Ten building blocks for sustainable water governance: an integrated method to assess the governance of water

Abstract

A three-step interdisciplinary method to assess approaches to water shortage, water quality and flood risks is presented. This method, based on water system analysis, economics, law and public administration, seeks to create common understanding based on newly developed concepts and definitions. First, generating content knowledge about the water system and about values, principles and policy discourses. Second, providing an organizational process with sufficient stakeholder involvement, insight into the trade-off between social objectives, and attribution of responsibilities in addition to regulations and agreements. Finally, implementing the agreed service level through adequate infrastructure, enforcement and conflict resolution.

Assessing the Governance Capacity of Cities to Address Challenges of Water, Waste, and Climate Change

“…Most studies mention policy implementation as crucial (Adger et al 2005;Ekstrom et al 2011;Van Rijswick et al 2014). Implementing capacity is substantiated through 9.1 policy instruments, 9.2 statutory compliance and 9.3 preparedness.…”

“…Information availability refers to the extent that reliable knowledge is available. A lack of knowledge inhibits informed decision-making (Rowley 2007;Van Rijswick et al 2014). Many cities authorities recognize the lack of knowledge of how future trends, such as urbanization and climate change, will affect them (Amundsen et al 2010).…”

Introduction

“…Some of the assessment frameworks come from large supranational organizations, such as multiple assessment tools from the UN (different programs). Others include for instance the work of Van Rijswick et al (2014) mentioned above, but also the work of the authors of this book. Many of the mentioned assessment tools have a specific focus, for instance gender (UN WWAP UNESCO, Project for Gender Sensitive Water Monitoring Assessment and Reporting), solidarity (UNDP Global water solidarity, Certificate for Decentralized Water Solidarity), or sanitation (for instance UN-Water, WHO, GLAAS Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water, and IDB, IWA, AquaRating).…”

“…However, assessment methods for water governance are scarce, and often lack integrality or scientific foundation. As van Rijswick et al (2014) state in their recent article on water governance assessment:…”

Water Governance, Stakeholder Engagement, and Sustainable Water Resources Management

“…It is a given that sustainable water governance requires shared systems knowledge [12]. Failures of participation to increase capacity have led investigators to search for effective tools to create knowledge.…”