Abstract | Making sustainability operational: The application of failure pathways and sustainability strategies

The purpose of effects-based legislation like the Resource Management Act is sustainable management. The concept is to allow resource use and development activities while operating within environmental limits. However, when resource availability or cumulative effects of development reach environmental limits, effects-based assessment of activities for further development can only lead to rejection of development if environmental limits are applied, or, impacts beyond environmental limits if development is approved.

This paper puts forward the approach of failure pathways and sustainability strategies when sustainability limits have been reached. Water management in Canterbury has used this approach.

The concept of nested adaptive systems devised by Gunderson and Holling provides the basis for defining failure pathways - processes that can cause system failure and shift the system to an alternative degraded state. Sustainability strategies are then devised to address the failure pathways that create the greatest vulnerability for system collapse.

Two examples are presented. One is Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere. Comprehensive investigations in the 1990s identified many issues of significant degradation. Effects assessment of mitigation actions to address individual issues indicated adverse effects on other issues. No action resulted from this analysis. However, using a nested-adaptive-systems approach, a rehabilitation strategy was formulated.

The second example is the water availability component of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. Initial investigations of water supply and demand indicated that water availability was at sustainability limits and recommended increasing water availability through storage on alpine rivers. However, effects assessment of storage options indicated significant water quality implications of further land use intensification as well as downstream effects of storage on alpine rivers. A sustainability strategy approach based on collaborative governance identified improved water-use efficiency of existing users as a more cost-effective and sustainable way of improving water availability, and, alternative forms of storage to improve supply reliability for irrigators.

Bio | Bryan Jenkins FEIANZ

Bryan has recently retired from the position of Professor, Strategic Water Management at the Waterways Centre for Freshwater Management, a joint centre of the University of Canterbury and Lincoln University. The Centre provides undergraduate and postgraduate courses in water resources management and coordinates research across the universities in water resource issues.

Prior to this appointment he was chief executive of Environment Canterbury for more than seven years. Environment Canterbury is the regional council for Canterbury whose responsibilities include natural resource management. He was responsible for the introduction of collaborative governance concepts to the regional council including the development of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy.

Before coming to Canterbury, he was chief executive of the Department of Environmental Protection in Western Australia for seven years. Prior to that, he had more than 20 years’ experience in environmental management consulting throughout Australia, South East Asia, India and China.

He has a PhD in environmental planning from Stanford University, a masters and first class honours degrees in civil engineering from Adelaide University and a master of administration from Monash University.

He is a Fellow and foundation member of EIANZ and is a member of the EIANZ Board.