Governance Conditions for Improving Quality Drinking Water Resources: the Need for Enhancing Connectivity

Abstract

Realising the water quality objectives of the European Water Framework Directive have appeared to stagnate over the last decade all across Europe because of their highly complex nature. In literature, governance approaches tend to be regarded as the best way of dealing with complex water issues, but so far little empirical evidence has been reported on this perspective in regard to water quality issues and thus identifying relevant interventions for both policy makers and other stakeholders. In this paper we have analysed how conditions of governance contribute to the realisation of water quality objectives at different types of drinking water resources in the Netherlands. The water quality challenges at these resources, nitrates, pesticides, industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals, can be recognized in other European countries as well. The analysis demonstrates the importance to enhance connectivity between institutional levels and upstream regions based upon the characteristics of the water system and driving forces for water quality and thus involve the actors that have the authority and the means to take effective measures. The two other important conditions of governance approaches for water quality improvement which were identified are the use of joint factfinding to gain a shared perception of risks, and the use of explicit decision-making and close monitoring of outcomes (re. water quality improvement).

Towards More Effective Water Quality Governance: A Review of Social-Economic, Legal and Ecological Perspectives and Their Interactions

“…Hüesker and Moss [23] found that not all actors in a river basin management approach are positioned to act on different scales, due to e.g., limitations in human or financial resources, not all actions are open to some actors, while other actors make use of the window of opportunities set by this rescaling. This 'problem of fit' can be recognised in other river basins as well [64,65].…”

“…The importance of including other values and interests in the water quality governance process has been described in other publications as well [59,90,91] (United Kingdom, Belgium, Australia). On a local scale, some successful experiences are described with this wider context approach [45,92] (Netherlands, Belgium, USA), but the involvement of different institutional levels and scales within a river basin seems to hamper this process [93][94][95] (Australia, USA, China), which underlines the importance of having connective capacity between institutional levels and authorities in different regions within river basins [64] (The Netherlands). In all the papers on legal and social-economic perspectives studied, the resulting effects on water quality improvement remain unclear, although the implications of other interests and their influence on the design of the legal framework could be considerable as they have the potential to block problem-solving activities.…”

Implementation Constraints on Israel–Palestine Water Cooperation: An Analysis Using the Water Governance Assessment Framework

“…This research aims to examine the elements contributing to the Israel-Palestine water governance. The literature has offered a rich variety of frameworks that can be used to assess water governance practices [24]. For example, the 10 Building Blocks Framework [20], the OECD Water Governance Indicator Framework [25], the Governance Capacity Framework [26], the Operational Framework for Water Governance [27], and frameworks that focus on the conditions of good governance [28,29], and the individual governance criteria (such as effectivity, efficiency, and legitimacy) [30,31].…”

Gerenciamento participativo de recursos em espaços pedagógicos

“…A gestão participativa, especialmente no que toca aos recursos, não é apenas uma necessidade colaborativa (Idrissou;Aarts, 2018;Haider et al, 2018;Kalumanga et al, 2018), mas essencialmente um imperativo de efetividade (Wuijts;Driessen;Van Rijswick, 2018;Bengoa et al, 2018;Euler;Heldt, 2018), entendida esta como a sustentabilidade eficiente e eficaz dos sistemas organizacionais. Isso significa que a gestão participativa pode contribuir para com a sustentabilidade das organizações (Allington et al, 2018;Schaltegger;Burritt, 2018;Quattrone, 2015).…”