Synthesis and Recommendations Towards Risk-Informed River Basin Management

A conceptual model for enabling sustainable management of soil-sediment-water ecosystems in support of European policy

“…Jargon used by different communities (figure left) complicates communication, while a common language (right) facilitates learning together (Brils et al, 2014). …”

“…This concept provided the following building blocks for the conceptual model: • Pressures • The DPSIR logic can be related to the model Key-principles to risk-informed natural resource management Brils et al (2014) state: "As the pressures from both anthropogenic and natural causes on environmental systems increase, it is no longer effective or efficient to deal with one issue at a time, since solving a singular problem often causes damaging impacts on other environmental compartments or in other places. We must consider the consequences of our actions on all parts of the environment in an integrated way and configure these actions to cope with an uncertain future.…”

“…We may be able to cope with these uncertainties by applying the concept of adaptive management, characterised as 'learning-by-doing' or 'learning to manage by managing to learn' (Pahl-Wostl, 2007). The concept of adaptive management acknowledges the different kinds of uncertainty that there is (and will always be) lack of understanding on how the different parts of the soil-sediment-water system work and interact and how this will change with time (Brils et al, 2014). According to Apitz (2008), the success of adaptive management depends on a system of monitoring, structured feedback and decision making in which indicators of both desired (and undesired) potential outcomes are monitored and responded to in an informed way.…”

Towards more effective water quality governance

“…For the purpose of our analysis we have compared four frameworks from literature OECD 2015;) (see Table II.1) 13 . identified a three-layer model consisting of a content layer, an institutional layer and a relational layer, that can be used to compare different governance approaches and as a checklist for good governance.…”

“…Despite these limitations, the resulting list of papers does offer a wide overview of how scientific literature addresses the ecological, legal and social-economic perspectives on water quality governance and their interactions so far. [2] Sweden --X Baaner [3] Denmark, Sweden, Norway X X -Backes and Van Rijswick [4] Europe -X -Behagel and Arts [5] Netherlands --X Behagel and Turnhout [6] Netherlands --X Benson, et al [7] England, Wales (UK) -X X Blackstock, et al [8] Scotland (UK) X -X Blackstock, et al [9] Scotland (UK) --X Borowski, et al [10] Germany, France --X Braioni, et al [11] Italy X -X Bremer, et al [12] Latin America --X Brils, et al [13] Europe X -X Carpenter, et al [14] USA X -X Chang, et al [15] USA X -X Chen, et al [16] China X -X Chiang, et al [17] Chile X X -Comito, et al [18] USA --X Cook [19] Canada X X -Crabbé [20] Belgium -X X Crabtree, et al [21] United Kingdom --X Da Silva, et al [22] Portugal X -X deLeon [23] No specific country --X Dieperink, et al [24] Netherlands -X X Drazkiewicz, et al [25] Germany --X Duncan [26] New Zealand --X EC [27] Europe -X -ECJ [28] Europe vs. France -X -ECJ [29] Europe vs. Germany -X -ECJ [30] Europe vs. Germany -X -Elofsson [31] No specific country --X Freriks, et al [32] Netherlands -X X Gani and Scrimgeour [33] OECD countries X X - Grant (2000) [34] Europe X X -Gu, et al [35] China --X Guo, et al [36] China X -X Hageman...…”