Taking a Systems Approach to Estuary Management

The NSW Estuary Management Program involves local communities in the management process via nominated representatives on estuary management committees. The vast range of issues involved in estuary management can be a challenge to these committees. Community representatives often enter the process focussing on a particular management issue that concerns the group they represent (e.g., a fishing club, a progress association, or a dune care group). It is essential that the understandings brought to the committee by these representatives are integrated into the management plan, but the complexity of the social-ecological system can make this difficult. In this paper we describe the systems approach, developed by Newell and Proust, that is being used to support the development of an Estuary Management Plan for Pambula Lake on the NSW Far South Coast. The approach embraces complexity, and provides a way to integrate disparate or conflicting views. It thus complements and strengthens the standard estuary management process. The approach begins with the gathering of a broad ̳system history‘ and the construction of ̳influence diagrams‘ that help the management group to identify key variables of the social-ecological system. The influence diagrams provide a ̳common graphical language‘ that enables group members to summarise and integrate their views of the complex feedback interactions that occur between the key variables and the state-change processes that control the values of these variables. Finally, a system dynamics analysis, which uses simple ̳stock-and-flow‘ models, is used to identify the cross-sector cause-and-effect linkages that dominate the behaviour of the social-ecological system. Taking a systems approach should help the Pambula Lake estuary management group to address a wider than usual range of issues, and so gain perspective on how particular issues of concern relate to each other and to specific management decisions. In so doing it can help overcome barriers to the development of a truly integrated Estuary Management Plan. Introduction – the integration imperative Estuary management approaches around the world focus predominantly on protecting estuarine ecosystems from anthropogenic impacts (see e.g., Kennish 2002). But, given the immense complexity of the interactions between people and nature, we need to look beyond anthropogenic impacts (and the human actions that cause them) to the beliefs, worldviews and norms that drive human behaviour. In short, we need an ―integrated or ̳ecosystem‘ approach to management of the complex land-coast-sea continuum‖ that includes ―socio-economic aspects of coastal management as these are the key drivers of degradation of coastal and marine systems‖ (Fearon, Wulf and Baird 2006). Integrated coastal zone management must employ management strategies that are ―based on a systems perspective which recognizes the associations between coastal resources and processes‖ (Hildebrand and Norrena 1992, p.95). Hildebrand