In 2011, the European Council stressed the significance of water quality for sustainable development in Europe and emphasized the need for better integration of the water policy objectives into the Common Agriculture Policy Water Policy 15 (2013) 830-849 reform in rural areas. Since 2000, the Water Framework Directive (WFD) has required the EU Member States to target good ecological status for their water bodies. However, the implementation of the Directive for the numerous Mediterranean temporary streams has been delayed indicating the need for elaboration of the tools and methods that address the special characteristics of such water bodies. This requirement has been addressed by the recently completed MIRAGE project. In the context of the recent publication of the European Commission's Blueprint to Safeguard Europe's Waters, the MIRAGE-proposed framework for the characterization of the ecohydrological dynamics and the systematic description of the measured impact for temporary rivers could bring considerable added value to the EU revision of all relevant water policies. The project recommends additions to WFD articles including an explicit definition of temporary rivers, adaptation of environmental objectives to their peculiarities and establishment of a proper method to determine the initial status and specific actions in River Basin Management Plans.

Accepting the positive results that public participation can bring in the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), this paper seeks to contribute to ongoing discussions on the rather problematic WFD implementation in southern Europe. Within this framework, we fi rst focus on the national level and the analysis of 'water governance' and 'public participation' within the context of WFD implementation in Greece, and secondly on the examination of the participatory methods introduced locally for the preparation of the Evrotas River Basin management plan. The fi rst section focuses on public participation as an indispensable ingredient of good water governance. The next focuses on the introduction of the WFD as an instance of governance that promotes participatory arrangements. We then present the centralized structure of the Greek state as an impediment to the introduction of public participation in water governance. The fourth section focuses on the Evrotas River Basin and describes the participatory arrangements for the preparation of the management plan. The paper concludes with the verifi cation of the need for participatory processes to respect the context within which they are pursued and with specifi c alterations to the way public participation has been planned and implemented in Greece.

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