Abstract
The benefits of public participation in water management are recognized by governments, scholars, and stakeholders. These benefits, however, do not result from all engagement endeavors. This leads to the question: What are the determinants for effective public participation? Given a list of criteria for achieving the transformational capacity of participation, we analyze the benefits (including the influence on public policies) gained through public participation and the determinant factors for obtaining these benefits in the Ebro River Basin in Spain and in the Tucson Basin in Arizona (U.S.). Furthermore, and considering that droughts and floods are major water management challenges in both case studies, we focus on the potential of participation to build adaptive capacity. Our analysis of these case studies concludes that influence on public policies is determined more by the context of the participatory process, i.e., legal framework, political leadership, and social awareness, whereas influence on adaptive capacity building depends more on the characteristics of the participatory process, particularly the existence of active on-site consultation and deliberation.
Highlights
Water is a collective heritage with different functions, uses, and values
To further understanding of the potential that public participation has to increase adaptive-capacity in water management, we evaluated two case studies, Ebro River Basin in Spain and the Tucson Basin in the U.S state of Arizona, based on the framework identified in Blanco and Ballester [34] for determining the transformational capacity of a public process
For each case study we explored the connections between participation and adaptive capacity by examining the context, process, and outcomes of public participation in light of the following questions: (1) To what extent does the legal, institutional, political, and social context of participation and the participatory process influence the results of participation; and (2) What impact does the participatory processes have on public policies and adaptive capacity building?
Summary
Water is a collective heritage with different functions, uses, and values. Water is finite, vulnerable to contamination and the effects of climate variability, which makes its future availability uncertain. Governments and scholars alike note that decision-making for water should be through a collaborative and inclusive process, where all the voices are represented [1,2,3]. This recognition is reflected in requirements for public participation in different treaties and laws, in natural resource management (i.e., [4,5,6,7]). Public participation is defined here as the process through which citizens seek to influence public issues [8]. The opportunities for input can be embedded within or outside of institutions, and occur with different degrees of public influence on a process
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