A thorough analysis resulting in a wide range of concrete actions to improve the water governance in areas with water quality problems, that is what the WaterProtect project is all about. ILVO, work package leader for Water Governance has recently published a (deliverable 2.2) report with project briefs on the governance structure in every action lab.
The main part of the report exists of seven project briefs, one for each action lab, that describe the governance state at the start of the project, the project efforts to give new impulses to the different actors in the action lab and the progress made in every action lab.
Every project brief includes extensive information on:
• the general characteristics of the action lab
• the start situation and local context in the 7 action lab
• the process with the different actions and measures taken (farmers’ visits, open discussions, workshops...)
• the achievements in the action lab
The report gives both quantitative (e.g. how many and which kind of meetings have taken place, and which actors were present or involved?) and qualitative information (e.g. which type of actions work best to attract the attention or increase the involvement of different kind of actors?).
Essential to draw conclusions
In order to draw conclusions and formulate some lessons learned, a cross-comparison between the action labs now has to be performed. This will allow to designate explanatory characteristics, i.e. context factors and action lab characteristics that might have an important influence on the functioning of the governance system and thus the water quality in the action labs. Also the experiences of the action labs with the different contact methods will be compared and assessed. All these insights will be bundled in Deliverable 2.4 (‘Developing sustainable water governance systems: principals and practices’), which will serve as a guide or manual for managers of water catchments willing to work on the water quality in an environmentally and socially sustainable way.
Download the deliverable report 2.2 'Project briefs about governance system in each case-study' on the link below.