Fall 2002

 Course Syllabus

 Contact Information

 Instructor: John Kerr
 jkerr@msu.edu
 Phone: 517-353-0762
 Fax: 517-353-8994

 Assistant: Kundan Kumar
 kumarku@msu.edu

Virtual University: 24-hour,7 days/week Helpline If you have problems accessing the course, viewing the pages, server down, etc. Please call this number first if you have technical problems, and if it cannot be resolved, contact your TA.  Write this number down! 1-800-500-1554 or local 517-355-2345

Communication

Important!!  This course has a list of all students enrolled and the instructors can send email messages out to the entire class list. We often use this tool as part of our communication. The email address that is created on this list is your MSU Pilot email account. For example, name@msu.edu or V1555***@msu.edu. Therefore, you need to:

 1)Check your MSU pilot email account regularly. https://pilot.msu.edu/twig/?m=y

 OR

 2)Set your MSU pilot email account to forward all messages to another email address you may use more regularly. Log into your pilot account. Go to 'mail.' Go to 'utilities.' Go to 'email forwading.' https://pilot.msu.edu/twig/?m=y

Thank You!

Introduction, Objectives

Rural development strategies in developing countries increasingly focus on watershed management.  A watershed is an attractive hydrological unit for conserving natural resources and raising agricultural productivity.  Socioeconomic factors, however, make successful watershed management very difficult. 

This one-credit, on-line course aims to help students understand the basic issues confronting watershed managers.  It presents an introduction to the rationale, approaches, and challenges of watershed management in the context of international development.  It focuses equally on technical and socioeconomic issues in watershed management and presents detailed examples from watershed management efforts worldwide.

The course runs from August 26, 2002, to October 4, 2002.  It is divided into five one-week lesson units followed by a final exam.

Within each week the lesson units are self-paced except for a webtalk discussion assignment that must be done each week in coordination with other participants in the course.  Readings and homework assignments are available on line.

For the purposes of this class each student is asked to select a watershed, or at least a watershed region, in a developing country.  If you like you can select more than one; the main point is that it should be a place that you are interested in applying the lessons of this course to.  It should be a place that you can obtain some information about.  The instructor can help in this regard, but on the whole it is quite easy to obtain information over the web.

Grading Policy 

Grades are based on homework exercises, one final exam, and participation in weekly WebTalk discussion sessions. If you are taking this course for no-credit, students’ final grade will be on a Pass/ No Pass system, with passing being above 60%.

Homework: Homework questions for each unit are submitted on line.  You will have a 2-day grace period from the listed due date on the course calendar. After that, you will be deducted 3 points per every day past this grace period. Exceptions may be made for technical problems or student conflicts.

Final Exam: is open for 3 days according to the calendar. You can go in and out, saving your answers and return to it later throughout the days. The final is open book, internet, course, notes. But not open neighbor.

In the past, occasional technical difficulties resulted in temporary problems accessing the VU course web page or certain links such as a homework assignment. If this happens please do not panic! Instead, inform the TA or the VU help line at (800) 500-1554 about the problem. Usually, if a link is broken or a server is down, it can be fixed quickly or an alternative will be suggested.  

Assignments and exams will be weighted as follows:

Grades will be determined as follows: 

Course Outline and Schedule

Unit 1, August 26-September 1

Overview: Watershed Management for Rural Development

-Definition and characteristics of watersheds
-Watershed management practices and projects
-Developing country problems and concerns
-Objectives of the course

 Readings:  

(Major readings are listed here in the syllabus.  Others are on-line, linked to material in the lesson units.)

 Watershed Management Program. Agricultural Technical Note. World Bank Watershed Window, 2001.  For this unit read only pp 1-3, up to the box on externalities.  The remainder will be assigned in Unit 5.

Pretty, Jules, Irene Guijt, Parmesh Shah, and Fiona Hinchcliffe. 1995. Joint watershed management: new evidence from the New Horizons project. Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor 3(1), April. http://www.nuffic.nl/ciran/ikdm/3-1/articles/pretty.html

 Unit 2, September 2-8

Socioeconomic Issues in Watershed Management

-Upstream-downstream relationships in watershed management
-Constraints to investment at an individual landholding level
-Collective action problems

 Readings:

Kerr, John. The Economics of Soil Degradation: from National Policy to Farmers' Fields. Penning de Vries, Frits, Fahmuddin Augus, and John Kerr, eds. 1998. Assessing Soil Erosion at Multiple Scales. Wallingford, UK: CAB International.

Ravnborg, Helle Munk, and Maria del Pilar Guerrero. 1998, "Collective Action in Watershed Management: Experiences from the Andean Hillsides." Paper presented at the 7^th Meeting of the International Association for the Study of Common Property (IASCP), Vancouver, Canada.

Unit 3, September 9-15

Biophysical Issues in Watershed Management

-Water
-Soil
-Threats to sustainable land use
-Soil erosion
-Assessing the risk of erosion

Readings are all on line in the lesson unit

Unit 4, September 16-22

Biophysical Treatments and Technical Interventions

-Introduction to soil and water conservation practices
-Vegetative cover
-Examples of farming practices that increase vegetative cover and/or conserve soil
-Artificial land transformations (soil conservation structures and barriers)
-Water disposal and water harvesting
-Indigenous soil and water conservation practices

Readings:

Kerr, John, and Ganesh Pangare. 2001. Water Harvesting and Watershed Management. 2020 Focus 9 (Overcoming Water Scarcity and Quality Constraints), Brief 9 of 14. International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC.

Stocking, Michael. 1996. Land management for sustainable development: farmers’ participation. Chapter 2 in Uitto, Juha, and Akiko Ono.  Population, land management, and environmental change. Tokyo: United Nations University.  http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu03pe/uu03pe05.htm#2.

Unit 5, September 23-29

What Watershed Management Projects Do

-Lessons from past watershed management efforts
-Addressing socioeconomic problems/constraints
-Approaches for promoting participation
-Organizing people to reconcile conflicting interests and manage common property
-Scaling up 

Readings:

Watershed Management Program. Agricultural Technical Note. World Bank Watershed Window, 2001.  For this unit read only pp 3-7, beginning with the box on externalities.

Rhoades, Robert. 2002. "Participatory Watershed Research and Management: Where the Shadow Falls." Gatekeeper Series #81. Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods Program, International Institute for Environment and Development, London.

FAO. 2000.  Land and Water Linkages in Rural Watersheds Electronic Workshop: Conclusions and Recommendations. FAO, Rome, September 18 – October 27, 2000. http://www.fao.org/landandwater/watershed/watershed/papers/conclusions.pdf 

Forest Trends. 2002. Developing Markets and Payments for Watershed Services. Policy Brief, Forest Trends, Washington, DC.

Final Exam and SIRS forms: October 6