Abstract
This chapter reviews the literature on river basin governance to answer the following question: What does the literature on river basin governance tell us about how to understand and address metropolitan water challenges?
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Notes
- 1.
This chapter draws heavily on Brandeler et al. (2019).
- 2.
The boundaries of surface watersheds are generally delineated from topographic maps (Vaughan et al. 2016). The rain and snow that falls within this area is stored, filtered, seeped or drained into a common water body through a network of streams that drain the surface area and the groundwater that contribute to those streams.
- 3.
Although the river basin management approach has often been framed as one of decentralization, it represents a scaling up from municipalities (Cohen and Davidson 2011).
- 4.
For instance, the US Geological Survey (USGS) divides the United States into 21 regions, 222 sub-regions, 370 basins, 2,270 sub-basins, approximately 20,000 watersheds and around 100,000 sub-watersheds (USGS 2013).
- 5.
The introduction of zebra mussels into the Great Lakes, from ship ballast water, is estimated to have cost the North American economy over US$ 100 million and wreaked havoc on food webs and water supply systems (Cohen and Davidson 2011).
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van den Brandeler, F. (2022). River Basin Governance. In: Scalar Mismatches in Metropolitan Water Governance. Water Governance - Concepts, Methods, and Practice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08061-6_4
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