Increasing Good Governance to Achieve the Objective of Integrated Water Resource Management
This project investigates the factors influencing effective coordination and cooperation in the water sector. It aims to improve steering capacities towards good governance so that practitioners and experts can better address the complex nature of water resource problems. Working closely with local actors, the project team identifies systemic challenges and develops solution strategies. A Water Governance Toolbox collects the results and makes them available to users around the world.
Project Lead:
Ines Dombrowsky
Claudia Pahl-Wostl
Project Team:
Elke Herrfahrdt-Pähle
Mirja Schoderer
Financing:
Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
Time frame:
2017 - 2020
/
completed
Co-operation Partner:
Universität Osnabrück, Institut für Umweltsystemforschung (IUSF); Universität Osnabrück, Institut für Sozialwissenschaften (ISW); Ecologic Institut gemeinnützige GmbH (ECO); Universität Kassel, Internationale Agrarpolitik und Umweltgovernance (UKS); Oldenburg-Ostfriesischer-Wasserverband (OOWV); Emschergenossenschaft, Abteilung Strategisches Flussgebietsmanagement (EMG)
Project description
Managing water resources sustainably to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals is a daunting task. Competing demands and rapidly changing environmental conditions pose challenges that countries worldwide are struggling to meet. Cooperation and coordination among sectors and across spatial and administrative levels are critical but often hampered by systemic challenges. This project investigates which factors influence effective cooperation and coordination, as well as their role for integrated and adaptive management. Jointly with local actors, the project team develops innovative solution strategies to increase steering capacities towards good governance in the water sector.
The project recognizes the need to find problem-specific solutions instead of applying panaceas and thus
- Develops and tests a diagnostic approach to analyze diverse governance and management systems
- Conducts an analysis of how the characteristics of these system influence the solution of complex water resource issues
- Investigates the influence of contextual factors (social, cultural, environmental) on effective cooperation and coordination
- Establishes a range of instruments that allow for a context-sensitive analysis of whether and how elements of effective governance systems and successful strategies can be transferred from one location to another
- Identifies solution strategies from which possible courses of action can be derived to increase steering capacities in the short, medium, and long term
The project draws on five in-depth case studies in Germany, Mongolia, South Africa, and Spain, the results of which are validated in a series of smaller studies in other countries or river basins. Involving local actors in all phases of the project ensures that its results are relevant to practitioners and water users, while simultaneously contributing to the capacity development of local participants. By combining a diagnostic approach with a comparative analysis and a toolbox, the project generates a better understanding of whether and how solution strategies can be transferred from one location to another. It supports the development of case-specific instruments that reflect local environmental and social context factors. The toolbox, along with an interactive, expandable database of case studies encourages an international learning process and exchange of experiences even beyond the scope of the project.
Researchers from the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) coordinate the in-depth case study on Mongolia, drawing on extensive experience and insights gathered in previous projects, namely MoMo – Integrated Water Resource Management in Central Asia: Model region Mongolia and IWAS – International Water Alliance Saxony. The DIE further contributes to the development of the diagnostic approach, as well as the in-depth case study on South Africa, and the validation of the project’s results in a series of smaller case studies.
Publications
-
Effects of policy and functional (in)coherence on coordination – A comparative analysis of cross-sectoral water management problems
Ines Dombrowsky / Andrea Lenschow / Franziska Meergans / Nora Schütze / Evelyn Lukat / Ulf Steine / Ali Yousefi (2022)
in: Environmental Science & Policy (131), 118-127 -
Hydro-social dynamics of miningscapes: obstacles to implementing water protection legislation in Mongolia
Schoderer, Mirja / Daniel Karthe / Ines Dombrowsky / Jampel Dell'Angelo (2021)
in: Journal of Environmental Management (292), article 112767 -
Enhancing the capacity of water governance to deal with complex management challenges: a framework of analysis
Pahl-Wostl, Claudia / Christian Knieper / Evelyn Lukat / Franziska Meergans / Mirja Schoderer / Nora Schütze / Daniel Schweigatz / Ines Dombrowsky / Andrea Lenschow / Ulf Stein / Andreas Thiel / Jenny Tröltzsche / Rodrigo Vidaurre (2020)
in: Environmental Science and Policy 107 (May), 23–35 -
Contested water- and miningscapes: explaining the high intensity of water and mining conflicts in a meta-study
Schoderer, Mirja / Marlen Ott (2022)
154 -
Overcoming coordination gaps between water, energy and agriculture: future paths to water protection in Weser-Ems
Meergans, Franziska / Christina Aue / Christian Knieper / Sascha Kochendörfer / Andrea Lenschow / Claudia Pahl-Wostl (2020)
Briefing Paper 25/2020 -
Lösung komplexer Wasserprobleme durch Koordination jenseits des Staates – Erkenntnisse aus Südafrika
Stuart-Hill, Sabine / Evelyn Lukat / Catherine Pringle / Claudia Pahl-Wostl (2020)
Analysen und Stellungnahmen 20/2020 -
Cómo mejorar la coordinación en la gobernanza del agua en el sur de España: cooperación, incentivos y persuasión
Schütze, Nora / Andreas Thiel / Pilar Paneque / Jesús Vargas / Rodrigo Vidaurre (2020)
Briefing Paper 23/2020 -
Strengthening coordination in river basin governance in southern Spain: cooperation, incentives and persuasion
Schütze, Nora / Andreas Thiel / Pilar Paneque / Jesús Vargas / Rodrigo Vidaurre (2020)
Briefing Paper 18/2020 -
Coordination and cooperation of water management, nature conservation and open space development in the Emscher restoration
Tröltzsch, Jenny / Nadine Gerner / Franziska Meergans / Ulf Stein / Robynne Sutcliffe (2020)
Briefing Paper 22/2020 -
Coordination beyond the state to solve complex water problems: insights from South Africa
Stuart-Hill, Sabine / Evelyn Lukat / Catherine Pringle / Claudia Pahl-Wostl (2020)
Briefing Paper 21/2020 -
Forums, fees and data flows: coordinating mining and water policy in Mongolia
Schoderer, Mirja / Ines Dombrowsky (2020)
Briefing Paper 20/2020 -
Koordination in der Governance von Flussgebieten in Südspanien stärken: Kooperation, Anreize und Überzeugungsarbeit
Schütze, Nora / Andreas Thiel / Rodrigo Vidaurre / Pilar Paneque / Jesús Vargas (2020)
Analysen und Stellungnahmen 16/2020 -
Foren, Gebühren und Datenflüsse: Koordination der Bergbau- und Wasserpolitik in der Mongolei
Schoderer, Mirja / Ines Dombrowsky (2020)
Analysen und Stellungnahmen 15/2020 -
Koordination und Kooperation von Wasserwirtschaft, Naturschutz und Freiraumentwicklung beim Emscher-Umbau
Tröltzsch, Jenny / Nadine Gerner / Franziska Meergans / Ulf Stein / Robynne Sutcliffe (2020)
Analysen und Stellungnahmen 12/2020 -
Im Spannungsfeld von Wasser-, Energie- und Landwirtschaftspolitik: Neue Wege für den Wasserschutz in der Weser-Ems-Region
Meergans, Franziska / Christina Aue / Christian Knieper / Sascha Kochendörfer / Andrea Lenschow / Claudia Pahl-Wostl (2020)
Analysen und Stellungnahmen 13/2020 -
Water policy and mining: mainstreaming in international guidelines and certification schemes in environmental science and policy
Schoderer, Mirja / Jampel Dell'Angelo / Dave Huitema (2020)
in: Environmental Science and Policy (111), 42-54 -
The river basin as a new scale for water governance in transition countries? A comparative study of Mongolia and Ukraine
Dombrowsky, Ines / Nina Hagemann / Annabelle Houdret (2014)
in: Environmental Earth Sciences 72 (12), 4705-4726 -
Evolving river basin management in Mongolia?
Houdret, Annabelle / Ines Dombrowsky / Lena Horlemann (2014)
in: Dave Huitema / Sander Meijerink (eds.), The politics of river basin organisations: coalitions, institutional design choices and consequences, Cheltenham: Elgar, 265-297 -
The institutionalization of river basin management as politics of scale: insights from Mongolia
Houdret, Annabelle / Ines Dombrowsky / Lena Horlemann (2014)
in: Journal of Hydrology 519, Part C, 2392-2404 -
Applying the concept of fit to water governance reforms in South Africa
Herrfahrdt-Pähle, Elke (2014)
published on Ecology and Society 19 (1) -
Integrated and adaptive governance of water resources: the case of South Africa
Herrfahrdt-Pähle, Elke (2013)
in: Regional Environmental Change 13 (3), Special Issue, 551-561 -
Institutionalising IWRM in developing and transition countries: the case of Mongolia
Horlemann, Lena / Ines Dombrowsky (2012)
in: Environmental Earth Sciences 65 (5), 1547–1559 -
Integriertes Wasserressourcen-Management als Koordinationsproblem
Dombrowsky, Ines (2005)
in: Susanne Neubert u.a. (Hrsg.), Integriertes Wasserressourcen-Management (IWRM): ein Konzept in die Praxis überführen, Baden-Baden: Nomos Verl.-Ges., 61-82