Ignasi, Ferran, Xavier, Joan, Ferran, Pilar, Rosend, Fermí and its fifth grade students from the Camprodon Valley; David, Marc, Xevi, Jesús, Jordi and Sergi from the Vic Plain; Teresa, Ivan, Lluís, Dani, Ponç, Francesc, Marta, Miquel, Àngel, Marta, Joan, Quim, Atilio, Salvador, Aleix, Narcís, Jordi, Albert and Lluís from Girona and its surroundings; and Francesc, Roger, Maria, Elena, Joan, Josep, Antoni, Vicenç, Josep, Jordi, Joan, Jordi and Xavier from the Baix Ter Plain. Thanks to the collaborators I have had in the fieldwork: Alex, Patri, Ferran, Daniela, Camilo, Raúl, Ada and Eva; to those that have left me a room for some nights to combine work and holidays: Marta and Maria, Meri, Jaume and Irene, Pere, Maria Mercè, Jaume and Saüc, Luke and Jula; to the effective French and English proof-readers: Alice, Jordi, Eric and Muri; and to Carla, for inviting me to do some research in India. Finally, I could not conclude the acknowledgements without referring to the Londonians and the Aberdeenians for facilitating me a pleasant stay in their respective cities; the Biohooligans and the CREAF girls, always happy and motivational; the Waterpolo Club Parets, for questioning everything with a bit of humour; and the neighbours from Juan Bravo Palace, who daily supported humour and made me laugh during the whole period. 7 8 Conflicts related to water flows are the subject of abundant intellectual outputs. However, analysis of their relation to the appropriation of instream flow–dependent ecosystem services (ES) is missing. Such analysis, undertaken with a proper regard for stakeholders’ views and interests, is the objective of this thesis. As happens in other Mediterranean contexts, multiple water withdrawals from the Ter River (NE Catalonia, Spain), in particular for hydropower production and the supply of the metropolitan Barcelona, disrupt instream flows and hence damage the river ecosystem. Traditionally, this situation has triggered local and regional disputes, becoming a main issue for water management in the basin district. This dissertation involves three types of ES applications. First, we identify and characterise multiple ways people use, enjoy and feel the river. This is done by a scrutiny of those hydrological alterations and components of nature that have an effect, positive or negative, on them. Second, an ES provision model is coupled with a water allocation model in order to quantify and establish a valuation of the ES under different water management and climate scenarios. Finally, the ES provision is studied for a period of 65 years, by analysing who has been who in the exercise of power for controlling the access to water flows and the ensuing ES. That historiographical research combines qualitative data from the archives (e.g., letters, news) and quantitative data of instream flows and dam management. In the course of the study, the engagement of all types of stakeholders – both key informants and water activist organisations – has been an essential aspect of the methodology. Field research undertaken between 2011 and 2015 included dozens of interviews with key stakeholders, the organisation of five workshops and two surveys. The results show that, with the proper provisions, our ecosystem services-based approach: 1) helps to engage with stakeholders, reconnecting people to water management; 2) unveils less conspicuous ES, whose beneficiaries are usually misrepresented in decision-making spheres; 3) disentangles the complexity of societal-ecological relationships and shows the adaptation of river users to different levels of river alteration; 4) illustrates unequal distribution of benefits among different ES, over time and space and under different water management and climate scenarios; and 5) when used with a critical historical perspective, it discloses those power relationships that hamper the implementation of management measures that reduce the water extraction pressure on the river in support of an environmental flow regime. Keywords: Catalonia, droughts, ecological distribution conflicts, ecological economics, ecosystem services, environmental flows, political ecology, river management, stakeholder participation, water allocation modelling, water conflicts 9 10 Els conflictes relacionats amb la gestió dels cabals