16 August 2024
A collaboration between systems thinker Justin Connolly and illustrator Jean Donaldson. Edited by Jonathan Burgess.
When I was young, I wanted to be a detective. I could often be found ‘investigating’ things around the house through my father’s magnifying glass. If I looked at them through that glass, my parents would have seen me squinting – one eye closed and the other magnified to comedic proportions through the lens. As I grew into a teenager, I loved reading detective books or watching detective shows on TV.
But in all good detective stories, the case is nearly always more complicated and nuanced than what it seemed like at the start. Over time I came to realise that a good detective didn’t only look through the magnifying glass, they also put that down, opened their other eye and looked around them to understand the wider context and how that related to what they were investigating.
Now, many decades later, myself and colleagues work to apply such detective skills to freshwater. In Aotearoa, we’ve been experiencing issues with our water in recent decades. Water quality is often lower than desired and can be unsuitable for swimming or other uses, and pressures on how much gets used by humans is increasing. We recently completed work to widen our perspective on the related factors that influence and impact the state of freshwater. We sought to highlight what can be seen through the magnifying glass, and what can be seen when putting this down and looking around at the context.
Zooming out for a better view of the freshwater policy landscape – Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research
The things we see through the magnifying glass are the things that may appear obvious. These include precautions intended to help improve freshwater quality, such as: planting streambanks to buffer and mitigate contaminants flowing to water bodies, ‘green infrastructure’ such as wetlands, controlling the intensity of animals or crops on farmland, and the amount of nutrients applied to land to support them. This also includes things that relate to the amount of water used, such as: the efficiency of water use, and the storage of water for use later.
These ‘magnified’ areas are recognisable from discussions around the state of freshwater. They tend to be close to and obviously related to freshwater. But what do we see if we put down the magnifying glass and look around at the wider context?
We see that greenhouse gas emissions can result from activity closely associated with freshwater, like fertiliser use. For example, a byproduct of nitrogen fertiliser manufacture and use is greenhouse gas emissions – increased levels of which can (in the longer term) impact weather patterns and freshwater availability.
How we design our towns and cities also influences activity that has an impact on freshwater. For example, expanding suburban areas can reduce the amount of farmland. If our focus is on producing more from farmland that we have, this can encourage further intensification of activity on remaining farmland to compensate for production lost to suburban sprawl. Expanding suburban areas are also usually the result of our preference for building low-density housing and relying on cars for transport – all of which also contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.
Procedural things have an impact too. Government funding processes have an in-built bias towards things that are new (capital expenditure) and that depreciate in value. For example, money borrowed by local governments can usually only be used for capital expenditure, so it encourages the building of new assets (which are usually linked with suburban expansion and can impact on freshwater environments). Also, green infrastructure does not depreciate – it actually grows (e.g. a tree grows over time)! Therefore such infrastructure that is freshwater-friendly tends to be difficult to account for ‘on the books’ of local government, meaning it is harder to justify.
Finally, our use of energy is linked to all of these activities, which is also linked to greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn is linked to weather and rainfall patterns. While the efficiency of our energy use is important, so too is the carbon intensity of all forms of energy generation. What is often not appreciated is that even renewable energy has a carbon intensity – due to the fossil fueled-powered machinery used to build them. This still has a greenhouse gas emissions profile.
What does all this detective work highlight?
It shows that the areas where we can intervene to improve freshwater outcomes are far more varied than usually appreciated. Yes, there are some influences on freshwater that are obvious and closely related, and these need our attention (what we see through the magnifying glass). Yet there are also many less obvious areas that equally have an impact on freshwater outcomes – perhaps an even greater impact in the longer term. We need to look around at the context to see these (what the detective sees when they put down the magnifying glass and look around). They may not always appear obvious, but they can have significant impact.
Unlike fictional detective stories, when seeking to improve freshwater outcomes there is not a convenient and tidy ending point – there is no dramatic climax and a single ‘culprit’ revealed! Yet the skills of a good detective – investigating the detail and understanding the influence of the wider context – can lead to impactful insights and action in places that make a significant difference.
Let’s ensure we nurture such skills in our future generations of ‘detectives’ dealing with the complex problems we face now and in the future.
Justin Connolly is a principal investigator with Te Pūnaha Matatini and the director of Deliberate, a consultancy specialising in the use of qualitative research and systems thinking to help understand complexity. You can find out more about Deliberate at https://www.deliberate.co.nz/.
Jean Donaldson is a designer and native bird fanatic based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. You can see more of her work at https://jeanmanudesign.com/.