Multi-level Water Governance Research Articles

Combine Top-Down and Bottom-Up: Multilevel Water Governance for Sustainability Transitions

Combine Top-Down and Bottom-Up: Multilevel Water Governance for Sustainability Transitions

Water governance diversity across Europe: Does legacy generate sticking points in implementing multi-level governance?

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) aims to protect and improve water quality across Europe through an integrative and multi-level water governance approach. The goal is to ensure that water quality in Europe meets good ecological status by 2027. Whilst the WFD has been hailed as a cornerstone for governance innovation in water management, most EU member states (MS) still struggle to achieve good ecological status of their waters. The realignment to a multi-level governance structure under the WFD is discretionary, and has generated diversity in WFD multi-level governance implementation approaches and final governance arrangements across MS. This diversity may contribute to low goal achievement and weak compliance. This paper investigates how visual impressions of legislative structure across nine MS can illustrate and contribute to understanding the differences in multi-level implementation of WFD and associated water protection directives. We explore, in-depth, the drivers of visual differences in Portugal, Germany (Lower Saxony) and France. We hypothesise that many of the challenges of WFD implementation, and resulting governance arrangements can be explained in terms of the legacy effects of previous water governance choices. With this conceptual framework of investigating the history and legacy, we found the three in depth studies have had different starting points, paths, and end points in their water governance, with sticking points influencing the decision-making processes and compliance required by the WFD. Sticking points include the complexity of existing water governance structures, lobbying by different sectors, and the mandatory WFD timeline for implementation. Portugal had to resolve its focus on water infrastructure and engineering to enable a re-focus on water quality. France and Portugal experienced 'top down' governance at different points in time, slowing the shift to a multi-level governance system. Lower Saxony, representing just one of 16 federal state systems in Germany, highlighted the complex historic governance structures which cannot easily be restructured, generating a layering effect where new governance systems are fitted to old governance systems. We conclude that there is a need to implement a hybrid approach to water governance and WFD implementation including decentralisation (discretionary) to ensure collaboration and engagement of stakeholders at the local level. This hybrid governance system should run in parallel with a centralised (mandatory) governance and regulatory system to enable national environmental standards to be set and enforced. Such systems may provide the best of both worlds (bottom-up involvement of stakeholders meeting top-down goal achievements) and is worthy of further research.

Water governance in rural communities of Chiloé Island, southern Chile: A multi-level analysis

Water is one of the most demanded resources in rural areas of developing countries. Its management and governance need knowledge transfers and interactions among several actors at different administrative levels, starting with local social actors’ participation. In this article, we analyze the water governance in Chile using (i) a governance instrument matrix, (ii) institutional networks, and (iii) a multi-level water governance conceptual cascade model. We applied it to two watersheds (Ancud and Quellón) of Chiloé Island (southern Chile). We describe and discuss (a) political and institutional water governance structures and (b) the role of local rural drinking water committees (APR) as multi-actor collective organizations. The results show that despite several institutional governance shortcomings, most people (≥80%) living in rural-connected areas of Chiloé Island get water through APRs. In comparison, 68% of people from isolated areas get it from rivers without interacting with their neighbors. Based on our results, we discuss the need for a multi-level contextual approach to rural water governance.

The Effects of Public Participation on Multi-Level Water Governance, Lessons from Uganda.

Water governance occurs at multiple levels, from the local to the supra-national, which are often highly fragmented. The interconnected nature of water requires interactions among these multiple governance levels. Public participation may foster such interactions. Thus, many water management reforms involved decentralization and public participation worldwide over the last decades. Yet, it is not demonstrated how these reforms may improve water resources sustainability. Their analysis in the literature does not show concretely how interactions among multiple levels materialize and are influenced by participation. As such, the question addressed is how interactions among multiple levels of water governance manifest over time in a participatory intervention. Using a case study in the Rwenzori region in Uganda, this article compares the multi-level interactions before and during a participatory process. The latter has been purposely implemented to bridge gaps between local and provincial levels through a participatory planning process centred on the provincial level. Four types of flows were analyzed: information and knowledge, hydrosocial, financial and human. Our analysis shows that using artefacts like the role-playing game and planning matrix fostered bi-directional information and knowledge flows. Hydrosocial flows did not change in depth but the legitimacy of the two organizations implementing the participatory process was reinforced. Project financial flows were injected through a provincial academic institution, who is not a regular budget recipient. They were therefore superimposed on existing budgeting process. We conclude by providing suggestions for the engineering of participatory processes in order to foster more collaborative and effective multi-level water governance.

A Socio-Ecological System Analysis of Multilevel Water Governance in Nicaragua

Nicaragua enacted its Water Law in 2007, with the Dublin Principles for sustainable water management and integrated water resources management as its guiding framework. Implementation of the law remains a challenge, but significant efforts have been made to roll out this new water resources framework, to improve water management by enhancing a multilevel water governance system. To analyze multilevel water governance in Nicaragua and diagnose stakeholders’ roles and compliance with the law, we applied a socio-ecological system framework and several methods of analysis to process data collected from 52 in-depth semistructured interviews conducted with key stakeholders in the water sector. We found that the major variables affecting multilevel water governance were social interests, administrative capacity, and political, economic, and legal arrangements. The results suggest that there is centralization at the national level, a tendency toward noncollective choice rules, little investment in water resources, and a lack of knowledge concerning conflict resolution mechanisms. For multilevel water governance, a lack of funds is the main social, economic, and political constraint, affecting interactions and outcomes. Nevertheless, there is great potential to improve water resource management in Nicaragua by enacting the self-funding schemes established in the law. Moreover, government institutions, users, and various networks are willing to participate and take action to implement the law.

A Socio-Ecological System Analysis of Multilevel Water Governance in Nicaragua

Nicaragua enacted its Water Law in 2007, with the Dublin Principles for sustainable water management and integrated water resources management as its guiding framework. Implementation of the law remains a challenge, but significant efforts have been made to roll out this new water resources framework, to improve water management by enhancing a multilevel water governance system. To analyze multilevel water governance in Nicaragua and diagnose stakeholders’ roles and compliance with the law, we applied a socio-ecological system framework and several methods of analysis to process data collected from 52 in-depth semistructured interviews conducted with key stakeholders in the water sector. We found that the major variables affecting multilevel water governance were social interests, administrative capacity, and political, economic, and legal arrangements. The results suggest that there is centralization at the national level, a tendency toward noncollective choice rules, little investment in water resources, and a lack of knowledge concerning conflict resolution mechanisms. For multilevel water governance, a lack of funds is the main social, economic, and political constraint, affecting interactions and outcomes. Nevertheless, there is great potential to improve water resource management in Nicaragua by enacting the self-funding schemes established in the law. Moreover, government institutions, users, and various networks are willing to participate and take action to implement the law.

Enhancing the capacity of water governance to deal with complex management challenges: A framework of analysis

Despite numerous efforts to promote and implement more integrated approaches, coordination problems persist and impede sustainable water governance and management. This paper introduces a framework for guiding a transdisciplinary diagnostic approach (i.e. a context-sensitive assessment of multi-level water governance, which is combined with a change management process) to address such coordination problems. The approach aims at addressing some of the challenges identified in scientific scholarship and water governance practice by combining context-specific participatory assessments of individual cases with comparative case analysis guided by a generic conceptual framework. The focus is on implementation processes at regional and local scale and their embedding in a multi-level water governance system and a specific environmental and societal context.A coherent approach and formalized representation across individual cases is essential to develop cumulative knowledge and to improve the diagnostic strength of the approach. Based on a broad literature review and exploratory study of multiple, diverse cases conceptual framework identifies a variety of factors that are expected to be important for understanding the performance of environmental governance and management systems. The paper makes explicit the hypotheses on relationships between core variables that resulted from framework development. The framework, including the collection of hypotheses, offers a structured approach for analysing a phenomenon as complex and multi-facetted as coordination. It allows identification of multiple pathways that may lead an improvement or a decline in performance, respectively. The framework can find more widespread application in supporting comparative case study analyses with a focus on improving the understanding of policy implementation also beyond the field of water governance and management.

Multi-level water governance without integrated water resources management (IWRM): cooperation in the Columbia River Basin

Abstract International basins are divided into sub-basins that can be managed at the international, national and local levels, separately or together. Regarding the international level, many actors, beyond the States, participate in water management. This work is a case study on the Columbia River Basin (CRB), which is shared by the United States and Canada and its waters drain off into the Pacific Ocean. There are two theoretical foundations: multi-level governance and integrated water resources management (IWRM). Then, this work will demonstrate the impossibility of implementing IWRM in the CRB, even though there is multi-level governance within it, which allows cooperation between the United States and Canada, avoiding the risk of conflict in this basin.

Multi-Level Water Governance in The Tsavo Sub-Catchment, Kenya

Water scarcity amid soaring demand poses challenges to sustainable development, particularly when set against the backdrop of a surging global population and climate change. Despite policies that require for the incorporation of multi-level water governance arrangements to support integrated and participatory processes and ensure sustainable and equitable use of water resources, over-allocation of water resources in the Tsavo sub-catchment of southern Kenya, due to competition and scarcity, remains a hindrance. This has led to the reallocation of water resources away from ecosystems to supply irrigation and other economic activities. This study uses Governance Assessment Tool (GAT) to analyze water resource governance regime in the Tsavo sub-catchment. The results show that sub-catchment water governance is influenced by dispersed multi-level actors, some of whom were not connected to hierarchy and whose interests were diverse and conflicting. This was hindering participatory decision-making and efforts to co-produce governance arrangements that are context-specific. Water resource management regulations were developed and implemented by the Water Resources Authority (WRA) with inadequate consultation and limited consideration of local priorities.

Improved Water Services Cooperation through Clarification of Rules and Roles

Water services face global challenges, many of which are institutional by nature. While technical solutions may suit several situations, institutional frameworks are likely to vary more. On the basis of constructive research approach and new institutional economics we analyze and illustrate water services and the roles of various water sector actors in Finnish water utility setting using the “soccer analogy” by the Nobel Laureate D.C. North: Institutions are the “formal and informal rules of the game” while organizations are the “players”. Additionally, we assess the Finnish water governance system and discuss issues of scale and fragmentation and distinguish terms water provision and production. Finally, we elaborate the limitations of the soccer analogy to water services through ownership of the systems. According to the soccer analogy, inclusive institutional development requires skillful players (competent staff), team play (collaboration), proper coaching (education), supporters (citizens, media), managers (policymakers), and referees (authorities). We argue that institutional diversity and player/stakeholder collaboration are the foundation for enhancing good multi-level water governance, and that water management, although fragmented, should be seen as a connector of different sectors. For successful outcomes, scientific results should be communicated to public in more common language.

The Challenges of Water Management and Governance in Cities

Combined impacts of sea-level rise, river flooding, increased frequency and magnitude of extreme rainfall, heatwaves, water scarcity, water pollution, ageing or lacking infrastructures for water, wastewater and solid waste in rapidly urbanising regions in the world call for improved water management and governance capacity in cities to accelerate the transition to water-wise cities. The sixteen contributions to this Special Issue create further awareness and present solutions on integrated approaches, advanced water management practices and water governance strategies. It is concluded that cities require a long-term strategy and a multilevel water governance approach. Research has shown how important it is to involve the civil society and private parties early on in this process to create success. Collaboration among cities and regions by sharing best practices for rapid implementation are crucial to cope with nearly all Sustainable Development Goals.

Challenges of multi-level water governance at micro-watershed level – A case from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The micro-watershed level can be a promising unit for the integration and coordination of water management functions that affect sustainable water use and livelihoods of local communities such as farmer groups. Recent projects in the state of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil have advocated interventions at this level. However, micro-watersheds are still not adequately incorporated in the multi-level governance systems of water and related ecosystems in Brazil. Further, a complex landscape of non-local actors and higher-level policies interact and determine resource use patterns at the micro-watershed level. This paper maps stakeholders and shows their influence areas on key water issues using the example of micro-watersheds in Rio de Janeiro. It also highlights the key challenges arising from the governance practice and the institutional framework related to micro-watersheds.

A Transnational Urban Political Ecology of Water Infrastructures: Global Water Policies and Water Management in Hanoi

Using the lens of a transnational urban political ecology of water infrastructures in Vietnam, this article contributes to the understanding of the intersections between urbanization patterns, socioecological problems, financial schemes, and the power relations embedded in Hanoi’s urban water supply through politics of scale that aim to ensure safe drinking water. With the analysis of global water policies and their implications in the Southeast-Asian context, the objectives of this work are to (a) reveal the scalar nature of Hanoi’s water infrastructures by situating water management processes in a broader context of developmental issues, and (b) review lessons and prospects of past and future global targets of access to safe drinking water. The evidence of multilevel water governance processes and cross-sectoral challenges of safe water provision emphasizes the need for global networks of cooperation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 6 and contribute to other sectors aiming to “transform our world.”

Assessing the adaptive capacity of multi-level water governance: ecosystem services under climate change in Mälardalen region, Sweden

Adaptive and multi-level governance is often called for in order to improve the management of complex issues such as the provision of natural resources and ecosystem services. In this case study, we analyse the contemporary multi-level governance system that manages water resources and its ecosystem services in a fresh water lake in Sweden. We assess the relative importance and barriers of three commonly highlighted components of adaptive governance: “feeding ecological knowledge into the governance system”, “use of ecological knowledge to continuously adapt the governance system”, and “self-organisation by flexible institutions acting across multiple levels”. Findings reveal that the trickiest aspect of adaptive governance capacity to institutionalise is the iterative nature of feedbacks and learning over time, and that barriers to the spread of knowledge on social-ecological complexity through the governance systems are partly political, partly complexity itself, and partly a more easily resolved lack of coordination. We call for caution in trusting crisis management to build more long-lasting adaptive capacity, and we conclude that a process of institutionalising adaptive capacity is inherently contingent on political process putting issues on the agenda.

Scales of Power in Water Governance in China: Examples From the Yangtze River Basin

ABSTRACTTheories that explain the governance of water, such as integrated river basin management and multilevel water governance, point to scalar configurations of power as critical determinants of success (or failure). This article explains how the scalar configurations of power in water governance mirror those of the Chinese State, and influence water governance in powerful ways. We use the case of the Yangtze River and Shanghai, a megacity in the Yangtze estuary, as examples, showing how a local jurisdiction exercises its regulatory measures against different types of transjurisdictional water pollution and how these regulatory measures mirror the fluidity (or rigidity) of power configurations in hydropolitics in China. China’s evolving water resource management institutions are as yet unable to address the scalar configurations of power in water governance.

Scaling-up water community organizations: the role of inter-communities networks in multi-level water governance

Depuis les années 2000, des communautés locales en charge de la gestion des services d’eau ont commencé à se regrouper à des échelles d’action supérieures, sous la forme de réseaux sub-nationaux et nationaux, dans le but de promouvoir leur mode de gouvernance communautaire (notamment en Amérique du Sud). Elles tentent principalement de répondre à la fois à des pressions internes, telles que des difficultés techniques ou financières, et des pressions externes, surtout en provenance d’États visant la réappropriation du contrôle sur les ressources en eau dans un contexte de développement. Cet article vise à analyser le rôle de ces réseaux intercommunautaires, composés d’organisations communautaires de l’eau, dans la mise en œuvre de partenariats équitables avec les acteurs publics pour la gestion des services d’eau. Dans un premier temps, un cadre théorique et conceptuel pluridisciplinaire autour de la gouvernance multi-niveaux et des processus de « scaling-up » sera présenté. Dans un second temps, se fondant sur une comparaison entre l’Équateur et la Colombie, l’analyse aura pour but la compréhension du rôle de médiateur joué par les réseaux intercommunautaires dans la mise en œuvre de partenariats équitables avec les acteurs publics dans deux contextes différents de gouvernance de l’eau.

The City Blueprint of Amsterdam: an assessment of integrated water resources management in the capital of the Netherlands

In this study the sustainability of integrated water resources management in Amsterdam has been reviewed using the City Blueprint approach. The City Blueprint® is a set of 24 dedicated indicators divided over eight categories, i.e., water security, water quality, drinking water, sanitation, infrastructure, climate robustness, biodiversity and attractiveness, and governance including public participation. In 2006 the various urban water-related services in Amsterdam were brought under one roof, culminating in the country's first water cycle company called Waternet. Waternet is responsible for surface water (rivers, canals, ditches and lakes), groundwater, stormwater, drinking water supply and waste water treatment. The city's unique water cycle approach has proved highly beneficial. Currently Amsterdam is the best performing city of the 30 cities assessed so far. This can be explained by: (1) a long-term vision and a multi-level water governance approach, (2) integration of water, energy and material flows (e.g., struvite production), (3) the entanglement between urban quality and water management, and (4) the transparent communication to and feed-back from customers, i.e., farmers and citizens. Surface water quality and biodiversity remain future challenges.

Politics of innovation in multi-level water governance systems

Innovations are being proposed in many countries in order to support change towards more sustainable and water secure futures. However, the extent to which they can be implemented is subject to complex politics and powerful coalitions across multi-level governance systems and scales of interest. Exactly how innovation uptake can be best facilitated or blocked in these complex systems is thus a matter of important practical and research interest in water cycle management. From intervention research studies in Australia, China and Bulgaria, this paper seeks to describe and analyse the behind-the-scenes struggles and coalition-building that occurs between water utility providers, private companies, experts, communities and all levels of government in an effort to support or block specific innovations. The research findings suggest that in order to ensure successful passage of the proposed innovations, champions for it are required from at least two administrative levels, including one with innovation implementation capacity, as part of a larger supportive coalition. Higher governance levels can play an important enabling role in facilitating the passage of certain types of innovations that may be in competition with currently entrenched systems of water management. Due to a range of natural biases, experts on certain innovations and disciplines may form part of supporting or blocking coalitions but their evaluations of worth for water system sustainability and security are likely to be subject to competing claims based on different values and expertise, so may not necessarily be of use in resolving questions of “best courses of action”. This remains a political values-based decision to be negotiated through the receiving multi-level water governance system.

La gestión participativa del agua en Brasil: aspectos legales, institucionales y políticos (1988 - 2008)

Este estudio analiza y evalúa la nueva política pública de recursos hídricos de Brasil, cuyo marco normativo es la Ley Federal nº 9.433, del 8 de enero de 1997, promulgada en pleno período de Reforma del Estado Brasileño (1995). Esta política trajo importantes innovaciones en la gestión del agua, considerada bien público bajo el control de la Unión y de los Estados Federados por la Constitución Federal de 1988. El aspecto innovador de esta política es su sistema de gestión, basado en los Consejos Nacionales y Estaduales de Recursos Hídricos y los Comités de Cuencas Hidrográficas. La gestión participativa se basa en la participación de representantes del Poder Público, de los usuarios del agua y de la sociedad civil, cuya opinión se recogió mediante entrevistas en profundidad. Esta nueva política pública se implantó de forma desigual en todo el territorio nacional y es reflejo de las características y peculiaridades de cada región brasileña. Este trabajo analizó las experiencias regionales a partir de los enfoques teóricos de la gestión participativa y las relaciones multinivel en la gobernanza del agua, teniendo en cuenta las particularidades del federalismo brasileño. Los resultados de la investigación reflejan que la sociedad civil confía en esta forma de gestión de los recursos hídricos y tiene grandes expectativas de que podrían lograrse mejores resultados fortaleciendo la democracia brasileña. La recuperación de la ciudadanía, la participación en la ejecución de las políticas públicas, y la deliberación rápida de conflictos sobre el uso del agua han sido algunos de los principales logros de esta nueva forma de gestión de los recursos hídricos.

Multi-level water governance – the case of the Morsa River Basin in Norway

Management of fresh water resources meets a range of often conflicting interests. Waterways usually run across political and administrative borders and hence make management difficult and collective action politically challenging. In order to meet these challenges, multi-level bioregional approaches to water management have been called for. Such an approach is institutionalised in the EU's Water Framework Directive (WFD). This paper presents the experiences of the Morsa water sub-district in southern Norway, a pilot for implementing the WFD. The paper discusses Morsa in the light of four principles for multi-level water governance: management on a bioregional scale; polycentric governance; public participation; and an experimental approach to water governance. Contrary to widely held assumptions that collective action in polycentric networks will be difficult because actors will follow their own narrow interests, the findings demonstrate how this is not an absolute truth, and how social action cannot be fully explained by rational action theories. The analysis concludes that the relative success of Morsa relates to a complex of factors, including openness of practices and active involvement of key actors, strong but including leadership, and a knowledge based ‘hybrid’ type of multi-level network combining horizontal and vertical network governance.