How effective is community-based management of freshwater resources? A review
This article examines peer-reviewed literature on community-based management of freshwater resources to understand and assess project contexts and outcomes. The results indicate that studies of freshwater community-based management are limited in number and representativeness.
Subject Tags
- Fisheries
- Community-based conservation
- Biodiversity
Abstract
Despite the existence of numerous research studies on community-based conservation, relatively few focus on the particularities of freshwater ecosystems. Freshwater ecosystems are distinct from terrestrial and marine ecosystems, exhibiting both greater concentrations of biodiversity and elevated threats. In addition, freshwater resources have distinct social, legal, political, and economic characteristics which limit the generalizability of community-based conservation research from other ecological domains. We examine peer-reviewed literature on community-based management of freshwater resources to understand and assess project contexts and outcomes. Our review indicates that studies of freshwater community-based management are limited in number and representativeness. While positive outcomes for both biodiversity and human well-being are commonly reported, limitations due to study design constrain the ability to infer the significance or causality of these effects. Overall, our analysis indicates that there are several gaps in the available research: across geographic regions, freshwater ecosystem types, intervention types, and environmental and human well-being outcome types. Given the importance of freshwater resources to Indigenous Peoples and local communities, our review highlights the critical need to generate evidence across more diverse contexts to achieve greater clarity on whether and how community-based projects can be most effective.
Citation
Karres, N., Kang, S., Aldous, A., Pattison-Williams, J.K., & Masuda, YJ. (2022). How effective is community-based management of freshwater resources? A review. Journal of Environmental Management, Volume 323, 116161. ISSN 0301-4797. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116161.
Keywords: community-based conservation; community-based management; freshwater; biodiversity; human well-being; outcomes
TNC Authors
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Nathan Karres
Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Manager. Provide Food and Water
The Nature Conservancy
Email: nkarres@tnc.org -
Shiteng Kang
Freshwater Conservation Specialist. Provide Food and Water
The Nature Conservancy
Email: stan.kang@tnc.org -
Allison Aldous
Freshwater Fisheries Strategy Director. Provide Food and Water
The Nature Conservancy
Email: aaldous@tnc.org -
Yuta Masuda
Senior Sustainable Development and Behavioral Scientist
The Nature Conservancy
Email: ymasuda@tnc.org