River basin management and community: the Great Ouse Basin, 1850–present

Abstract

River basins are difficult units to manage. Society is generally not organized on the basis of river basins, yet river basins are important units for society and vice versa. This paper discusses the development and effectiveness of river basin management, using the Great Ouse Basin in the east of England as an example. Because of conflicting interests between upstream and downstream areas in this basin, it took some 70 years, from 1850 to 1920, to establish the first basin-wide management body, and because of these interests this body was initially not very effective. Over the years management was scaled up until in 1989 a national rivers authority was established. A fundamental issue was the lack of a sense of community at the basin scale. This could have mitigated the conflicts of interests and facilitated better cooperation. The paper recommends more research on the role of community in river basin management and suggests to extend the notions of 'institutional' and 'socio-ecological fit' to include 'community fit'. ARTICLE HISTORY

Response to reviewers

“…The fourth key actor is the Dommel Water Board. Water boards have a long history in the Netherlands, but mostly in the polder areas (Van de Ven, 2004;Mostert, 2012Mostert, , 2017b. In the Dommel Basin there were only a few small water boards in the downstream part of the basin, which maintained and financed local dykes.…”

“…It is hard to assess how important exactly community and solidarity were. Traditionally, water management in the Netherlands is based on the benefit principle and to some extent the causation principle (Schilthuis, 1960;Mostert, 2017b). Yet, mutual support, especially during and after flood disasters, is also a cultural value, as witnessed by the many children's books dealing with flooding (Mostert, 2015).…”

An alternative approach for socio-hydrology: case study research

“…The whole basin, the Province of North Brabant, and even the whole of the Netherlands could be seen as a community, and in a community members support each other according to their possibilities (see Mostert, 2017a). It is hard to assess how important exactly community and solidarity were.…”

“…Societal response to hydrological change may be limited when the costs of action are individual but the benefits collective and when costs have to be made upstream but the benefits are downstream. Societal response will be bigger when there are strong community values (Yu et al, 2017;Mostert, 2017a) and when appropriate institutional arrangements are in place (e.g. Ostrom, 1990;Brondizio et al, 2009).…”

“…One option would be to set up a large interdisciplinary research project to study the topography and geology of the basin and the formation of peat soils since 6000 BC; the human interventions in the Neolithic, Roman, and Medieval period; the 17th century drainage works and the resulting peat shrinkage and wastage; the subsequent works to cope with increasing flooding problems; the changing governance structure to make these works possible; the changing economy of the basin; and the role of politics and agricultural lobbies (e.g. Godwin, 1978;Richardson et al, 1978;Darby, 1983;Hall and Coles, 1994;Sheail, 2002;Purseglove, 2015;Mostert, 2017a). This would involve extensive literature study and much field work and archival research.…”