Emergent Principles for River Management

Abstract

Paradigms for land and water management are on the move. New approaches are said to be, or meant to be, more 'participatory', 'integrated', 'adaptive', 'ecosystem-based' and so on. The present paper explores emergent principles for land and water management in ecological management theory, environmental science and the social sciences. These principles comprise adaptive management, opportunity-driven analysis, visions of managers and the public, and co-management that includes local and supra-local rationality. The paper concludes that for river management, these principles largely reinforce each other. This lays a basis for a style of river management in which the river managers may continue to be the guardians of science-based and whole-basin rationality, while at the same time interacting more successfully with society.

Being in an environment: a performative perspective

“…The Rhine, on the other hand, is big and important, and it strikes me that the current Dutch project Room for Rivers is a revival of the traditional stance (Rohde et al, 2006;de Groot and Lenders, 2006;Palca, 2008). Room for Rivers aims, as I understand it, to let the river flood, in the spirit that it is better for us to adapt to regular finite floods than to try to pin down and enframe the river, with the disasters and catastrophes that inevitably follow.…”

Embedding Economic Drivers in Participative Water Management

“…Also, the political context may change and consequently the policy approaches towards managing water systems. The Joint Planning Approach is based on a number of principles emerging from various scientific disciplines (De Groot and Lenders, 2006).…”

Adaptive Management Fitness of Watersheds

“…Increasing recognition of the inherent uncertainties present in watersheds as complex social-ecological systems is shifting our awareness of how to approach both new and old management challenges alike. By acknowledging that our understanding of any given system is and will always be imperfect, it is logical that our management approach should be experimental rather than reactive (Lee and Lawrence 1986, Lee 1993, Lee 1999, de Groot and Lenders 2006, Plummer 2009). This paradigm shift, coupled with escalating uncertainties associated with global climate change, has led many scientists and decision-makers to embrace adaptive management for managing water resources.…”