Community Based Social Marketing that Improve Rural Water Quality

Hi Gretchen,

You should check out Jack Wilbur's book "Getting Your Feet Wet With Social Marketing," it has a detailed chapter on a a successful program in rural Utah, http://ag.utah.gov/conservation/GettingYourFeetWet1.pdf

Eric

http://waterwordsthatwork.com

Check out Alberta's Cows and Fish program - here is the website http://www.cowsandfish.org/

The Rural Water Quality Program (RWQP) has been a very successful program at acheiving behaviour change among our rural populations. It provides financial cost-share incentives to farmers who implement projects which will improve the quality of rural water resources. Projects may include manure storage, well upgrades, restricting livestock from water courses, etc. The program is a joint initiative between area municipalities (provide funding dollars) and the Grand River Conservation Authority (administers the program). For more information, please check out the GRCA website (http://www.grandriver.ca/index/document.cfm?sec=25&sub1=0&sub2=0) which provides details about the program.

Best,
Leanne

Leanne Lobe, BES
Hydrogeology & Source Water
Region of Waterloo
519-575-4765
[email protected]
www.region.waterloo.on.ca/water

Hi there

Gretchen and others interested in improving rural water quality, Earlier this year, we carried out a desktop exercise to find out about projects/programmes/ideas around engaging private landowners in urban areas to engage in positive riparian behaviours on their residential sections. That desktop exercise involved a literature search and a posting to this FSB listserv. Our research actually uncovered numerous projects/programmes/ideas around improving rural water quality (some using Social Marketing techniques), so I thought it may be useful to share some of those links with you (you may have to copy and paste these to your browser address bar):

http://www.cowsandfish.org/

http://www.melbournewater.com.au/rivers_and_creeks/community_and_council s/stream_frontage_management.asp

http://www.necma.vic.gov.au/programs/water/rivertender

http://www.mornpen.vic.gov.au (follow links via Environment and Waste to the 'Our Natural Environment' section and click on the Land Sustainability Rebate and the Mornington Peninsula Land Protection Incentive Scheme)

http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/webapp?area=home&subject=copr&topic=cep I hope that helps to get you started.

Good luck!
Jo

Jo Harrison
Environmental Programmes Coordinator
Sustainable Environment Team
North Shore City Council
521 Lake Road
Private Bag 93500
Takapuna North Shore City
Ph. 486 8600 ext 7299
Mobile. 027 448 8933
Fax. 486 8511
email. [email protected]
www.northshorecity.govt.nz
www.waicare.org.nz

Here is another initiative which is being developed to improve rural water quality. Please read the overview below and then follow the link for more information.

Best,
Leanne

Leanne Lobe, BES
Hydrogeology & Source Water Region of Waterloo
519-575-4765
[email protected]
www.region.waterloo.on.ca/water

The Clean Water Act, 2006, establishes the Ontario Drinking Water Stewardship Program (Stewardship Program), a new program that will help farmers and small rural businesses take action to reduce threats to local drinking water sources. To help create the framework that will govern this program, the Ontario government established an eleven member advisory panel comprised of representatives from the agricultural, municipal, agri-business, conservation authority and non-governmental organization sectors. The mandate of the advisory panel was to provide expert advice on how the funding program should be administered and allocated in future years.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 2: PURPOSE AND PRINCIPLES - This chapter provides a purpose statement for the Stewardship Program and a set of mutually-reinforcing principles that would underlie the development and operation of the program. These principles are intended to assist in prioritizing the type and scope of activities that could be supported financially by the program.
CHAPTER 3: COST SHARING - This chapter of the report provides cost sharing principles and advice that should be used to inform the cost sharing framework of the Stewardship Program. In addition, selected examples of existing municipal, provincial, and federal cost share programs are briefly described in this chapter.
CHAPTER 4: PROGRAM DELIVERY - This chapter of the report highlights principles and advice with respect to the delivery of the Stewardship Program. The panel advises that decisions on program delivery should be based on fostering partnerships and integration. In particular, the panel envisions a program delivery structure that is flexible enough to support local solutions to source protection issues; optimizes the co-benefits realized by integrating the Stewardship Program with other environmental, agricultural and economic development programs where appropriate and available; and commits to continuous improvement in program delivery.
CHAPTER 5: EDUCATION AND OUTREACH - This chapter provides advice on the principles to be used to inform the education and outreach component of the Stewardship Program. The panel advises that targeted education needs to be an integral component of the development and implementation of source protection activities. The panel also stressed the importance of partnerships with respect to education and outreach.
CHAPTER 6: FINAL ADVICE AND REFLECTIONS - This chapter identifies issues (for example, private wells and septic systems), that while outside of the panel's formal mandate, came up in the course of its discussions and may require further consideration in another appropriate forum.
APPENDIX I: Biographies of Advisory Panel Members
APPENDIX II: Presentations to the Advisory Panel

http://www.ebr.gov.on.ca/ERS-WEB-External/displaynoticecontent.do?noticeId=MTAwNjk3&statusId=MTUwNDQ4&language=en

The Torbay Catchment in Western Australia has been implementing a catchment restoration plan that has adopted a community based social marketing approach. The catchment encompasses a variety of land uses, from traditional agriculture (beef, hay) to intensive horticulture and animal enterprises. Peri-urban development is encroaching from the adjacent regional centre of Albany. Poor land management practices in the past has resulted in deteriorating water quality and as a consequence the highest incidence of toxic algal blooms in the state. The catchment also has high conservation, recreation and tourism values. Given the problems we were facing and the values that the community has for the area, we knew that we had to engage the community if we were to have any success. The community involvement process was long and extensive (and exhaustive), but it has resulted in a motivated community that "owns" the restoration plan. Extensive research identified the sources of nutrients that was resulting in the poor water quality in the catchment. Further investigation identified our main strategies to address to achieve change in the condition of the catchment. These were: establishing vegetated buffers on streams and drains to strip nutrients, increased cover of perennial vegetation in the catchment to increase water and nutrient uptake (this includes pastures as well as native trees) and improved soil and fertiliser management. We conducted focus groups with landholders in the catchment to understand the barriers to changing their behaviour to more sustainable farming practices, and have developed a range of actions that will address these barriers. Some barriers (cost and lack of knowledge) are quite easy to overcome with financial incentives and educational workshops, however others (tradition and lack of trust), we are still grappling with. Fortunately, funding (from our regional NRM body) has been received to implement the plan with a range of incentive funds to encourage landholders to fence and revegetate drains and creeks, plant perennial pastures, subsidise soil testing etc - basically we are funding activities that will have an improved water quality outcome.

We are also running lots of workshops and field days on our areas of interest (perennial pastures, soils, fertilisers), and are being moderately successful with all these strategies. However, the ultimate test (improved water quality) will not be known for many years. We have set quite long term targets (20 + years) Our website has lots of information on what we have done. The link below will take you to a final report that summarises what we have learnt so far. http://www.torbay.scric.org/pub/reports.html

All the best,
Karen McKeough

Torbay Catchment Coordinator
[email protected]