Abstract
Increasing pressure on mountain water resources is making it necessary to address water governance issues in a transdisciplinary way. This entails drawing on different disciplinary perspectives, different types of knowledge, and different interests to answer complex governance questions. This study identifies strategies for addressing specific challenges to transdisciplinary knowledge production aiming at sustainable and reflective water governance. The study draws on the experiences of 5 large transdisciplinary water governance research projects conducted in Austria and Switzerland (Alp-Water-Scarce, MontanAqua, Drought-CH, Sustainable Water Infrastructure Planning, and an integrative river management project in the Kamp Valley). Experiences were discussed and systematically analyzed in a workshop and subsequent interviews. These discussions identified 4 important challenges to interactions between scientists and stakeholders—ensuring stakeholder legitimacy, encouraging participation, managing expectations, and preventing misuse of data and research results—and explored strategies used by the projects to meet them. Strategies ranged from key points to be considered in stakeholder selection to measures that enhance trustful relationships and create commitment.
Highlights
Sustainable water governance is gaining importance worldwide with the realization that human activities strongly affect water resources and changed water regimes affect ecosystems and human wellbeing
Because water-related problems are likely to be accentuated in the Alps, these regions provide good learning opportunities for sustainable water governance
We focus on difficulties related to stakeholder integration that were experienced in 5 large transdisciplinary water governance projects in Austria and Switzerland
Summary
Sustainable water governance is gaining importance worldwide with the realization that human activities strongly affect water resources and changed water regimes affect ecosystems and human wellbeing. Water governance has to cope with growing uncertainties due to sociodemographic and climate change. Mountain regions such as the European Alps are likely to be especially sensitive to projected warming, precipitation, and other changes (Viviroli et al 2011). The economies of many mountain regions depend heavily on water-related activities such as agricultural irrigation, hydropower production, and tourism. Rivalries among these uses have become more frequent in recent decades (Hill 2012; Reynard and Bonriposi 2012). Because water-related problems are likely to be accentuated in the Alps, these regions provide good learning opportunities for sustainable water governance
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