Policy to Coordinate Watershed Hydrological, Social, and Ecological Needs: The HELP Initiative

The opening chapters have demonstrated the need for better coordination between the disciplines of water resources science and policy. This chapter presents some examples of how to proceed with forging this science and policy alliance. The Hydrology for the Environment, Life and Policy (HELP) program, a new international program crafted by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), has been developed to coordinate hydrological, social, and ecological water resources issues. The chapter is organized to: present the motivation for the new HELP initiative, describe the structure and nature of the HELP initiative, outline the steps for participation, provide three case descriptions illustrating different basin themes from within the US, and reflect on challenges and opportunities for the HELP initiative. Within this chapter two themes blend together, but the reader should note that each has separate challenges. The first theme focuses on the coordination of hydrologic policy, management, and science, while the second concerns itself with the coordination of hydrology, sociology, and ecology. Given that this chapter describes an international program, it should be mentioned at the outset why three US basins (some of which are partly in Mexico and Canada) were selected for the case descriptions. This choice is partly to illustrate the policy, management, and hydrologic variability between basins within a single political entity, and also partly the result of author proximity to the work in these basins, and hence ease of data access. Herein lies an important point addressed by the HELP initiative. By design, the HELP initiative will ultimately engage data sharing between all member basins, but currently data access to many basins is extremely limited. Examples of coordinated policy, science, and management successes noted in the US basins are also evident in HELP basins located in New Zealand, South Africa, Europe, Asia, Central America, and elsewhere. At the same time, however, the reader should recognize that while the US basins represent some issues common to the international set of basins, each basin has a unique set of priorities and needs that are not represented in this chapter.