Integrated watershed revitalization: the experience of the Mersey Basin Campaign

Abstract

The collaborative partnership approach has been used extensively in the practice of integrated river basin management across the world for at least the last two decades. This is despite the fact that there has been widespread acknowledgement that partnership working has operational difficulties, especially in the face of political inequality in a real-life context. This paper draws on the results of a research project investigating a concrete example of collaborative partnerships, the Mersey Basin Campaign, a government-sponsored 25-year initiative that aimed to improve water quality and the waterside environments of the Mersey River Basin. This research explores how the Campaign came to be formed, how it was organized and how partnership projects were implemented. The mechanism of the partnership service delivery is developed under three headings: consensus building, facilitation and open participation. The analysis of the results shows that governance and leadership partnership arrangements, which have evolved over time to reflect changing political and institutional environments, are critical for the implementation of watershed partnerships. The results from revisiting the practice of the Mersey Basin Campaign should be of assistance to planners to improve governance of watershed partnerships.

Special issue on comprehensive watershed management: sustainability, technology, and policy

“…The land selection process has not been transparent to the expected standard, and the purpose of land acquisition is unknown to local residents who are concerned about profit-seeking resales. Yamashita's research finding emphasizes the critical role of public participation and involvement in the administrative process, which is also simultaneously addressed in the first three papers presented in this Special Issue (see Kim and Batey 2020;Kim et al 2021;Nolf et al 2020). Yamashita concludes that the procedural practice in the planning process can resolve conflicts by building the appropriate degree of consensus among stakeholders.…”

“…A common thread linking those papers is the desirability of reproducible approaches and methods that can facilitate a transformation of watershed management practice. Kim and Batey (2020) illustrate a systematic delivery framework of watershed management by investigating the Mersey Basin Campaign, an institutional winner of an international prize in watershed management. The authors explore a government-sponsored 25-year initiative in the United Kingdom, and provide valuable insights on how watershed partnership can operate throughout its lifecycle.…”

Impact of the municipal merger on watershed management: a study of Lake Kasumigaura, Japan

“…Future research should evaluate the Great Heisei Consolidation strategy by conducting simulations that consider such uncertainties. In addition, investigation of collaborative partnership approaches in watershed management, such as those presented in Kim and Batey (2020), using the Mersey Basin Campaign as an example, may also be an important area of focus for gaining public consensus on policy implementation.…”

Embracing integrated watershed revitalization in Suzhou, China: learning from global case studies

“…Watershed sustainability issues are essential to tackling a river basin ecosystem management to create a win-win strategy for wider stakeholders (Kim 2002). While there are common themes in watershed management issues, such as sustainability, the priority among the local watershed management issues and problems has varied in different societies and periods.…”

“…Most studies in watershed management practice have focused on a partnership approach as an instrument for collaborative planning. In the literature on partnerships, a much-debated question is whether the operation of partnerships can coordinate various interests among stakeholders in the face of conflicts and uneven power distribution (Basco-Carrera et al 2018;Boschet and Rambonilaza 2018;Kim and Batey 2020;Meijerink and Huitema 2017;Nikitina et al 2010;Rouillard and Spray 2017). On the other hand, a considerable amount of literature has also addressed how a partnership can be operated more effectively and efficiently.…”