Empowering the Next Generation of Watershed Decision-Makers: A Pedagogical Design

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

See attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Dear Editor Wang

 

Thank you for transmitting the reviewers’ comments. The reviewers were exceptionally thorough and helpful. We found that the reflection and thought necessary to allow us to respond to their comments greatly improved the manuscript. We have revised the manuscript in response to the reviewers’ comments. We offer a revised version using Track Changes, and we reference specific lines that were changed when we discuss our response to the reviewers’ comments.

 

Jim & Louise

 

Note that the system allows me to attach only one file so I attach the revised MS, using Track Changes, and offer a response to each reviewer comment here ...

Reviewer 1 comments and authors’ responses

 

Review of Manuscript ID: water-442250

I would like to thank the authors for submitting the manuscript entitled Empowering the next generation of watershed decision-makers. While I appreciate the effort they made to report on a teaching innovation, as I am not a professor I am not sure how innovative the contribution is in terms of pedagogical theory and practice. One line of comment I would like to share with the authors pertains to helping a reader like me understand better the original contribution of the paper. As a researcher working on water management, my second line of comment will focus on opportunities to better ground the paper within the water management practice.

Regarding innovation in terms of pedagogy, I found the introduction to be a well written, albeit standard, telling of the current challenges facing planning and decision-making in watersheds and river basins. It is only in the paragraph that begins with Developing the cadre of professionals, however, that the authors focus on the educational challenge they are intending to address. This paragraph is sufficient to motivate the argument that water professionals need to undergo more inter-disciplinary training, and that universities have a responsibility to provide it. I would find it helpful if a following paragraph were to review the literature on interdisciplinary education generally so that the work reported on in this paper could be placed in context by a reader who is not a teacher.

·         That paragaph has been added; lines 92-110

The following paragraph beginning Effective instruction occurs is where, in my opinion, the root of the argument should be presented.

·         We have clarified our argument in this section; lines 125-126, 132-141

References to different types of teaching approaches would help a reader understand better why constructivist approaches are preferred over other approaches. In my case, such a paragraph would have even helped me understand what a constructivist approach is in the first place. As the goal of this paper is presumably to motivate a new approach to teaching, I think the introduction might be recrafted to present less about the general water management problematic and more about educational theory that motivates a new way of teaching water professionals.

·         We have re-wrtitten the introduction to focus more on pedagogy; lines 92-110 and 132-141

Later in the paper, the section entitled The pedagogical design leaves me wondering about the capacity of current graduate students. The section primarily describes a series of question that a reader should pose when evaluating a research article. This would seem like something that most graduate students should know by the time they enroll in this course. It seems that one key argument of the paper is the joint deployment of TAW and WHAF as analytical tools is a key feature of the pedagogical innovation. As I reader, I do not have a clear idea how the students interacted with these tools, other than that they read and discussed papers of relevance to the TAW modules.

·         We have clarified the ways in which the students in the class interacted with TAW and WHAF; lines 198-206

I greatly appreciate the authors’ efforts to center the pedagogical approach on writing. As someone how hires young water professionals, I know this skill is often lacking. Still the description of the writing exercise, and its reference to the intent to tie together TAW and WHAF, still leaves me wondering what that effort actually looked like. It would help me to have a clearer idea as to the mechanics of this joint deployment, although this also touches on my technical comments below.

·         We have added text to describe the interim and final products; lines 253-264

Before presenting these, a few random thought on pedagogy. Why are the students instructed to imagine applying a TAW module in Peru? This seems a bit random given that the analysis focused on Minnesota watershed, and should be explained if retained.

·         Our intent here is to offer a global application; Peru was an example. We have clarified that no particular location need be specificied, but that any series of students could envsion work in any locaton; line 214-219

If evaluations related to the learning experience were conducted after 5, 10, and 15 weeks, surely something more profound could be reported in the paper than the comments were very positive.

·         We have added exempalry student evaluation comments; line 279-297

Finally, I do not teach, but if I were asked to repeat this teaching experience based on the paper, I am not sure I would be able to do so.

·         We have added a paragraph the describes the process a future instructor could use to repeat our experience; lines 298-317

Regarding technical feedback, two definitions of watershed management are proffered by the authors. In the Abstract, it is defined as an integrated science that incorporates both point and non-point source impacts. The Introduction defines it as the art and practice of understanding stakeholder values for ecosystem services within a watershed, then enacting management to balance trade-offs and sustain these goods and services. I find the second definition to be much more helpful.

·         We have changed the abstract such that similar definitions are used in both places; lines 9-11

I have worked in watershed and river basin planning for 30 years, and issues of point and non-point source impacts is only one part of the puzzle in many watershed. My assumption is that in Minnesota watersheds these are the dominant issues, but if the goal is to prepare water professionals, who might one day work in Peru (water scarcity and water allocation are far bigger challenges there), the staring definition should be broad, rather than narrow.

As a reader, however, it appears that the point/non-impact driver was what led to the selection of WHAF as the primary analytical tool.

·         We agree that non-point sources are the driving force in most intergrated watershed management approaches, and we suggest that in line 29. Point sources had no influence in selection of the WHAF as a tool

This is fine. Still as I read the description of WHAF I am left with the impression that it is a database rather than an analytical tool in that values contained in public databases are used to calculate a set index values that deterministically lead to sub-scores that are averaged to produce a watershed health score. I imagine the students looking at static maps, but cannot imagine how WHAF would be used to explore the sorts of “what if?” questions they are presumably writing about in their reports to a watershed board. This seems like a deficiency to me as the TAW descriptions also leaves me wondering how these sorts of questions would be answered.

·         Our approach here is to engage students in a thought process analagous to the early stages of discussion in a watershed board setting. As such, expert opinion is a powerful tool for identifying possible actions and considering uncertainties. We have clarified in the introduction that the apoproach incorporates expert opinion and a thought exercise; lines 132-141

Its second component calls for efforts to Identify and prioritize options and Identify opportunities and constraints. My first thought was that WHAF was the analytical tool that would support these steps, but if it is a static database on index values, sub-scores, and a final watershed health score, I am not sure how it would do so. I am left with the impression that analysis behind the exercise was a thought experiment. This too is fine, but it could be made much clearer to the reader. If my impression is correct, some text on the value of expert opinion elicitation might also be included in the Introduction.

·         We agree and have addressded this in lines 132-141

I would also challenge the authors to comment on how this teaching approach prepares students to engage in watershed and river basin planning efforts where the main drivers are not point/non point impacts. How would the exercise look if the main driver were water allocation in situations of scarcity? Multi-purpose reservoir operations? New infrastructure planning? The article would be much more compelling if a professor in a setting where these, or other, drivers were the key challenge could be inspired to use the exercise with his or her students.

·         We agree and have clarifieed that intent in lines 279-297

Finally, from a technical perspective, I do not have a clear picture of how the single climate scenarios was used to inform the exercise. It would be helpful if this could be expanded upon, with comments on how issues related to climate uncertainty were communicated to the students.

·         We have clarified the use of climate scenarios as they were used in the course and how they would be used by another instructor in another location; lines 298-317

I hope these comments are helpful as I deeply admire the effort that the authors are attempting to make to better prepare young water professionals for more productive careers. As a consumer of the product of teaching efforts such as these, I would welcome applicants trained to analyze different watershed management options from a multi-disciplinary perspective. I am just not sure how the exercise described in this paper would go about achieving that laudable goal.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This commentary discusses a university course focused on watershed management for future decision makers. Combining the Adaptative Watershed (TAW) Method and the Watershed Health Assessment Framework(WHAF), students learn about the environment and social aspects to be considered in an interactive and constructive way.

General Evaluation:

This commentary can be very helpful for the design of courses in public policy and natural resources management. Moreover, the initial discussion effectively highlights the different aspects and trade-offs that a decision-maker can face.

Therefore, I believe that the commentary deserves publication in Water.

However, I would enjoy further discussion of the experience with students, some examples of the ideas they had.

Author Response

Thank you for your positive comments., We have revised the MS and would welcome a second review. 

JIM and Louise

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

attached

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Second Review of Manuscript ID water-442250

 ·Our comments and actions are described in gray blue below and are tracked on the revised MS, att

I would like to thank the authors for their thoughtful response to the comments I offered in my original review of the the manuscript entitled Empowering the next generation of watershed decision-makers. They have made great strides in addressing my concerns. Nonetheless there remain a couple of points on which I remain either uncertain or unconvinced. I think that one final attempt to respond to this remaining concerns will produce a manuscipt ready for publication. I will structure these comments with referene to my original comments and the authors’ responses.

I have worked in watershed and river basin planning for 30 years, and issues of point and non-point source impacts is only one part of the puzzle in many watershed. My assumption is that in Minnesota watersheds these are the dominant issues, but if the goal is to prepare water professionals, who might one day work in Peru (water scarcity and water allocation are far bigger challenges there), the staring definition should be broad, rather than narrow.

As a reader, however, it appears that the point/non-impact driver was what led to the selection of WHAF as the primary analytical tool.

· We agree that non-point sources are the driving force in most integrated watershed management approaches, and we suggest that in line 29. Point sources had no influence in selection of the WHAF as a tool

I think there has been a misunderstanding here. I was not questioning whether either non-point of point sources is the driving force for integrated watershed management approaches. Rather I was quesioning whether these water quality concerns can be consider as the driving forces in the first place. This may be the case in the Minnesota watersheds described in WHAF, but this is a very narrow scope in terms of integrated watershed management writ large. As I said, in other places in my review, other factors may be dominant. I listed a few: water allocation in situations of scarcity; multi-purpose reservoir operations; and new infrastructure planning. There are many more factors that could be driving watershed planning and decision making and I would like the authors to comment on how the dependence on WHAF can address these other issues, and if not, how the class could be adapted to consider other possible stressors. If they cannot do this, the course would be of limited relevance in other regions where the point/non-point debate is not the central factor of importance.

·I see. That is now clear. Integrated water resource management, which is the core goal of TAW addresses precisely this issue. In any given watershed (or catchment), there will be a range of (often competing) issues, water quality being only one among them. We have clarified that in lines 27-36 and 179-182.

I greatly appreciate the authors’ efforts to center the pedagogical approach on writing. As someone how hires young water professionals, I know this skill is often lacking. Still the description of the writing exercise, and its reference to the intent to tie together TAW and WHAF, still leaves me wondering what that effort actually looked like. It would help me to have a clearer idea as to the mechanics of this joint deployment, although this also touches on my technical comments below.

· We have added text to describe the interim and final products; lines 253-264

The new text makes it a bit clearer how TAW and WHAF were used in the class, but I would like the authors to be a bit more forthcoming, particularly wih the text in the following bullet:

o    Each student is the offered a 2050 predictied climate change scenario for each of two sub-basins and is asked to propose management strategies that will increase resilience, and would be undertaken in the next 3-5 years. The product is a 5-7 page paper that would be offered to a watershed board for discussion and action. The paper details anticipated changs in water quality and other watershed variable based on projected 2050 climates, and suggests actions (e.g. BMP’s to be considered) that would increase resiliance.

 

Reading this I am still left wondering how the student actually identified proposed management strategies and detailed anticipated changes. Was some sort of analysis carried out or were these proposals and details based solely on informed opinion? If it is informed opinion, please state that clearly. If some sort of analysis was actually carried out by the students using WHAF, please descrbie what it entailed. I am not against informed opinion as a pedogogical approach, but in front of a real watershed board, I suspect that it would not pass muster if not backed up by some sort of analysis.

· That is correct; more analysis would be required before any actions were taken. We have clarified that in lines 257-263.

I would also challenge the authors to comment on how this teaching approach prepares students to engage in watershed and river basin planning efforts where the main drivers are not point/non point impacts. How would the exercise look if the main driver were water allocation in situations of scarcity? Multi-purpose reservoir operations? New infrastructure planning? The article would be much more compelling if a professor in a setting where these, or other, drivers were the key challenge could be inspired to use the exercise with his or her students.

· We agree and have clarified that intent in lines 279-297

If the authors think they have developed a teaching model that has broad utility beyond rural watersheds in Minnesota, I think they must add some text describing how the approach could be modified for use with students in regions where non point source polution is not the primary issue of concern. This might be accomplished in the Discussion section. This section leaves me feeling that the approach works only in a world described by WHAF, which is frankly a very narrow part of the challenges facing water managers globally. Perhaps describe how the course could be adpated in a setting were water scarcity was the primary issue of concern. Failing to do so will, I suspect, render this article of interest to students in only certain parts of the world.

 We feel that makes sense and have clarified that intent in lines 350-357 and 368-370

If the authors can address these outstanding concerns, I will be ready to approve the manuscript for publication.

 

Review of Manuscript ID: water-442250

I would like to thank the authors for submitting the manuscript entitled Empowering the next generation of watershed decision-makers. While I appreciate the effort they made to report on a teaching innovation, as I am not a professor I am not sure how innovative the contribution is in terms of pedagogical theory and practice. One line of comment I would like to share with the authors pertains to helping a reader like me understand better the original contribution of the paper. As a researcher working on water management, my second line of comment will focus on opportunities to better ground the paper within the water management practice.

Regarding innovation in terms of pedagogy, I found the introduction to be a well written, albeit standard, telling of the current challenges facing planning and decision-making in watersheds and river basins. It is only in the paragraph that begins with Developing the cadre of professionals, however, that the authors focus on the educational challenge they are intending to address. This paragraph is sufficient to motivate the argument that water professionals need to undergo more inter-disciplinary training, and that universities have a responsibility to provide it. I would find it helpful if a following paragraph were to review the literature on interdisciplinary education generally so that the work reported on in this paper could be placed in context by a reader who is not a teacher.

The following paragraph beginning Effective instruction occurs is where, in my opinion, the root of the argument should be presented. References to different types of teaching approaches would help a reader understand better why constructivist approaches are preferred over other approaches. In my case, such a paragraph would have even helped me understand what a constructivist approach is in the first place. As the goal of this paper is presumably to motivate a new approach to teaching, I think the introduction might be recrafted to present less about the general water management problematic and more about educational theory that motivates a new way of teaching water professionals.

Later in the paper, the section entitled The pedagogical design leaves me wondering about the capacity of current graduate students. The section primarily describes a series of question that a reader should pose when evaluating a research article. This would seem like something that most graduate students should know by the time they enroll in this course. It seems that one key argument of the paper is the joint deployment of TAW and WHAF as analytical tools is a key feature of the pedagogical innovation. As I reader, I do not have a clear idea how the students interacted with these tools, other than that they read and discussed papers of relevance to the TAW modules. I greatly appreciate the authors’ efforts to center the pedagogical approach on writing. As someone how hires young water professionals, I know this skill is often lacking. Still the description of the writing exercise, and its reference to the intent to tie together TAW and WHAF, still leaves me wondering what that effort actually looked like. It would help me to have a clearer idea as to the mechanics of this joint deployment, although this also touches on my technical comments below.

Before presenting these, a few random thought on pedagogy. Why are the students instructed to imagine applying a TAW module in Peru? This seems a bit random given that the analysis focused on Minnesota watershed, and should be explained if retained. If evaluations related to the learning experience were conducted after 5, 10, and 15 weeks, surely something more profound could be reported in the paper than the comments were very positive. Finally, I do not teach, but if I were asked to repeat this teaching experience based on the paper, I am not sure I would be able to do so.

Regarding technical feedback, two definitions of watershed management are proffered by the authors. In the Abstract, it is defined as an integrated science that incorporates both point and non-point source impacts. The Introduction defines it as the art and practice of understanding stakeholder values for ecosystem services within a watershed, then enacting management to balance trade-offs and sustain these goods and services. I find the second definition to be much more helpful. I have worked in watershed and river basin planning for 30 years, and issues of point and non-point source impacts is only one part of the puzzle in many watershed. My assumption is that in Minnesota watersheds these are the dominant issues, but if the goal is to prepare water professionals, who might one day work in Peru (water scarcity and water allocation are far bigger challenges there), the staring definition should be broad, rather than narrow.

As a reader, however, it appears that the point/non-impact driver was what led to the selection of WHAF as the primary analytical tool. This is fine. Still as I read the description of WHAF I am left with the impression that it is a database rather than an analytical tool in that values contained in public databases are used to calculate a set index values that deterministically lead to sub-scores that are averaged to produce a watershed health score. I imagine the students looking at static maps, but cannot imagine how WHAF would be used to explore the sorts of “what if?” questions they are presumably writing about in their reports to a watershed board. This seems like a deficiency to me as the TAW descriptions also leaves me wondering how these sorts of questions would be answered. Its second component calls for efforts to Identify and prioritize options and Identify opportunities and constraints. My first thought was that WHAF was the analytical tool that would support these steps, but if it is a static database on index values, sub-scores, and a final watershed health score, I am not sure how it would do so. I am left with the impression that analysis behind the exercise was a thought experiment. This too is fine, but it could be made much clearer to the reader. If my impression is correct, some text on the value of expert opinion elicitation might also be included in the Introduction.

I would also challenge the authors to comment on how this teaching approach prepares students to engage in watershed and river basin planning efforts where the main drivers are not point/non point impacts. How would the exercise look if the main driver were water allocation in situations of scarcity? Multi-purpose reservoir operations? New infrastructure planning? The article would be much more compelling if a professor in a setting where these, or other, drivers were the key challenge could be inspired to use the exercise with his or her students.

Finally, from a technical perspective, I do not have a clear picture of how the single climate scenarios was used to inform the exercise. It would be helpful if this could be expanded upon, with comments on how issues related to climate uncertainty were communicated to the students.

I hope these comments are helpful as I deeply admire the effort that the authors are attempting to make to better prepare young water professionals for more productive careers. As a consumer of the product of teaching efforts such as these, I would welcome applicants trained to analyze different watershed management options from a multi-disciplinary perspective. I am just not sure how the exercise described in this paper would go about achieving that laudable goal.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx