A Review of Stakeholder Engagement in Integrated River Basin Management

Abstract

To address water-related issues of river pollution, floods, droughts, and ecological water allocations, there is a need for an integrated river basin management (IRBM) plan for the successful management of all the river basins in the country. Stakeholder engagement is one of the important elements for the effective implementation of IRBM. In this study, a systematic bibliometric analysis has been successfully carried out to identify the trends, patterns, and research gaps in the establishment of stakeholder engagement frameworks in IRBM. Three renowned scientific databases were used to quantitatively assess the published literature on stakeholder engagement. The search contributed by providing a clear understanding and mechanisms for an effective stakeholder engagement, thus highlighting the research gap, whereby there is a lack of an effective stakeholder engagement framework for IRBM. Based on the analysis results, it was found that many pieces of literature have been written about the implementation of IRBM, including the importance of stakeholder engagement or participation. However, there is very limited study on how effective stakeholder engagement could be carried out to enhance water management at the river basin level. The findings also recorded that stakeholder engagement can serve as a form of social learning, and leadership plays a significant role in ensuring the effectiveness of stakeholder engagement in IRBM. From the review analysis, it was concluded that further research studies need to be carried out at the river basin level to formulate an effective stakeholder engagement framework for the sustainable management of water.