Research Projects and Methodology
Ongoing projects
- Economic principles (e.g. polluter pays principle)
- Economic tools and methods (e.g. cost effectiveness analysis)
- Economic instruments (e.g. water pricing)
Water resource management poses significant challenges for
decision-makers, as a wide range of interconnected water issues often has to be
resolved simultaneously, such as the balance of sufficient water quality and
quantity, the development of mitigation and adaptation measures in case of
droughts and floods, the conservation of important aquatic habitats, and the
maintenance of ecological services. Moreover, these issues are closely
connected to prevailing public attitudes, beliefs, and actions and differ
between stakeholders as well as watersheds. Growing uncertainties, too, need to
be addressed in the face of manifesting climate change and often delayed
implications of management actions, demanding a more adaptive approach to river
basin management.
NeWater is an
interdisciplinary research project under the 6th European
Framework Programme (FP6; all of the projects described have been or are
part of this programme), which has been brought to life to develop new methods
for integrated water resources management (IWRM), taking into account the
complexity of the river basins to be managed and the difficulty to predict many
factors influencing them (e.g. climate change, socio-economic developments).
Thus, the main objective of NeWater is the transition from the currently
prevailing regimes of river basin water management into more integrated, adaptive
approaches that cope with growing uncertainty. This necessitates new management
approaches that are flexible and responsive in nature and reflect the
socio-economic, environmental and technological setting of a river basin. The
project aims at analyzing key elements of current water management regimes
(e.g. governance in water management, sectoral integration, information
management, vulnerability, stakeholder participation) and their transformation
to adaptive IWRM.
Past
projects
One of
the most important environmental issues related to non-point sources of water
pollution are agricultural activities. This has been recognized by the Working
Groups of the CIS, which analyzed the linkages between agriculture and water
resources in several major pilot river basins, highlighting the potential for
improvement in the agricultural sector (see CIS and Pilot River Basins).
With recent changes to both the Common
Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Water Framework Directive (WFD) –
often quoted as the two most influential policies in the area of environmental
issues – it was realized that there might be substantial synergies in
combining the efforts of both policies in order to meet environmental targets. This
could be first and foremost achieved through cooperation among authorities
responsible for rural development planning and river basin management, which
have until recently been developed and implemented separately.
Within
this sixth Framework Programme project, two research institutes have been have
been asked to analyze the legal and organisational interlinkages between both
policies in order to search for future synergies while implementing, planning,
financing and controlling the various requirements of the WFD and the CAP. In
the course of this project, several background notes and policy briefs have
been developed and presented at a conference for stakeholders and policy makers
in 2006, covering issues such as incentive water pricing and cost recovery in
the WFD and the cooperation and participation at the interface of EU
Agricultural and Water Policies.
The
overall aim of this project – ÒWater Framework Directive meets Common Agricultural
Policy-Opportunities for the Future (WFD & CAP)Ó - was to review
the implementation of the legal requirements of both policies in order to
identify implementation shortcomings between the objectives and the actual
outcomes of both CAP and WFD, and the possibilities for enhanced implementation
and cooperation at all levels of European government.
The Water Framework Directive provides a European policy basis for water management and the elaboration in river basins and prescribes - as a fundamental milestone - the development of river basin management plans. The development of these plans increasingly needs high quality computer based tools (ICT tools), including tools for socio-economic analysis and stakeholder participation. Though many tools have been developed, there is no clear and complete overview on what is available and which tools to use in which situations. Harmoni-CA has established a forum for communication and discussion concerning the use and development of all tools relevant to the implementation at the WFD. In six work packages key aspects of integrated modelling were analyzed in close collaboration with the modelling community, the policy makers and the users.
Stakeholder and public participation presents one of the core
components of the WFD and a prerequisite for successfully implementing the
directive. However, the scientific knowledge base regarding understanding and
design of multi-scale stakeholder and public participation processes of social
learning is fragmented. The presence
of a huge gap between outcomes of integrated models and river basin management
practice has been recognized by water managers since many years; however, there has been little success in bridging this gap until recently. Too often
information has been seen as an objective input into decision-making, ignoring issues
such as uncertainty and implicit policy choices. Rarely was - and still is - information and are
information tools seen as a means to promote and inform discussions between
stakeholders and thus foster social learning. An improved understanding of
processes of social learning is a prerequisite to implement novel management
strategies and to bridge the science-policy gap.
The aim of the HarmoniCOP project
was to increase the understanding of participatory river basin management
planning (RBMP) in Europe. RBMP is the integrated cross-sectoral planning and
management of river basins - if necessary across political and administrative
borders. The project's objective was to generate practical information about
participation processes in river basin management and to support the
implementation of the public participation provisions of the European Water
Framework Directive, as a succesful implementation of the WFD can only be achieved through stakeholder participation.
The handbook on public participation has been the major outcome of the HarmoniCOP-project and provides a basis for the development of improved integrated models and decision support tools. Users are developers of integrated management models and decision support tools in both academia and business, river basin management authorities and consortia who find guidance on how to design a stakeholder process for developing a river basin management plan. This supports the implementation of the public participation provisions of the Water Framework Directive.