With the promulgation of the EC Water Framework Directive (WFD), stakeholders’ involvement in water management planning and public consultation has become mandatory for member states. This paper investigates the case of France, where water management has been based on a distinctive form of “participatory democracy” for over 40 years. It first analyses how public participation and expert opinion fit into the water-management planning procedure and compares this to what occurs elsewhere in Europe and the United States. It then proposes an operational method for initiating the participatory process with an analysis of the stakeholders' viewpoint at the watershed level. The method, which relies on interviews, is applied to two watersheds located in southern France. The results of the two case studies illustrate how the stakeholders' viewpoint analysis can give access to practical knowledge and experience and to a wider range of perspectives and options. The case studies highlight the idea that the mobilisation of non-scientific (or lay) knowledge, values and preferences can improve the quality of the identification of the issues at stake, the formulation of a generally complex and unstructured problem and the identification of a large panel of alternative solutions. The paper then proposes some recommendations for implementing the provisions of the WFD.
Recent studies on urban water demand have suggested that the water price increase observed during the last ten years in France has led to a reduction in the consumption of urban water by households. Whereas certain households have reduced their water consumption, others have turned to substitute water resources (collection of rainwater, borehole drilling, wells supplied with untreated mains water, grey water recycling systems, etc.). This article presents the results of a case study, which describes and analyses the phenomenon of resorting to untreated groundwater as a complement to or a substitute for the urban water supply. After highlighting the risks associated with uncontrolled development of private boreholes, the paper presents a survey conducted in Southern France to understand the motivations of households drilling boreholes. The results of this survey are utilised to develop a micro-economic model of households' behaviour, which is then used to assess the probability of development of private boreholes on a regional scale. The impact of various economic and regulatory scenarios on borehole development and the related impact on urban water demand and financial sustainability of water and wastewater management utilities are assessed.
The adaptation to the multiple facets of climate/global change challenges the conventional means of water system planning. Numerous demand and supply management options are often available, from which a portfolio of adaptation measures needs to be selected in a context of high uncertainty about future conditions. A framework is developed to integrate inputs from the two main approaches commonly used to plan for adaptation. The proposed “top–down meets bottom–up” approach provides a systematic and practical method for supporting the selection of adaptation measures at river basin level by comprehensively integrating the goals of economic efficiency, social acceptability, environmental sustainability, and adaptation robustness. The top-down approach relies on the use of a chain of models to assess the impact of global change on water resources and its adaptive management over a range of climate projections. Future demand scenarios and locally prioritized adaptation measures are identified following a bottom-up approach through a participatory process with the relevant stakeholders and experts. Cost-effective combinations of adaptation measures are then selected using a hydro-economic model at basin scale. The resulting adaptation portfolios are climate checked to define a robust program of measures based on trade-offs between adaptation costs and reliability. Valuable insights are obtained on the use of uncertain climate information for selecting robust, reliable, and resilient water management portfolios. Finally, cost allocation and equity implications are analyzed through the comparison of economically rational results (cooperative game theory) and the application of social justice principles.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.