Stakeholders Perspectives on the Use of Indicators in Water Resources Planning and Related Strategic Environmental Assessment

Abstract

Water resources planning is currently designed to meet emerging challenges and encompassing a more comprehensive and integrated water management. The main focus of current water resources planning is to promote good water resource conditions through the * Corresponding author. implementation of innovative water policies. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to characterize and assess the status of water resources, monitor the implementation of planned actions, disseminate information and support the decision-making process. Indicators are often regarded as appropriate tools for supporting these tasks, although their use in this context is not imperative. The present study intends to explore the stakeholder perspective on the role of indicators in the water resources planning and management processes and their strategic environmental assessment process using a Portuguese case study. To achieve this objective, semi-structured interviews with the various stakeholder groups involved were conducted. The treatment of the obtained data using content analysis shows that the interviewees consider indicators to be an essential tool for supporting water resources planning. Some participants express concerns and suggest changes to the selection models and to the communication and decision-support capacity of the sets of indicators used. All stakeholders in the process consider that improvements to the indicators to be used in future processes are possible. In light of the results, it can be concluded that there is a long way to go for indicators to be used to promote better communication with stakeholders and to support decision-making processes; simultaneously, they can form the basis for the review and development of the subsequent cycle of the planning process.

Quality Criteria to Evaluate Performance and Scope of 2030 Agenda in Metropolitan Areas: Case Study on Strategic Planning of Environmental Municipality Management

“…Under this action prism, the new environmental strategic planning (ESP) models require citizen participation and leadership as instruments of change and improvement. Some examples of successful case studies that have become reference models are the following: the ESP model to address issues related to the management of closed coastal seas [24][25][26]; effectiveness of ESP in Thailand to achieve the legitimacy of the processes [27]; ESP and the use of indicators in water resources planning [28]; integrated models that develop coherent and policy relevant socio-ecological strategies, which are relevant to policies where appropriate decision frameworks need to be co-developed across the range of stakeholders and decision-makers in Coastal Bangladesh [29]; integrated sustainability models in management organizations [30]; identify key governance challenges that cultivating collective action, accountability, decision spaces for stakeholder interaction regarding decision-making, investment, action, and outcomes [31]. All these approaches have the potential to integrate knowledge across the natural and social sciences, and to do so in a new way; that is, a framework to overcome ontological differences between the social and natural sciences, and thereby also overcome ontological barriers in sustainability research [24,32].…”