View of the Mississippi River from Perot State Park

International Conference on Rivers and Civilization:
Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Major River Basins


La Crosse, Wisconsin USA
June 25-28, 2006

HOST AND PRESENTER INSTITUTIONS
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Home Page National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium Home Page

CONFERENCE SPEAKER

Color photograh of Karlyn EckmanKarlyn Eckman (University of Minnesota, USA):  Assessing Human Vulnerability in Major River Systems. (Abstract)

Karlyn Eckman has earned a B.E.S. from the University of Minnesota, an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins University (SAIS) in development economics, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in forestry and watershed management.  She has twenty-five years of research and “hands-on” community development program experience in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.  She has led watershed, agricultural and environmental recovery programs in Somalia, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, India, Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Cambodia, Haiti and elsewhere since 1986 with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other United Nations organizations.  She recently completed a major literature review for the Mekong River Commission (MRC) on human vulnerability and dependence on aquatic resources, and is the lead person on the four-country MRC vulnerability assessment in the lower Mekong basin.

Closer to home, Dr. Eckman has been an Adjunct Professor since 1994 at the University of Minnesota, College of Natural Resources.  She is affiliated with the Water Resources Center (WRC) at the U of M and the MRC/WRC Mississippi-Mekong Partnership.  She is a task force leader on the Kasota Ponds conservation project (Saint Paul’s District 12), and a second-term Commissioner on the Middle Mississippi River Watershed Management Organization.  Her writings include a variety of peer-reviewed and program-related articles, books and other publications.

Abstract: Through the Mekong-Mississippi Partnership (MMP), the author has recently led a team of experts in the preliminary steps of a study of human vulnerability and the dependence of people on aquatic resources in the Lower Mekong Basin (Cambodia, Thailand, Lao PDR and Vietnam). This included a major literature review on vulnerability and dependence in each LMB country, as well as a general review of available methods to assess the human dimensions of vulnerability, food insecurity and dependence on aquatic resources. In the coming months the team will review secondary data, design a study methodology, prepare training curricula in vulnerability assessment (VA), and carry out training of trainers from the four countries in VA. As the team was working on the preliminary steps in Southeast Asia, hurricanes caused major damage and death in the Mississippi delta of the United States. The human dimensions of the storms, as well as the lack of effective response, were evident halfway across the world. Our team noted strong similarities in the apparent vulnerabilities of people, and especially poorer and more marginalized communities, in both riparian systems. We further observed that Thailand had already acquired significant experience in emergency response to coastal and water-related disasters during the 2005 Tsunami. The objective of this presentation is to foster a new discussion about human vulnerability in major river systems, and the needs for methods and tools of planners and decision makers to reduce human vulnerability. The elements of this presentation are the following:

  • Summarize the preliminary VA study findings and report on ongoing study efforts;
  • Compare and contrast the major factors that lead to the vulnerability of people living in the Mississippi and Mekong river basins;
  • Assess and compare the methods and techniques used to assess vulnerability in each context;
  • Summarize major gaps in decision-making tools based upon the lessons learned in the Mississippi and Mekong contexts.