Understanding public trust in water managers: Findings from the Netherlands

Remko Voogd,Jasper R De Vries,R Beunen

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.113749

Remko Voogd, Jasper R De Vries + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.113749

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Abstract

Public trust in water managers is often considered an important precondition for the effective implementation of sustainable water-management practices. Although it is well known that general public trust in government institutions is under pressure, much less is known in the literature on water governance whether such distrust also affects general and task-specific trust of the wider public in water managers. In addition, empirical studies on the determinants of such trust seem to be scarce. To fill those gaps, this study aims to measure general and task-specific public trust in water managers in the Netherlands and to assess how a selected group of potential determinants is related to general- and task-specific trust in water managers. To this end, we employ an original survey among a representative sample of the Dutch population (N = 2262). We find that trust in water managers in the Netherlands is generally high, but that it also comes with some task-specific variations. People have more trust in the flood-protection capacities of the water managers than in the capacities to successfully manage surface-water quality, nature conservation, and drought management. Using linear regression models, we subsequently find that individual-level variations in trust in water managers are best explained by one's general level of political trust. Additionally, we also show that both risk perceptions and self-evaluations of how informed people feel themselves about water management are important factors with (curvilinear) relations with trust in water managers. Overall, we conclude that water managers are under specific conditions able to build themselves well-established reputations and relatively high trust levels based on their performances. Nevertheless, trust development is far from entirely in the hands of the water managers themselves as we also conclude that trust evaluations of water managers are not immune from negative generalized political evaluations and public perceptions on water related risks.

Highlights

Designing and implementing sustainable water systems is to a large extent dependent on whether the organizations that are responsible for water management are regarded as trustworthy and legitimate, both by affected stakeholders and the wider public (Smith et al, 2013; Stern and Coleman, 2015)
As we found that the selected predictors explain trust in both organizations in rather similar ways, here we present a series of more parsimonious models in which we explain trust in water managers in a more general sense
We think that our findings are of substantial interest for water managers across the globe

Summary

Introduction

Designing and implementing sustainable water systems is to a large extent dependent on whether the organizations that are responsible for water management are regarded as trustworthy and legitimate, both by affected stakeholders and the wider public (Smith et al, 2013; Stern and Coleman, 2015). Water managers is a broad term that refers to the governmental organizations that have assigned roles and responsibilities concerning water quantity and quality (Huitema and Meijerink, 2017) These responsibilities range from more traditional tasks such as flood protection, irrigation, and drinking-water supply, to addressing more recent issues such as drought, climate change adaptation, and nature conservation (Pahl-Wostl et al, 2012; van Buuren et al, 2012; van Steen and Pellenbarg, 2004; Verkerk and Buuren, 2013). As a result of these differentiations, to day’s water-governance systems are more diffuse, with a greater divi sion of authority, diverse hierarchical relations, and spaces for deliberation (Huitema et al, 2009), in which a wide range of stake holders are involved Those stakeholders often have diverse perspectives on the problems, the involved risks (Drews and van den Bergh, 2016), and their solutions (Benson and Jordan, 2010).

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