The concept of a participatory approach to water management on a reservoir in response to wicked problems

Abstract

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in the social, economic and environmental aspect is widely accepted although still represents a big challenge for its implementation in global, regional and local scales. This is particularly important in the situation of new investments. In the case of already existing hydro-technical facilities, which were built at the end of the nineties of the last century, water management takes into account only the ecological awareness for their design and social participation is limited to acceptance of the local community.The Mściwojów retention reservoir analysed in the article is an example of an object whose project included ecological solutions aimed at ensuring high water quality, and its construction was approved and supported by the local community. At present, the reservoir does not function in accordance with the adopted assumptions, and water management requires the implementation of system solutions that take into account contradicting expectations of users and stakeholders of the reservoir. The current situation can be categorized as a wicked problem. The article presents a proposal to solve the situation on the basis of a participatory approach involving stakeholders through social learning as a part of the reservoir management system. The system approach was developed based on the principles of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) and 10 Steps Planning Processing by Wilhite while using the causal loop diagrams (CLD). The result is an organizational model of the reservoir management structure and framework methodology for building solution scenarios. The key assumption of the proposed approach is the cyclicality of activities as part of the management process taking into account changes in the reservoir system and its settings in the social, economic and environmental aspects.