Special Issue “Public Policy Analysis of Integrated Water Resource Management”

Karin Ingold,Jale Tosun

doi:10.3390/w12092321

Abstract

Public policy analysis is interested in how policies emerge and develop in order to address societal problems. Issues related to water, such as the contamination of surface waters, floods, or plastic pollution in oceans are often highly complex, concern different jurisdictions, and require the collaboration of public and private actors. This complexity is addressed through integrated water management principles. However, these principles give room to open questions such as: what are the main challenges of policy analysis (research and practice) in terms of multi-level actor involvement (politics), cross-sectoral solutions (policies), and new institutional arrangements (polity)? To answer these questions, the seven papers of this Special Issue combine approaches borrowed from policy analysis with principles of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). Each article tackles a complex, water-related problem and collectively, the papers present empirical evidence from case studies located around the world. We learn from all these analyses that adopting a policy perspective helps disentangling the procedural components of IWRM (the involvement of actors, the definition of the appropriate management area, the attribution of competences, etc.) from more substantial ones (like the development of a management plan and the implementation of measures). Addressing cross-sectoral and multi-level challenges is a difficult task, and policy analysis can help shedding light on both, the legitimacy of processes, and the effectiveness of their outputs and outcomes.

Highlights

Societies all over the world face increasingly complex water-related problems that are characterized by high uncertainty about their sources and effects, and that occur at diverse levels, scales, and temporalities [1,2,3]
These principles give room to open questions such as: what are the main challenges of policy analysis in terms of multi-level actor involvement, cross-sectoral solutions, and new institutional arrangements? To answer these questions, the seven papers of this Special Issue combine approaches borrowed from policy analysis with principles of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM)
Pacheco-Vega suggests “going local” and enhancing the fit between the scale of the problem and the scale of the management of the problem. He suggests a local micro-watershed approach to tackle water challenges at the urban and peri-urban level. The contributions to this special issue have all demonstrated the value of concepts originating from policy analysis for studying empirical phenomena related to IWRM

Summary

Introduction

Societies all over the world face increasingly complex water-related problems that are characterized by high uncertainty about their sources and effects, and that occur at diverse levels, scales, and temporalities [1,2,3]. Polity, institutions, and the rules of the game can enlarge the room of maneuver of some actors, and act as barriers on others In this context, complex socio-ecological interdependencies need to be addressed when considering the effective management of natural resources [4,9,25,26]. As the contributions of this Special Issue show, we consider it an added value when researchers are clear about what policy dimension (substantive, procedural, or institutional) is most relevant for the case under study (see [27]) Some authors present their water-related challenges and try to explain one dimension (typically policy outputs) through specificities of the other two dimensions: the process (politics) or the institutional setting (polity) that lead to this output (see [28,29,30,31]). Cross-sectoral implications for the design of management plans and implementation measures

Content of the Special Issue

Conclusions