Spatial Misfit in Participatory River Basin Management: Effects on Social Learning, a Comparative Analysis of German and French Case Studies

Borowski, Ilke; Bourhis, Jean-Pierre Le; Pahl‐Wostl, Claudia; Barraqué, Bernhard

doi:10.5751/es-02341-130107

Cited by 74 publications

(82 citation statements)

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“…It is argued that instead of striving to design the ideal river basin management institution, we need to consider the territorial unit of the river basin in a broader context of overlapping social, economic, political, and physical spaces (Lipschutz 1999). In line with this thinking, research today tends to advocate informal collaboration among multiple agencies within a river basin in preference to the creation of a formalized, "unitary" river basin organization as generally favored in the past (Huitema et al 2009, Borowski et al 2008, Butterworth et al 2010). This requires paying less attention to the structure of an authority responsible for managing a river basin and far more to the interactions among the multiple organizations affecting water use within a basin.…”

Section: Conceptualizing Spatial Fit: a Critical Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Fit, from Panacea to Practice: Implementing the EU Water Framework Directive

Moss¹

2012

E&S

149

102

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ABSTRACT. Within the broad discourse on the concept of fit and its relevance for the governance of social-ecological systems, problems of spatial fit have attracted particular attention. Mismatches abound between the geographical extent of an environmental resource and the territorial scope of the institutions affecting its use. Managing water resources around river basins is, perhaps, the most prominent illustration of attempts to reconcile the boundaries of an environmental resource with those of its respective institutions. Achieving perfect spatial fit has, however, proved an elusive task in practice. Beyond the difficulties of defining the physical boundaries of water and reordering institutional arrangements to reflect these, improving spatial fit for water can create new spatial misfits with other policy sectors upon which sustainable water management is dependent. The paper explores the way spatial fit is conceptualized, institutionalized, and practised, using the EU Water Framework Directive and its implementation in one sub-basin of the Rhine as an exemplar. The paper develops from the analysis a more differentiated and context-sensitive understanding of the concept of spatial fit of practical value to policy makers.

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Section: Conceptualizing Spatial Fit: a Critical Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Fit, from Panacea to Practice: Implementing the EU Water Framework Directive

Moss¹

2012

E&S

149

102

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“…The lack of clear understanding related to these questions means that in many cases the potential for effective water management remains unattained (see for example, Borowski et al 2008). …”

Section: Focus and Objectives Of The Special Featurementioning

confidence: 99%

Implementing Participatory Water Management: Recent Advances in Theory, Practice, and Evaluation

Korff¹,

Daniell²,

Moellenkamp³

et al. 2012

E&S

129

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ABSTRACT. Many current water planning and management problems are riddled with high levels of complexity, uncertainty, and conflict, so-called "messes" or "wicked problems." The realization that there is a need to consider a wide variety of values, knowledge, and perspectives in a collaborative decision making process has led to a multitude of new methods and processes being proposed to aid water planning and management, which include participatory forms of modeling, planning, and decision aiding processes. However, despite extensive scientific discussions, scholars have largely been unable to provide satisfactory responses to two pivotal questions: (1) What are the benefits of using participatory approaches?; (2) How exactly should these approaches be implemented in complex social-ecological settings to realize these potential benefits? In the study of developing social-ecological system sustainability, the first two questions lead to a third one that extends beyond the one-time application of participatory approaches for water management: (3) How can participatory approaches be most appropriately used to encourage transition to more sustainable ecological, social, and political regimes in different cultural and spatial contexts? The answer to this question is equally open. This special feature on participatory water management attempts to propose responses to these three questions by outlining recent advances in theory, practice, and evaluation related to the implementation of participatory water management. The feature is largely based on an extensive range of case studies that have been implemented and analyzed by cross-disciplinary research teams in collaboration with practitioners, and in a number of cases in close cooperation with policy makers and other interested parties such as farmers, fishermen, environmentalists, and the wider public. Key Words: adaptive management, collaborative decision making, evaluation, interactive planning, participatory modeling, participatory research, process design, public participation, social learning, stakeholder participation, water resources management FOCUS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE SPECIAL FEATUREMany current water planning and management problems are riddled with high levels of complexity, uncertainty, and conflict, so-called "messes" (Ackoff 1979) or "wicked problems" (Rittel and Webber 1973). These problems are increasingly encountered in the public policy sphere as resources become scarce, conflicts between water users and interest groups proliferate, and the ecological and social aspects of water planning become more prominent. As a result, it is increasingly rare that technical water managers have sufficient decision making authority and capacity to implement plans and water management actions by themselves. Furthermore, the realization that there is a need to consider a wide variety of values, knowledge, and perspectives in a collaborative decision making process has led to a multitude of new methods and processes being proposed to aid water planning and managem...

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“…In recent years, comparative studies have also addressed the classification of vegetation biomes via water balance (Stephenson, 1990(Stephenson, , 2003, hydro-climatic controls on NDVI and transpiration (Thompson et al, 2011b;Voepel et al, 2011), controls on hydrologic regimes Olden et al, 2011;Sawicz et al, 2011), the relationship between available energy and soil development (Pelletier et al, 2013;Rasmussen, 2012;Rasmussen et al, 2011), the implications of different management regimes (Huntjens et al, 2011;Borowski et al, 2008) on water resources, and -in an initial sense -emergent patterns in human-hydrologic interactions (Srinivasan et al, 2012). Figure 5 illustrates three different relationships that emerge from 430 watersheds when considering patterns of hydro-climate (Budyko's curve), geomorphology (Abrahams curve) and vegetation cover (aridity -NDVI curve).…”

Section: Comparative Hydrologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing predictive insight into changing water systems: use-inspired hydrologic science for the Anthropocene

Thompson

Sivapalan

Harman

et al. 2013

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

129

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Abstract.Globally, many different kinds of water resources management issues call for policy-and infrastructure-based responses. Yet responsible decision-making about water resources management raises a fundamental challenge for hydrologists: making predictions about water resources on decadal-to century-long timescales. Obtaining insight into hydrologic futures over 100 yr timescales forces researchers to address internal and exogenous changes in the properties of hydrologic systems. To do this, new hydrologic research must identify, describe and model feedbacks between water and other changing, coupled environmental subsystems. These models must be constrained to yield useful insights, despite the many likely sources of uncertainty in their predictions. Chief among these uncertainties are the impacts of the increasing role of human intervention in the global water cycle -a defining challenge for hydrology in the Anthropocene. Here we present a research agenda that proposes a suite of strategies to address these challenges from the perspectives of hydrologic science research. The research agenda focuses on the development of co-evolutionary hydrologic modeling to explore coupling across systems, and to address the implications of this coupling on the long-time behavior of the coupled systems. Three research directions support the development of these models: hydrologic reconstruction, comparative hydrology and model-data learning. These strategies focus on understanding hydrologic processes and feedbacks over long timescales, across many locations, and through strategic coupling of observational and model data in specific systems. We highlight the value of use-inspired and team-based science that is motivated by real-world hydrologic problems but targets improvements in fundamental understanding to support decision-making and management. Fully realizing the potential of this approach will ultimately require detailed integration of social science and physical science understanding of water systems, and is a priority for the developing field of sociohydrology.

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Spatial Misfit in Participatory River Basin Management: Effects on Social Learning, a Comparative Analysis of German and French Case Studies

Cited by 74 publications

References 0 publications

Spatial Fit, from Panacea to Practice: Implementing the EU Water Framework Directive

Spatial Fit, from Panacea to Practice: Implementing the EU Water Framework Directive

Implementing Participatory Water Management: Recent Advances in Theory, Practice, and Evaluation

Developing predictive insight into changing water systems: use-inspired hydrologic science for the Anthropocene

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