Abstract
The 2000 EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) set a turning point in European water governance: mandated participatory planning substituted conventional top-down approaches, the ecology of aquatic environments became the WFD’s focal point, and the river-basin scale was institutionalized as the central governance unit. In 2007, the Floods Directive – a ‘daughter directive’ to the WFD – incorporated aspects of resilience through flood risk management. The two directives attempted a transition towards a sustainable and resilient water governance system; however, almost two decades later, it remains unclear whether the directives were instrumental in fostering such a transition. We report on several case studies in European water governance. These highlight the complexities of furthering change towards sustainability: institutional adaptation towards the new governance modes was slow and mandated participatory planning not instrumental for ground-breaking results. The European experience shows that adding more governance does not automatically bring about fundamental change.
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Notes
- 1.
Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters.
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Kochskämper, E., Newig, J. (2021). Water Policy and Governance in Transition: The EU Water Framework Directive. In: Baird, J., Plummer, R. (eds) Water Resilience. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48110-0_2
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