Evaluating participation in WFD river basin management in England and Wales: Processes, communities, outputs and outcomes

Abstract

Participatory environmental governance is increasing worldwide. One area where such governance forms are apparent is in the management of water resources. For example, in the European Union the Water Framework Directive mandates several forms of involvement via its legal obligations. Under the Directive, implementing agencies should provide information on river basin management planning to the public, consult citizens and stakeholders during planning and actively involve interested parties in the plan process. Yet questions arise over the success of participatory processes on the ground in EU member states. In this study, participation was therefore evaluated in WFD river basin planning in England and Wales using process, community, output and outcome-related indicators. Research was conducted through extensive quantitative and qualitative data collection over a long temporal scale within case analyses of the Anglian, Humber and South West river basin districts. Results suggest that while the first phase of river basin management largely met legal requirements, the actual success of participatory water governance was mixed. On this basis, recommendations are made for enhancing participation in future river basin planning through national and EU policy.

Addressing Complexity in Environmental Management and Governance

“…The Directive has some prevailing governance dimensions, for example regarding the role of participation in river basin management planning [58]. However, when it comes to addressing various sub-problems such as establishing buffer strips in agriculture or implementing more effective wastewater treatments plants, rules can be more or less obligatory, and actors can be involved to different degrees, among others.…”

Stakeholder Engagement and Knowledge Co-Creation in Water Planning: Can Public Participation Increase Cost-Effectiveness?

“…The issue of public participation and related benefits in EU water planning has been dealt with in a number of scientific publications (recent examples: [30][31][32]). Many of these studies discuss the social dimension and process of participation, and not the relationship between cost-effectiveness, public participation, and output, even though the benefits of public participation are mentioned in the scientific literature as well as in policy documents.…”

“…Examples are the Swedish water councils which have broad representation of user stakeholders in local catchments [63]; the Basin Committees in France have representations of users and non-state actors, local government actors, and state government actors in equal share [52]; and the River Basin District Advisory Councils in the Republic of Ireland include representatives from interested parties who consider matters relating to the preparation of RBMPs [60]. Meanwhile, in other regions (e.g., Denmark, and to some degree England and Wales), the involvement of stakeholders has been limited to public consultations and information campaigns [13,32,49,51,64]. However, Article 14 prescribes three different public participation principles that should be followed when member states implement RBMPs: securing information, consultation, and the encouragement of active involvement of stakeholders.…”

Governance change and governance learning in Europe: stakeholder participation in environmental policy implementation

“…Bourblanc, Crabbé, Liefferink, & Wiering, 2012;Brouwer et al, 2013;Jager et al, 2016;Paul, Bouder, & Wesseling, 2016;Scheuer & Rouillard, 2008;Uitenboogaart, van Kempen, Wiering, & van Rijswick, 2009), and within particular member states (e.g. Benson, Fritsch, Cook, & Schmid, 2014;Newig et al, , 2016Woods, 2008). The overriding general finding is that there is a wide variety of approaches and experiences across the different member states and within some member states.…”