Special Issue: Methods for Participatory Water Resources Management – Preface

Abstract

Research often takes place in different spheres than practical water management. For example, the European research community has been putting much effort into providing model-based tools to support water resource managers in designing and implementing water management strategies -including participatory and integrated approaches such as prescribed by the European Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC). Although a lot of information on river basin management is available in principle, water managers don't make much use of this information. Why is that so?We are aware that the answer to this question is not a single one. Nor is there a single solution to the problem. It is evident that simply providing information does not result in an effective communication across the science-policy interface. We are convinced that bringing the two "sides" -the researchers and the water managers -together and creating a dialogue between them is an important step to find some of the solutions.In the context of the special issue we aim to support this dialogue by discussing methods which may contribute to participatory water resources management. The idea for this special issue rose at the synthesis workshop of a two years-elicitation phase we carried out to learn more about the expectations of the researchers and the practitioners communities about the role and required attributes of models and information and communication tools in water management. Special emphasis was given to embed the analysis in a broad context of participatory water management as required by the European Water Framework Directive. Based on a more profound understanding of communication problems recommendations should be developed how the use of model-based tools in practical water management could be improved. In the first paper we present objectives and design of the elicitation phase and summarize the results of the elicitation phase by identifying seven misunderstandings between water managers and researcher which are then turned into recommendations how to improve the support of model-based tools in practical water management. During the synthesis workshop issues of major interest were identified in interactive group sessions with researchers and practitioners. Two of those issues were developed further into contributions in this issue: Brugnach et al. address the question of

Critical multi-level governance issues of integrated modelling: An example of low-water management in the Adour-Garonne basin (France)

“…The role of models in participatory assessment has been analyzed in-depth (Sterk et al, 2009;Horlitz, 2007;Oxley et al, 2004). A wide-range of integrated water resource assessment models is available (see Pahl-Wostl and Borowski, 2007;Letcher et al, 2007).…”

Water security in the Canadian Prairies: science and management challenges

“…The development of social networks between researchers and decision makers increases the likelihood that decision makers will use scientific information to govern water resources [53]. Pahl-Wostl & Borowski [54] and Dilling & Lemos [55] emphasized the importance of two-way, iterative engagement between producers and users of scientific information to build trust and better understand the needs of policy and what scientists can provide.…”

Where can social learning be improved in international river basin management in Europe?

“…Faced with the WFD, water managers feel great pressure due to the challenges of integration and the need to fi nd approaches to these challenges as quickly as possible due to the tight time schedule of the implementation process (Pahl-Wostl and Borowski, 2007). This is not surprising since the European Commission has identifi ed a number of the challenges, such as '(a)n extremely demanding timetable(.…”

“…the ability to save work or any other resource by transferring results, the ability to improve their own capacities or getting their interests better represented in the agreements. So far, water managers look for support in more bi-lateral settings by asking colleagues or other experts (Pahl-Wostl and Borowski, 2007). In the context of the development of the WFD, stakeholders at European level took advantage of the preference for bilateral mechanisms through the lobbying of their interests (Kaika and Page, 2003).…”