EU Water Governance: Striking the Right Balance between Regulatory Flexibility and Enforcement?

Abstract

Considering the challenges and threats currently facing water management and the exacerbation of uncertainty by climate change, the need for flexible yet robust and legitimate environmental regulation is evident. The European Union took a novel approach toward sustainable water resource management with the passage of the EU Water Framework Directive in 2000. The Directive promotes sustainable water use through long-term protection of available water resources, progressively reduces discharges of hazardous substances in ground and surface waters, and mitigates the effects of floods and droughts. The lofty goal of achieving good status of all waters requires strong adaptive capacity, given the large amounts of uncertainty in water management. Striking the right balance between flexibility in local implementation and robust and enforceable standards is essential to promoting adaptive capacity in water governance, yet achieving these goals simultaneously poses unique difficulty. Applied resilience science reveals a conceptual framework for analyzing the adaptive capacity of governance structures that includes multiple overlapping levels of control or coordination, information flow horizontally and vertically, meaningful public participation, local capacity building, authority to respond to changed circumstances, and robust monitoring, system feedback, and enforcement. Analyzing the Directive through the lens of resilience science, we highlight key elements of modern European water management and their contribution to the resilience of the system and conclude that the potential lack of enforcement and adequate feedback of monitoring results does not promote managing for resilience. However, the scale-appropriate governance aspects of the EU approach promotes adaptive capacity by enabling vertical and horizontal information flow, building local capacity, and delegating control at multiple relevant scales

Resilience (Republished)

“…Such restructuring raises issues of representative democracy, accountability, and legitimacy in governance (e.g., Hahn 2011, Cosens 2013. There is also the problem of fit between institutions, governance, and socialecological systems (e.g., Galaz et al 2008, Ekstrom and Young 2009, Treml et al 2015 and how institutions and governance systems can handle change and stability simultaneously (e.g., Duit et al 2010, Voß and Bornemann 2011, Green et al 2013 including cascading changes of an intertwined world (e.g., . Global governance challenges are raised in relation to planetary boundaries and stewardship (e.g., Biermann et al 2012, Galaz et al 2012a) and the emergence of new forms of institutions for governance of the biosphere (e.g., Galaz et al 2012b).…”

The European Union approach to flood risk management and improving societal resilience: lessons from the implementation of the Floods Directive in six European countries

“…Citizens should be engaged early in the process, there should be a process to embed participatory outcomes, and there should be opportunity to challenge decisions Huitema et al (2009) T , Keessen and van Rijswick (2012) T The legal framework is adequate in enabling the achievement of its aims. For this purpose, the legal framework should provide the necessary conditions for implementation of the rules, which includes their enforcement by public and private actors, and should not provide obstacles that hinder implementation Dietz et al (2003) T , Buijze (2009) T,L , Green et al (2013) T,E,L , Söderasp (2015) E,L T,E † Superscrips indicate whether the paper was principally theoretically based (T), empirically based (E), or based on legal analysis (L). ‡ A goal attainment view of effectiveness considers whether a management instrument is able to achieve what it set out to do.…”

“…Each of the following examples focuses on different aspects of socialecological resilience: general perspectives (Ebbesson 2010); integrated water management and adaptation to climate change (Keessen and van Rijswick 2012); and specific elements that may improve resilience such as flexibility (Green et al 2013), legitimacy Holling 2002, Folke et al 2005, Huitema et al 2009, Garmestani and Benson 2013, Chaffin et al 2014). Our research encompasses broad and complex notions of resilience that couple social and ecological systems (Folke 2006, Young et al 2006.…”

“…The principle of subsidiarity, inherent within much EU legislation, is a concept that acknowledges that effective management requires consideration of the scale at which it is implemented. Indeed, Green et al (2013) highlight that the nested approaches to governance advocated by some EU Directives (such as the Water Framework Directive [WFD]), which include managing risks at multiple scales, are symptomatic of managing the inherent complexity of changing and uncertain systems. The river basin approach, not only with respect to river basin districts shared between states, but also at the more local level, is thus an important element for evaluating resilience of flood risk policies and is one of the aspects analyzed here.…”

Dealing with change and uncertainty within the regulatory frameworks for flood defense infrastructure in selected European countries

“…The analysis is conducted within the framework of the growing body of literature on the interactions among law, adaptive governance, and resilience, both generally (e.g., Ebbesson 2010, Ruhl 2011, Ebbesson and Hey 2013) and particularly in the field of water governance (e.g., Bruch and Troell 2011, Keessen and van Rijswick 2012, Green et al 2013, Clarvis et al 2014. This literature often focuses on legal adaptation for water quality or water supply.…”