Prioritization of sub-watersheds for the application of environmental policies in the Basin of Lake Cuitzeo D. González. and M. Mendoza CIGA CENTRO DE INVESTIGACIONES EN GEOGRAFÍA AMBIENTAL

 Lake Cuitzeo Basin is an important ecologic area, where is a strong pressure on the natural resources by the productive activities.  Its necessary the implementation of the environmental programs to keep the equilibrium among the productive activities and natural resources. (conservation and sustainable use territorial policies)  It becomes necessary to identify and recommend to the authorities which are the priorities areas to apply the environmental programs Background

Objective  Identify the priority water-sheds for the implementation of selected environmental policies to support sustainable development in the Lake Cuitzeo Basin

Study site Spot image 321, Dec 2006 Center of Mexico Michoacan state 4,000 Km. 2 Transmexican Volcanic Belt Lake Cuitzeo (Ecological importance) 55 watersheds 28 Municipalities Urban expansion High migration rates

Method Assessment of sub-watersheds Ranking of sub-watersheds Formulation Assessment of sub-watersheds Aggregation in sub- watersheds

According to the local environmental law, the main objective for the application of the environmental policies are: Conservation  To preserve the environmental elements that allow maintain the environmental services  To minimize the conflicts between the productivity activities and the conservation programs Sustainable use  Define the areas where the productive programs can be developed according to the distribution of the land capability  To minimize the deterioration of areas containing a well preserved natural capital Concerned policies

Find criteria to asses the objectives 1. Find criteria, it should be: Relevance be related to the assessment goal be sensitive and responsive to change in the system. Analytic be theoretically founded, Measurable be easy to detect, record, and interpret be cost effective be precisely-defined Continous variables Discrete variables 2. Standardization. Maximum Interval Goal Pairwise comparition Rank order

Criteria structure for assessing the suitability for conservation policy

Criteria structure for assessing the suitability for the sustainable use policy

Example. Suitability assessment of the municipalities Forest stability Stable productive areas

Overall suitability assessment of the sub- watersheds for the conservation policy (A) and sustainable use (B) Results

Selected criteria for the assessment of the sub-watersheds  Supply -Connectedness of suitability classes -Percentage of cover of the best performance cells per spatial unit. Demand - Relative poverty index  Decree - Percentage of area assigned for conservation and sustainable use by the EMPLCB Ranking of sub watersheds

The overall suitability index were assesed through 3 scenarios -Supply, Demand, Decree Decision rules were implemented to construct an integrative suitability map map. Relative importance of criteria in each scenario

Decision rules to classify the integrative suitability map

Potential conflicts in sub watersheds Potential conflicts among the implementation of the environmental policies are identified based on the comparison of the suitability indexes for each sub- watershed

Map of potential conflicts among environmental policies by sub-watershed

No conflict 1st order No conflict 2ndorder Mixed 2nd order Mixed 3th order Sub-watersheds Municipalites Total area in percentage by conflict area. Comparison between natural and administrative spatial units

Conclusions The multi-temporal analysis through a long and a short term of time allows identifying the trends of the land use change for support the implementation of the environmental policies. Three different orientations of the municipalities were identified: 1) Oriented to productive activities, 2) Oriented to conservation activities and 3) Mixed oriented The prioritization of the sub-watersheds could be a practical information that can be used as support to planning the implementation and the monitoring of the environmental programs in the framework of the EMPLCB Intermunicipal efforts have to be implemented in the framework of Integrated Watershed Management.

Gracias.

Ranking of sub-watersheds Conservation policy Compensatory approach. Weighted summation

Ranking of municipalities Sustainable use policy Compensatory approach. Weighted summation

Suitability assessment of the municipalities Relative importance among criteria. Conservation policy

Relative importance among criteria. Sustainable use policy Suitability assessment of the municipalities