Participation and evaluation for sustainable river basin governance

E C O L O G I C A L E C O N O M I C S 6 8 ( 2 0 0 9 ) 9 3 1 – 9 3 9

ava i l ab l e a t www.sc i enced i r ec t . com

www.e l sev i e r. com/ loca te / eco l econ

Participation and evaluation for sustainable riverbasin governance

Paula Antunesa,⁎, Giorgos Kallisb, Nuno Videiraa, Rui Santosa

aEcological Economics and Environmental Management Group, CENSE — Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research,Faculty of Sciences and Technology, New University of Lisbon, PortugalbICREA & Institute for Environmental Science and Technology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain

A R T I C L E D A T A

⁎ Corresponding author.E-mail address: [email protected] (P. Antunes

0921-8009/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevidoi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2008.12.004

A B S T R A C T

Keywords:
This paper introduces a special section devoted to participation and evaluation forsustainable river basin governance. The departing point for this research was therecognition that although there is a relative agreement regarding the need to develop newmulti-dimensional, inclusive and plural approaches to water resource management, thereis still a deficiency of related methodologies and tools. This acknowledgement hasmotivated the undertaking of the ADVISOR — Integrated Evaluation for Sustainable RiverBasin Governance research project, which aimed at improving the understanding ofevaluation processes, as part of river basin planning and management, and to test the useof specific tools to support the conduct of participatory processes. The paper starts with adiscussion of the concept of integrated water resources management and an illustration ofthe water policies that have been adopted in different countries as a response to thesetrends. The conceptual framework that was developed in ADVISOR is then presented, aswell as the main results from the ex-post analysis of the decision processes regarding fivewater related projects in different European countries. This analysis concluded that, inmostsituations, the decision-making processes fell short of including the interests, perceptionsand values of affected parties. The remaining of the paper introduces the articles that formthis special section, mostly devoted to the testing of new platforms for participation anddeliberation. In the final section, a discussion on the assumptions and limitations ofdeliberative processes is presented, based on the results from the application of the differentmethods. Further research needs on the integration of different deliberative tools and on theintegration of deliberation with decision processes are identified.
© 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Water resources managementStakeholder participationWater governanceDeliberative processes

1. Introduction

In contemporary society, water is a major theme of scientific,economic, political social and human debate (Narasimhan,2005). This stems from the fact that water is a vital element forall living creatures; water has played a central role in thedevelopment of human societies since the ancient times. Thebiophysical foundations for this are summarized by the World

).

er B.V. All rights reserved

Water Council: “Water is life. All living organisms are predomi-nantlymade ofwater: human beings about 60%, fish about 80%,plants between80%and90%.Water isnecessary for all chemicalreactions that occur in living cells and is also the mediumthrough which information is exchanged between cells. Thesustainability of human development depends on the hydro-logical cycle, sincewater is essential for food production and allliving ecosystems”.

.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2008.12.004

mailto:[email protected]

932 E C O L O G I C A L E C O N O M I C S 6 8 ( 2 0 0 9 ) 9 3 1 – 9 3 9

Water availability is an essential component in socio-economic development and poverty reduction. Factors such asdemographic change, growing urbanization, poor sanitation,widespread poverty, ecosystem degradation, contaminationof water supplies, have a significant impact both on theresource and on managing water in an integrated, sustainableand equitable manner (UNESCO-WWAP, 2006).

Management of water resources is a particularly challen-ging and difficult task, where the complexities arising fromthe functioning of hydrological cycles and biological systemsare combined with the multiple perspectives, needs, valuesand concerns associated with the use of water for human-related purposes. Given the complexity, uncertainty andincreasing vulnerability of both natural and human systems,water managers around the world agree that the only wayforward is through an inclusive and integrated approach towater resources management (UNESCO-WWAP, 2006). Thisneed is even more acute in a context of global change, wherethe already severe problems of water scarcity, drought,sanitation, occurrence of extreme events, and changes inrainfall patterns and run-off will be exacerbated (Kashyap,2004).

Although there is a relative agreement regarding the need todevelop new approaches to water resources management,accounting for themulti-dimensional nature ofwaterproblems,the calls for inclusive governance, the plurality of perspectivesthat have to be integrated and the complexity and uncertaintyregarding water resources, there is still a considerable lack ofscientific background,methodologies and tools to support thesetasks (Pahl-Wostl et al., 2008; Turton et al., 2007).

2. Challenges and policy responses in waterresources governance

The concept of Integrated Water Resources Management(IWRM) has evolved as the response of the water resourcesscientific and technical community to the above mentionedcalls for anewapproach to dealwithwater related issues. IWRMhas been defined as “a processwhich promotes the coordinateddevelopment and management of water, land and relatedresources, in order to maximize the resultant economic andsocial welfare in an equitable manner without compromisingthe sustainability of vital ecosystems” (GWP-TAC, 2000).

Recently, the concept of IWRMhas received some criticism.For example, Biswas (2004) argues that the concept of IWRM isnot really new and that the definition formulated by the GlobalWater Partnership is “unusable, or un-implementable, inoperational terms”. Other authors argue that concept ofIWRM has been taken up too lightly by the water resourcescommunity (water scientists and water professionals) with alack of acknowledgment of the political dimension of theconcept (Gyawali et al., 2006).

Environmental fundamentals, such as river basin manage-ment, and economic fundamentals, relating to the value ofwater, are central to the paradigm and to the implementationof IWRM. However, IWRM demandsmuchmore than themererecognition of the environmental and economic value of waterand the planning of engineering and economic interventions.IWRM “is an intensely political process because water users

have interests […]. Prioritising water allocation with an eye onthe economy in general, and prioritizing investment to reduceenvironmental impacts, will conflict with the immediateconcerns of current water users” (Allan, 2003).

The acknowledgement of this political dimension of IWRMbrings about the need to adopt different approaches, whichinclude participation, consultation and inclusive politicalinstitutions to enable the mediation of the conflicting inter-ests over water. This inclusive political process requires thatthe interests of civil society, hierarchy (government), socialmovements (NGOs) and the private sector are included in thepolicy making discourse (Allan, 2003).

The concept of water governance has emerged as the “rangeof political, social economic and administrative systems that areinplace todevelop andmanagewater resources and thedeliveryof water services at different levels of society” (Rogers and Hall,2003). Although context plays a central role in the conceptuali-zation and operationalisation of water governance in a givenregion/country, awater governance frameworkmust in all casesinclude policies to enable participatory water management,capacity to engage in the policy process and the ability tonegotiate among stakeholders (Currie-Alder et al., 2006).

Governments in different parts of the World have recentlyacknowledged the new requirements for water resourcesmanagement arising from these challenges and have under-gone important reforms in their water resources managementpolicies.

The EuropeanWater Framework Directive (WFD) (Directive2000/60/EC) was published in October 2000with the purpose ofestablishing the overall framework for water resourcesgovernance in Europe. The key objective of the WFD is toachieve a “good water status for all European waters” by 2015(art. 4). The Directive establishes the following key aims(European Commission, 2007):

■ expanding the scope of water protection to all waters,surface waters and groundwater;

■ achieving “good status” for all waters by a set deadline;■ water management based on river basins;■ “combined approach” of emission limit values and quality

standards;■ getting the prices right;■ getting the citizen involved more closely;■ streamlining legislation.

The WFD defines the river basin as the geographical unitfor water resources planning and management and asks forthe prior evaluation and authorization of all new river basininterventions. For each river basin district — some of whichwill traverse national frontiers — a “river basin managementplan” will need to be established and updated every six years.

Several countries in Africa have also been undertakingimportant reforms in their water resources policies. One of themost cited examples is the water reform initiated in SouthAfrica after the end of the apartheid regime that culminatedwith the publication of the National Water Act in 1998. Thefundamental principle underlying this legislation is that wateris a national resource, owned by the people of South Africa andheld in custodian by the state. The Act provides for the creationof catchment management agencies that must draw a

1 Deliberation refers to a particular sort of discussion thatinvolves the careful and serious weighing of reasons for andagainst some proposition. It is the act of considering differentpoints of view and coming to a reasoned decision that distin-guishes deliberation from a generic group activity. Emphasis isgiven to the product that arises from discussion (e.g. a decision orset of recommendations), and the process through which thatproduct comes about (Fearon, 1998; Abelson et al. 2003; Renn,2006).

933E C O L O G I C A L E C O N O M I C S 6 8 ( 2 0 0 9 ) 9 3 1 – 9 3 9

management strategy for the catchment and will have toperform vital functions for the implementation of the Act. Infulfilling their functions, the agencies are required to activelypromote community participation (Hamman and O'Riordan,2000).

In Zimbabwe the water policy reform process culminatedwith thepublicationof theWaterActand theZimbabweNationalWater Authority Act in 1998. This reform basically entaileddemocratizing water resource management in Zimbabwe by(Manzungu, 2004):

- Revoking legal provisions that guaranteed privilegedaccess to agricultural water by white farmers;

- De-linking water rights from land rights, since themajorityof black population did not have land rights, and

- Broadening participation beyond water rights holders.

Water availability, water quality and water managementhave emerged as significant national issues in recent years inAustralia (NWC, 2007), following bellow average rainfall anddrought conditions in many areas of the country. Thecornerstone of Australia's water reform is the NationalWater Initiative (NWI), which is being implemented since2004, aiming to ensure the health of river and groundwatersystems, service rural and urban communities, as well asincreasing the productivity and efficiency of Australia's wateruse (COAG, 2004; Vardon et al., 2007). Through the NWI all thegovernments across Australia have committed to severalactions addressing issues related with water accounting,water pricing and service provision in water markets, con-servation of high value water ecosystems, and communityinvolvement in water planning in rural and metropolitanareas (NWC, 2007).

In the United States, the principal law dealing with waterquality issues is the Clean Water Act (CWA), which wasapproved in 1972 (P.L. 92-500). This comprehensive statuteemploys several regulatory and non-regulatory tools aiming torestore and maintain the chemical, physical and biologicalintegrity of national waters (Copeland, 2007). Recent efforts tothoroughly amend the act have stalled and the last majorreform dates back from 1987 (P.L. 100-4). Nevertheless,extensions or modifications to CWA programs have progres-sively shifted focus towards more efficient, integrated andparticipatory watershed approaches, as illustrated by some ofEPA's water protection strategies for the period between 2006–2011: issuing watershed discharge permits; implementing theWater Quality Trading Policy; assessing infrastructure needsby watershed; and involving stakeholder groups in waterprotection actions (Copeland, 2006; USEPA, 2006).

Evaluation and participation play a central role in waterresources planning processes in all these legislative frame-works. Evaluation here refers to the process of assessing andcomparing the relative values of one or more courses of action(Kallis, 2007). Public participation is understood here as “any ofseveral mechanisms intentionally instituted to involve the laypublic or their representatives in administrative decision-making” (Beierle and Cayford, 2002).

Evaluation and comparison of the advantages and dis-advantages of the different management options is a crucialstage in the IWRM process.

For example, in the WFD, evaluation is required in thefollowing cases (Kallis, 2007):

1. Preparation of river basin plans and programmes ofmeasures, which involve, among other tasks, the identifi-cation of significant water management issues in eachriver basin, the identification of necessary additionalmeasures in order to achieve objectives and a decision ona final cost-effective programme of measures;

2. Designation of protected areas, namely drinking watersources, areas with “economically significant aquaticspecies”, bodies of recreational waters including bathingwaters, nutrient-sensitive vulnerable zones and areas forthe protection of habitats or species where water is animportant factor in their protection;

3. Designation of heavily modified waters, including, forexample, water bodies such as regulated rivers, dams,and artificial canals, where lower standards apply and theaim is reduced from achieving good ecological status to“good ecological potential”;

4. Derogation from objectives, whereby a Member State mayaim to achieve less stringent environmental objectives forspecific bodies of water when they are so affected byhuman activity that the achievement of the objectiveswould be “infeasible” or “disproportionately expensive”;

5. Authorizations of actions such as abstractions andimpoundments of water as well as any other new activityin a river basin with “significant adverse impacts on thestatus of water”.

Participation in a river basin planning process is also a keyrequirement of the WFD (Article 14) (CEC, 2000):

1. Active involvement of all interested parties in the imple-mentation of the Directive shall be encouraged by MemberStates, in particular in the production, review and updatingof the river basin management plans;

2. Each river basin district shall ensure that the public (includ-ing users) has access to information and is consulted by theauthorities regarding the timetable and work programme forthe production of the plan, the interim overview of thesignificant water management issues in the river basin, andthe draft copies of the river basin management plan;

3. Authorities shall report back on how the consultationprocess affected the formulation of the river basinmanage-ment plan.

Unless the evaluation procedure of new plans and projectsevolves into a new, multi-dimensional and multi-stakeholderparticipatory deliberative1 approach, river basin objectives, asexpressed in the WFD, will be at stake (Videira et al., 2007).


However, this Directive does not provide any guidance to riverbasin authorities on how to carry such evaluations. Theimplementation of the WFD requires the development ofinterdisciplinary (or al least multidisciplinary) research, asnearly all elements of the WFD have technical, ecological,economic, legal and administrative aspects. Furthermore, theresearch should involve the major stakeholders and bepragmatic (Mostert, 2003).

Fig. 1 –ADVISOR's conceptual framework for integratedevaluation.

3. New approaches — the ADVISOR project

This special section synthesizes the main results developedunder the ADVISOR — Integrated Evaluation for Sustainable RiverBasin Governance research project, funded by the EuropeanCommission, under the 5th Framework Research Program2.Themain aimof the project was to improve the understandingof evaluation processes, as part of river basin planning andmanagement, and to test the use of specific tools to supportthe conduct of integrated and participatory processes.

A conceptual framework for integrated evaluation of riverbasin interventions was developed, consisting of three inter-related dimensions (Fig. 1) (Videira et al., 2007):

■ Information: collecting and presenting the relevant scien-tific information to the evaluation, accounting for thequality of data, the complexity of the problem and theuncertainty of the future, and allowing for multipledescription and explanatory frameworks;

■ Assessment: applying an assessment module to the data,consisting of a comprehensive evaluation of the plausiblealternative actions, accounting for different sustainabilityrelated criteria;

■ Process: actively involving the civil society and thestakeholders in the process of building-up the informationbase and performing the assessment.

All these dimensions are framed by the institutional,political and socio-economical context in which the riverbasin governance issue occurs, which forms the fourth verticeof the ADVISOR tetrahedron.

The ADVISOR project followed a two-tiered researchmethodology, comprising:

■ The development of a robust theoretical understanding ofthe barriers and opportunities for integrated evaluationprocesses in a pan-European, river basin context, based onthe ex-post analysis of five project/plan evaluation pro-cesses in different European countries, and the horizontalcomparison of those findings under the lens of eachdimension of ADVISOR's conceptual framework;

■ The test of different methods to support the implementa-tion of integrated river basin evaluation processes, aimedat promoting sustainability and improved governance ofsuch processes. The participatory methods tested includedscenario workshops, mediatedmodeling, and social-multi-criteria evaluation.

2 Contract EVK1-CT-2000-00074.

Within the scope of ADVISOR an ex-post analysis of thedecision processes regarding five water related projects wasundertaken. These cases included the Alqueva Dam Multi-purpose Project in Portugal, the Evinos reservoir in Greece, theriver Ebro inter-basin transfer in Spain, the Grensmass floodprotection project in the river Meuse in the Netherlands andthe designation of a rural area in Ythan, Scotland as a nitratevulnerable zone (NVZ).

The analysis of the evaluation processes undertaken inthese 5 cases revealed that, in general (with the exception ofthe Grensmaas case), the purpose of participation was stilllimited to providing accountability rather than contributing tothe substance of policy. The real impacts of participation stoodonly for the minimum required level of informing the public;there was no true involvement and collaboration of theinterested parties in the evaluation processes (Table 1)(Videira et al., 2006).

This review has also shown that the consultation techni-ques used in the cases, mostly public hearings and publiccomments, fell short of including the interests, perceptionsand values of the affected parties. This confirmed the need totest other platforms and tools to promote participation anddeliberation in the context of the WFD implementationprocess and to meet the requirement arising from waterpolicy developments in other parts of theWorld (Videira et al.,2006).

4. Platforms for participation and deliberation.Presentation of the special section

The first paper in this special section (Guimarães-Pereira andCorral Quintana, 2006) presents a framework to enhance qualityassurance of evaluation of river basin planning and governanceprocesses based on 3 pillars and 1 beam: inclusive governance,transparent assessment, socially robust knowledge andextended peer review. It was developed based on the pastevaluation of the five cases of European river basin governanceprocesses studied in ADVISOR, entailing analysis of emergentpatterns and linkages among the four vertices of the ADVISORtetrahedron (context, information, assessment and participa-tion), and looking into justificationsof past practice according tofour types of context: institutional, societal, knowledge and

Table 1 – Expost case studies analysed in ADVISOR: overview of the participatory processes (Videira et al., 2006)

Project overview Level ofparticipation

in theevaluation process

Major stakeholdergroups involved

Participatoryplatforms

Overall influence ofparticipation on the

final decision

TheAlquevaMultipurposeProject (AMP)wasconceived in the 1950's as a strategic waterreservoir for the Alentejo region in southernPortugal. The Alqueva dam is one of thebiggestdamsonWesternEurope.Theprojectwas approved in 1995 and aimed to promoteregional development of Alentejo; the AMPwas designed mainly for agriculturepurposes, but it also covers electricityproduction and tourism development(Videira et al., 2002).

Consultation National, regionaland local authorities

Expert panels Participation had amajor influenceonly during the follow-up andmonitoring stages of the projectEnvironmental

NGO's

Public hearingsWrittenstatementsFollow-upCommission

Local populationsEuropeanCommission

TheRiverEvinosreservoir inGreecewasbuiltto supply water for the city of Athens and islocated 210 km to the west of the city. Thisproject was conceived in 1964. However, theconstruction of the reservoir was decided asan immediate response to a critical droughtfaced by the city in 1990 and 1992. Thereservoir is a small/medium scale project(Hatzilacou et al., 2002).

Information National authorities Writtenstatements

Participation did not have amajorinfluence on the final decision toapprove the reservoir

EnvironmentalNGO'sWater professionalsEuropeanCommission

The River Ebro inter-basin water transfer ispart of the Spanish National HydrologicalPlan (PHN). Thestrategicobjectiveof thePHNis to reach a general water balance in Spainby means of the distribution of waterresources between the so-called “surplus”basins and “basins with structural deficits”.The transfer of around1050 hm3ofwater peryear was approved in 2001, despite theobserved strong social unrest (Del Moralet al., 2002).


Public hearings Participation did not play a majorinfluence on the final decisionalthough it influenced some ofthe adopted measures

EnvironmentalNGO's

Writtenstatements

Water professionalsEuropeanCommission

The Grensmaas project developed in TheNetherlands is located in the River Meuse,between Maastricht and Roosteren in theprovince of Limburg and along the frontierwith Belgium. The project aimed to combinethe commercial extraction of gravel withprotection against flooding and thedevelopment of a large natural area (VanLeeuween et al., 2002).

Involvement andcollaboration

National, regionaland local authorities

Public meetings Participation influenced thedesign of project alternatives andprogrammes of measuresEnvironmental

NGO's

Writtenstatements

Local populations

The River Ythan catchment was designateda Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) in the year2000. This is an intensively farmed lowlandarea in the North East Scotland coveringabout 69000 ha. Agriculture is the dominantform of land-use in the catchment, withabout 90% of the land area under some formof agricultural production. The River Ythanand estuary are areas of national andinternational conservation importance (Hillet al., 2002).


Public hearings Participation did nothave a majorinfluence on the finaldecision.

EnvironmentalNGO's

Writtenstatements

Water professionalsEuropeanCommission

Adapted from Arnstein (1969).


methodological. The paper also hints on quality requirementsthat could be recommended for future practice of river basingovernance evaluation activities.

Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is a common tool used in theappraisal of water projects, and the WFD calls for its use tosupport decisions concerning which river basin investments

are worthwhile and which are excessively expensive (“dis-proportionate costs”) and, therefore, should not be under-taken. Disproportionate costs justify derogation fromobjectives. Spash et al. (2006) make an argument for theextension of standard economic approaches to valuation byincluding psychological and ethical factors. They study a case


of valuation of biodiversity improvement options in theTummel catchment in Scotland. Their survey demonstratesthat psychological and ethical factors may offer a betterunderstanding of the motives behind responses to contingentvaluation than standard socio-economic variables, implyingthat alternativemeans ofmeasuring an individual's pluralisticvalues should be taken into account in order to assess thevalidity and meaning of willingness to pay.

The remaining three papers take on fromwhere this insightleaves us, and report on efforts to develop such alternative,pluralisticmeansofmediating and assessing competing values.The first of these (Videira et al., 2008), dealswith the applicationof a participatory modeling methodology to a case study in thelower part of the Guadiana River Basin (Baixo Guadiana,Portugal). A group of stakeholders collaborated throughoutthree workshops in the interactive development of a mediatedmodel scoping themainproblems, pressures and impacts in theriver basin. The model was then used to perform policysimulations and to draw a preliminary action plan for theBaixoGuadiana.Thearticle discusses the issueof groupstabilityand implications of volatile stakeholder groups in participatorymodeling processes. The experience revealed the flexibility ofthe method in adapting to different contexts and participatorydesigns and the capacity to structure the active involvement ofstakeholders, providing an open and shared language forcollaborative policy design, fostering learning and knowledgeintegration.

Kallis et al. (2007) discuss the use of deliberative visioning(DV), defined as a process of inclusive, multi-stakeholder delibera-tion over a desirable future. The authors look critically at theassumptions of deliberative visioning benefiting from a casestudy of a scenario workshop in the Greek island of Naxos.They argue that there are fundamental choices to be madeconcerning how to frame the process, who to invite and howto facilitate the workshop. The authors conclude that whereasvisioning motivates participants to work together and pro-vides a good framework to systematize discussion, it is notnecessarily effective for developing systemic perspectives orplan actions. This is especially true in contexts where there is

Table 2 – Comparison of three deliberative methods, participamulti-criteria evaluation (SMCE)

Tool Advantages D

PM Creates a group learning process; Educative Quantitative modeon professional sudemands robust in

Accommodation of participants withcomplexitySystems approach

DV Long-term thinking Too general, compEducative Much dependant oFosters dialogue and trust Limited time to as

concrete decisionsCreative thinking, innovative ideas“Win-win” partnerships

SMCE Quantitative and qualitative informationused

Complicated, mayto more free-flow

Use of formal assessment tools Over-dependant o

lack of a collaborative policy culture and where there are noinstitutions to integrate effectively a deliberative process withother processes of policy or social change.

The need to account for multiple dimensions in theevaluation of river basin interventions, associated with thecalls for more effective public involvement in decisionmakingprocesses as well as the need to handle the complexities anduncertainties associated with water governance issues lead tothe effort to develop new evaluation approaches. Panequeet al. (2006), present the results of applying a participativemulti-criteria analysis approach to a case dealing with theevaluation of urban supply alternatives in Costa del SolOccidental inMalaga (Spain). In this experiment,multi-criteriaand social research techniques were combined, relying onsocial actors' involvement throughout the research work. Theparticipatory process allowed to unveil framings, perspec-tives, values and interests, as well as understanding of thesocial and institutional aspects in water governance. Resultspoint to the potential of participatorymulti-criteria evaluationin supporting the identification and promoting a wideracceptance of policy options by the social actors involved inwater decisions (Paneque et al., 2006).

5. Towards integrating deliberative processes

Ecological economists see in deliberative processes, like theones presented in this issue, an alternative to standardeconomic appraisal techniques, such as contingent valuationstudies (Zografos and Howarth, 2008; Spash et al., 2006).Deliberative methods try to account for multiple values,uncertainty in information and asymmetries between indivi-duals. But this emphasis on deliberative methods as alter-natives, foreshadows that they too have their own limitationsand their own assumptions and framings as much as CBAdoes. This points to an interesting future research agenda ofcomparing the strengths and weaknesses, framings andassumptions of different deliberative methods. Vatn (2008),for example, proposes to think of alternative decision

tory modeling (PM), deliberative visioning (DV) and social

isadvantages Deliberation goals

l building is over-dependantpport. Simulation modelformation.

Social learning / Co-production ofknowledgeConsensus building

Innovative solutionsAppreciating differences

romise statements may result Social learning /Co-production ofknowledgen quality of facilitationInnovative solutionssimilate information and reachWin-win partnershipsAppreciating differences

constrain debate in comparisonmethods

Innovative solutions

n professional supportWin-win partnerships

Appreciating differencesConflict resolution

Decision


processes as institutions that assume, and by extension,construct different subjects and different visions of the goodsociety. If CBA assumes rational, selfish individuals and asociety where total utility is increased by the competitivepursuit of individual desires, then what is the alternativevision of different deliberative techniques?

The ADVISOR project generated, but did not fully address,these interestingquestions. Still somepreliminary comparisonsof the different deliberative methods were possible (Table 2).The essential difference between the three methods (participa-tory modeling, deliberative visioning and social multi-criteria)lies in the tool they use to structure deliberation and aiddecision-making: a dynamicmodel, a vision of the future, and amulti-criteriamatrix of alternatives, respectively. This choice oftool affects both the nature of mental and learning processesfostered and the type of substantive outputs delivered. Forexample, visions aim to unleash the creative powers of futuresthinking. Model-building aims to learning by appreciatingcomplex structural dynamics. Multi-criteria evaluation contri-butes to a better appraisal of options and trade-offs.

All three processes examined in this issue used a “stake-holder analysis” for the identification of participants to includein the process. The perception of society as the amalgam ofinterests articulated along stakeholder lines is a Western one,and actually one that did not easily fit the southern Europeansocio-political context of the case studies (see Kallis et al.,2007). The processes partly treated and constructed partici-pants as “stakeholders” and this had implications, good andbad, on subsequent participant behavior and stance during theprocess. A stakeholder view of society is not necessarily thebest one, as the individualistic vision of CBA, isn't either. Wecan instead start thinking about different assumptions andconstructions, fit for different purposes, and different modelsof participant selection, fitwith different democracy ideals andprocess outcomes (Table 3).

Table 3 – Comparison of different participant selection procedu

SelectionProcedure

Advantages

Openinvitation

Unrestricted participation Disproportio“hijacked” bup or have rLack of demNot applicabof participantechniques)

Stakeholders “Those who matter and can implement” Limited demInvite the excluded Bias in selec

RestrictionsparticipateNot represenStakeholdersconstituencynot reflect shTendency toof actors

Representative -Random

Partly representative Bias / limits

Limited roomgroup numb

Random Higher democratic legitimacy Lack of powerepresentati

These differences are not merely of theoretical interest.They determine the relative applicability of the methods fordifferent decision-making and planning purposes. For exam-ple, deliberative visioning and participatory modeling appearwell suited for the early stages of a water resource planningprocess (problem scoping and goals/alternatives identifica-tion). They serve well educative purposes and can supportcapacity-building of the participants. They are however lesscapable of resolving long-standing conflicts and sustainingconsensus. In comparison, social multi-criteria evaluation ismuch better equipped to evaluate alternatives, reveal trade-offs and seek convergence between divergent stakeholders'views. Such complementarities point to potential hybridmethods or combinations of several methods along theplanning process (Kallis et al., 2006, Antunes et al., 2006).

This is the idea behind the concept of an IntegratedDeliberative Decision Process (IDDP) launched and operatio-nalised in the ADVISOR project (Kallis et al., 2007). IDDP hintsto two levels of integration: integration between differentdeliberative processes employed to aid decision-making, andintegration between the deliberative activities with the rest ofthe decision process (its non-deliberative political part, or itsnormal science part).

IDDP recognizes first, that the goals of a deliberative processshould be set in the outset and linked to specific decisionoutputs. Participation often is considered as being “good” per se,and is conducted on the side, without clear feedbacks andconnections to the actual decisions. If participatory anddeliberative processes do not have clear goals, other than thegoal of having them, it is no surprise that their outcomes appearpartial and irrelevant to decisions. For example, it is importantto determine in advance whether the goal from participativedeliberation is to educate the participants, to reach consensusover a controversial aspect, to generate innovative ideas forsolutions, to propose and plan specific policy actions or to give

res

Disadvantages Deliberation goals

nate representation — processy interested groups who showesources, capacity

Social learning /Co-productionof knowledge (consultation)

ocratic legitimacyAppreciating differences

le when restrictions in numberts apply (as in more deliberative

ocratic legitimacy Social learning / Co-productionof knowledgetionConflict resolutionto people who might wish toAgreements – Action Plan

tative of population “Win-win” partnershipsmight not always represent(shifting positions in meeting mayifting positions of constituency)

Innovative solutions

employ established networks

Appreciating differences

in representation criteria

Decisions (verdicts)

for representation in smallersr to implement decisions / non-ve of real decision making power


space to the expression of conflict (Holmes and Scoones, 2000).Each of these goals calls for different types of stakeholderselection and process design, and in turn can contribute todifferent stages and tasks of a decision process.

Second, several deliberative tools should be combinedtogether in a longer-time process. The one-off participatoryworkshop model is clearly limited. Time and commitment areneeded to deliberate upon alternatives and develop sharedunderstandings and basis for negotiation and conflict man-agement. Time and resources are also needed in order toincorporate scientific information in the process and to buildthe capacity of participants to understand this information(with its uncertainties) and use it. Since each single tool orselection process has certain biases and limitations, it mightbe better to combine different methods and approaches, suchas for example a more open forum, with a stakeholder multi-criteria evaluation and a random selection citizens' jury.

This special section presents a collective effort in theunderstanding of the role of participation and deliberation inthe context of water resources management and in theexperimenting of tools for operationalisation of participatorydeliberative processes. The papers that follow are one step in adiscussion that is far from finished; important challengesremain ahead both for science and for public policy.

Acknowledgements

The research presented in this paper, and in this specialsection, was funded by the European Commission under the5th Framework Research Programme, through the projectADVISOR — Integrated Evaluation for Sustainable River BasinGovernance (contract EVK1-CT-2000-00074).

R E F E R E N C E S

Abelson, J., Forest, P.-G., Eyles, J., Smith, P., Martin, E., Gauvin, F.-P.,2003. Deliberations about deliberative methods: issues in thedesign and evaluation of public participation processes. SocialScience & Medicine 57, 239–251.

Allan, J.A., 2003. IWRM/IWRAM: a new sanctioned discourse?Occasional Paper 50, SOASWater Issues Study Group, School ofOriental and African Studies/King's College London,University of London.

Antunes, P., Santos, R., Videira, N., 2006. Participatory decisionmaking for sustainable development — the use of mediatedmodeling techniques. Land Use Policy 23, 44–52.

Arnstein, S., 1969. A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of theAmerican Institute of Planners 30, 216–224.

Beierle, T., Cayford, J., 2002. Democracy in Practice. PublicParticipation in Environmental Decisions. Resources for theFuture, Washington D.C.

Biswas, A., 2004. Integrated water resources management: areassessment. AWater ForumContribution.Water International29 (2), 248–256.

CEC — Council of the European Communities, 2000. Councildirective of the European Parliament and of the Councilestablishing a framework for community action in the field ofwater policy.Official Journal of the EuropeanCommunities L 327.

COAG — Council of Australian Governments, 2004.Intergovernmental Agreement on a National Water Initiative.available online at [http://www.coag.gov.au/].

Copeland, C., 2006. Water Quality: Implementing the CleanWater Act. Congressional Research Service. The Library ofCongress. available online at [http://www.ncseonline.org/NLE/CRS/].

Copeland, C., 2007. CleanWater Act: A Review of Issues in the 109thCongress. Congressional Research Service. The Library ofCongress. available online at [http://www.ncseonline.org/NLE/CRS/].

Currie-Alder, B., Thompson, L., Bustamante, R., 2006. Insights onwater governance: research in the Middle East/North Africaand Latin America. Presented at Survival of the Commons:Mounting Challenges and New Realities, the EleventhConference of the International Association for the Study ofCommon Property, Bali, Indonesia, June 19–23, 2006.

Del Moral, L., Pedregal, B., Calvo, M., Paneque, P., 2002. River Ebrointerbasin water transfer. Work Package 1 of project ADVISOR.Universidad de Sevilla.

European Commission, 2007. Introduction to the new EU WaterFramework Directive. available online at [http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-framework/info/intro_en.htm].

Fearon, J.D., 1998. Deliberation as discussion. In: Elster, J. (Ed.),Deliberative Democracy. Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, pp. 44–68.

Guimarães-Pereira, A., Corral-Quintana, S., 2006. Quality of RiverBasin Governance Processes, a 3 Pillars & 1 Beam Framework.Ecological Economics. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2006.09.014.

Gyawali, D., Allan, J.A., Antunes, P., Dundeen, B., Laureano, P.,Fernández,C.,Monteiro, P., Khanh,H.,Noväcek, P., Pahl-Wostl, C.,2006. EU-INCO water research from FP4 to FP6 (1994–2006). ACritical Review, European Commission, Directorate GeneralResearch, International Scientific Cooperation, EUR22017.Office for Official Publications of the European Union,Luxembourg. 92-79-01022-0.

GWP-TAC, 2000. Integrated water resources management, globalwater partnership. Technical Advisory Committee BackgroundPaper No 4. Global Water Partnership, Stockholm.

Hamman, R., O'Riordan, T., 2000. South Africa's Policy Transition toSustainability: Environmental andWater Law.availableonlineat[http://www.africanwater.org/SAPolicyEnv_and_water.htm].

Hatzilacou, D., Kallis, G., Coccossis, H., 2002. The River EvinosReservoir, Work Package 1 of project ADVISOR.University of the Aegean.

Hill, G., Urama, K., Spash, C., Wynn, G., 2002. The designation ofRiver Ythan and Estuary as a nitrate vulnerable zone. WorkPackage 1 of project ADVISOR. The Macaulay Institute.

Holmes, T., Scoones, I., 2000. Participatory environmental policyprocess. Experiences from North and South, Working Paper113, Institute for Development Studies.

Kallis, G., Videira, N., Antunes, P., Guimarães Pereira, A., Spash, C.,Coccossis,H.,CorralQuintana,S., delMoral, L.,Hatzilacou,D., Lobo,G.,Mexa,A., Paneque, P., Pedregal, B., Santos, R., 2006. Participatorymethods for water resources planning and governance,environment and planning C. Government and Policy 24, 215–234.

Kallis, G., 2007. Integrated evaluation in the waterframework directive. In: Videira, N., Kallis, G., Antunes, P.,Santos, R. (Eds.), Integrated Evaluation forSustainable River Basin Governance. IWA Publishing, London.ISBN: 1843391481.

Kallis, G., Hatzilacou, D., Mexa, A., Coccossis, H., Svoronou, E.,2007. Beyond the manual: practicing deliberative visioning in aGreek island. Ecological Economics. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2007.07.002.

Kallis, G., Videira, N., Antunes, P., Santos, R., contributors, 2007.Integrated deliberative decision processes for water resourcesplanning and evaluation. A Guidance Document. IWAPublishing, London.

Kashyap, A., 2004. Water governance: learning by developingadaptive capacity to incorporate climate variability andchange. Water Science and Technology 49 (7), 141–146.

http://www.coag.gov.au/












Manzungu, E., 2004. Water for all: improving water resourcegovernance in Southern Africa, Gatekeeper Series No. 113.International Institute for Environment and Development.1357-9258, London.

Mostert, E., 2003. The European water framework directive andwater management research. Physics and Chemistry of theEarth 28, 523–527.

Narasimhan, T.N., 2005. Water: science and society. CurrentScience 89 (5), 787–793.

NWC — National Water Commission, 2007. Water reform inAustralia. Australian Government, National WaterCommission, Camberra.

Pahl-Wostl, C., Tàbara, D., Bouwen, R., Craps, M., Dewulf, A.,Mostert, E., Ridder, D., Taillieu, R., 2008. The importance ofsocial learning and culture for sustainable water management.Ecological Economics 64 (3), 484–495.

Paneque, P., Corral, S., del Moral, L., Guimarães, A., Pedregal, B.,2006. Participative Multi-criteria Analysis for the Evaluation ofWater Governance Alternatives. A Case in the Costa del Sol(Málaga). Ecological Economics. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2006.11.008.

Renn, O., 2006. Participatory processes for designingenvironmental policies. Land Use Policy 23, 34–43.

Rogers, P., Hall, A., 2003. Effective water governance. Global WaterPartnership, Technical Advisory Committee Background PaperNo 7. Global Water Partnership, Stockholm.

Spash, C., Urama, K., Burton, R., Kenyon, W., Shannon, P., Hill, G.,2006. Motives Behind Willingness to Pay for ImprovingBiodiversity in a Water Ecosystem: Economics, Ethics andSocial Psychology. Ecological Economics. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2006.09.013.

Turton, A., Hattingh, H., Maree, G., Roux, D., Claassen, M.,Strydom,W. (Eds.), 2007. Governance as a Trialogue:

Government-Society-Science in Transition. Springer-Verlag,Berlin.

UNESCO-WWAP, 2006. Water a shared responsibility. The UnitedNations World Water Development Report 2. United NationsEducational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO),Paris and Berghahn Books, New York.

USEPA, 2006. 2006-2011 EPA Strategic Plan: Charting Our Course.UnitedStatesEnvironmental ProtectionAgency,WashingtonD.C.

Van Leeuwen, E., Dalhuisen, J., Vreeker, R., Nijkamp, P., 2002. TheGrensmaas Project. Work Package 1 of project ADVISOR. VrijeUniversiteit Amsterdam.

Vardon, M., Lenzen, M., Peevor, S., Creaser, M., 2007. Wateraccounting in Australia. Ecological Economics 61, 650–659.

Vatn, A., 2008. An Institutional Analysis of Methods forEnvironmental Appraisal, unpublished manuscript,Department of International Environment and DevelopmentStudies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway.

Videira, N., Lobo, G., Antunes, P., Santos, R., Guimarães Pereira, A.,2002. Alqueva multipurpose project. Work Package 1 of projectADVISOR. New University of Lisbon.

Videira, N., Antunes, P., Santos, R., Lobo, G., 2006. Public andstakeholder participation in European water policy: a criticalreview of project evaluation processes. European Environment16, 19–31.

Videira, N., Kallis, G., Antunes, P., Santos, R. (Eds.), 2007. IntegratedEvaluation for Sustainable River Basin Governance. IWAPublishing, London. ISBN: 1843391481.

Videira, N., Antunes, P., Santos, R., 2008. Scoping river basin issueswith participatory modeling: the Baixo Guadiana experience.Ecological Economics. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2008.11.008.

Zografos, C., Howarth, R. (Eds.), 2008. Deliberative EcologicalEconomics. Oxford University Press, New Delhi.






Documents

Participation and evaluation for sustainable river basin governance