Public Participation in Water Resources Management ... - BioOne

Anna Jonsson

Public Participation in Water Resources Management: Stakeholder Voices on Degree, Scale, Potential, and Methods in Future Water Management The European Water Framework Directive puts strong emphasis on stakeholder and public participation in water management. Several practical questions regarding who should be involved, why, when, and how still remain unanswered. This paper investigates stakeholders’ own experiences and views of increased public participation in water management. The article also explores the potential for increasing levels of participation by forming catchment committees with representation from stakeholder groups and through the use of various practical methods for participation. For both these aspects of participation, the views, expectations, and apprehensions of different stakeholder groups involved in nutrient loss management are investigated. Stakeholder opinions were collected by inviting representatives from five stakeholder groups within the Ro¨nnea˚ catchment in southern Sweden to a catchment dialog process.

INTRODUCTION That public participation can contribute to successful sustainable watershed management is by many considered as a fact (1– 6). Increased recognition of diffuse pollution as causing major environmental problems clarifies the need for approaches that extend beyond the legal/administrative tools that have hitherto dominated environmental policy. Public participation is said to provide for a better-informed general public, legitimate remediation plans, more efficient implementation of measures, and a reduction of conflict among stakeholders (7–12). Public participation could also replace traditional enforcement activities, and thereby save costs (13, 14). Increased public participation may also improve the democratic process by involving people in decision-making processes (7, 15, 16). The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) draws from many of these ideas. Besides the increased importance of ecological criteria and hydrological boundaries in water management, a major principle of the WFD is the emphasis on public and stakeholder participation in water management (17). Preambles 14 and 46 state that the very success of WFD implementation relies on active public involvement (18). Article 14 states that member states must ‘‘encourage the active involvement of all interested parties’’ and ensure that a number of specified documents are ‘‘published and made available for comments to the public’’ (18). The WFD’s Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) document on Public Participation (19) identifies several advantages of public participation: increased public awareness; better use of knowledge and experiences from different stakeholders; increased public acceptance through a more transparent decision-making processes; reduced litigation, delays, and inefficiencies in implementation; and a more effective learning process between the public, governments, and experts (19). Public participation is Ambio Vol. 34, No. 7, November 2005

not, however, seen as a goal in itself. The degree of participation and target groups for participation envisaged in the WFD can be visualized in Figure 1. Member states are ultimately responsible for achieving the goals of the WFD. Thus, national legislation will decide how the issue of participation is dealt with at the regional and local levels. Swedish environmental legislation stipulates consultation for urban development plans at the municipal level and for the establishment of environmentally disturbing activities (20). Moreover, access to most public sector documents is guaranteed by the principle of public access to information (21). These forms of participation are well institutionalized in Sweden and can thus readily be used in the new water management context. Until recently, Swedish efforts to mitigate eutrophication have to a large extent been carried out through regulatory processes. In land management, regulation of individual agricultural enterprises is still the dominant strategy. Strict and detailed regulations have not, however, been able to deliver the expected results because of high monitoring and enforcement costs to control diffuse pollution by this strategy, in combination with a lack of resources at the local Environmental Protection Agency level. Thus, some initiatives to actively involve local stakeholder groups in water resource management at the catchment and subcatchment levels have emerged. All government committees dealing with Swedish WFD implementation have emphasized the need for public participation in future water management, including measures against eutrophication (22–25). Thus, Sweden’s implementation of the WFD illustrates the need for more knowledge on participatory approaches to environmental management. Experiences from Agenda 21 show that a main challenge has been to attract enough interest and readiness to participate among the public and stakeholders, especially in the longer run (26–28). This paper investigates and explores the perceptions, views, and expectations of stakeholders themselves on issues of public

Figure 1. Degree of participation and targets groups for participation in the WFD (19).

Ó Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 2005 http://www.ambio.kva.se

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participation in managing eutrophication. Which potentials and problems do they identify? Which target groups do they see as relevant to address, and to what degree should target groups be involved (informed, consulted, actively involved) in different contexts? Which practical methods for public participation and stakeholder involvement are preferred, and which are not?

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH Stakeholder perceptions of these issues of public participation in water management were investigated as part of the Ro¨nnea˚ study (29) through conducting 10 catchment dialogue meetings during early spring 2004. The Ro¨nnea˚ catchment, covering 1900 km2 and situated in southern Sweden, was chosen because of severe problems of eutrophication during past decades. Almost 30 persons representing five different stakeholder groups, including farmers (grain and livestock), local authorities, point-source polluters, and recreational interests, participated in the catchment dialogue meetings. During the first round of dialogue meetings, the five stakeholder groups met on one occasion each. During the second round, discussions took place in five mixed stakeholder groups, with each group defined according to its geographical location in the catchment. The discussions were moderated by an experienced ‘‘water person’’ who introduced new subjects and aspects to the participants. To steer the debate, participants were presented with a number of practical tasks. These included listing of waterrelated interests, development of proposals for a catchment committee board, voting exercises on six suggested methods for participation (30), and the development of a plan for raising the level of participation around a water-related issue. Discussions concerning these issues lasted for about 2 hr in each group, with around 20 hr of discussion in total. Transcriptions of the taped discussions amounted to 200 pages of written text. A qualitative content analysis of the material was structured around the following themes: – Stakeholder expectations on the degree of participation – Stakeholder perceptions of relevant scales and target groups for participation – Stakeholder perceptions of the qualities of different participatory methods and their relevance in various contexts

STAKEHOLDER PERCEPTIONS OF DEGREE AND TARGET GROUPS FOR PARTICIPATION AT DIFFERENT SCALES Creating a ‘‘New Water Solidarity’’ (31): Informing and Consulting the Public When asked which groups should participate in future water management, the spontaneous answer of the catchment dialogue participants was ‘‘everyone who uses water in some way.’’ This was taken to include not only those in the catchment dialogues but also specialized recreational organizations and tourist trades, such as sport fishing, outdoor life, golf, waterrelated sports, and hunting as well as groups that could be seen as representing ‘‘the general public,’’ that is, politicians, political parties, unions, and nongovernmental organizations. That various planning documents should be easily accessible to the public and that it must be possible for individuals and organizations to express their opinion in the process of developing river basin management plans was seen as selfevident. The participants went even further on how the general public could be involved, suggesting that everyone within a catchment should, in their daily actions, take responsibility for their common water resource. Participating farmers, especially,

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were concerned that efforts should be fairly distributed; if they did their share in reducing diffuse nutrient leakage, then users of washing powder and car owners should do theirs, even if it was relatively minor in comparison. The ideal degree and form of participation would thus be to actively inform the general public about water quality and quantity issues through ‘‘active dissemination of information’’ (see Fig. 2), hoping that this would affect individual behavior. A target group seen as especially important to reach was ‘‘the younger generation,’’ that is, schoolchildren and youth. Many argued that increased awareness in this group would spread very efficiently to ‘‘their parents and grandparents’’ (32). It would also benefit future decision making, as ‘‘in 10–15 years, they’ll be the ones taking the decisions, so it will be much easier if we can catch their interest right now’’ (33).

Channeling Stakeholder Resources into Planning and Management at the Catchment Scale: The Catchment Committee The Committee on Swedish Water Administration (25) suggested in 2002 that there should be catchment committees in all 119 main catchment areas in Sweden. The committees should function as a mediator of information between stakeholders within the catchment and the regional water authorities, ensuring that river basin management plans are well rooted in the local and regional communities of the catchment. The participants saw it as important to actively involve important stakeholder groups in committee work as early as possible in the water planning cycle. This would both enable the use of local knowledge and other resources of stakeholder groups in developing cost-effective mitigation plans and increase the acceptability of these plans among stakeholders. Four broad groups of stakeholders were seen as very important parties in water management at the catchment level: polluters, experts, authorities, and other users of water. Polluters included both point and diffuse sources of nitrogen and phosphorus, such as the Federation of Swedish Farmers, the forest sector and large landowners, municipal treatment works, industries, rural households, and the Swedish Road Administration. The particular need to include farming interests in catchment committee work was emphasized both by farmers themselves and by other participants. Experts included organizations with expert knowledge in various water-related issues, such as the regional administrations, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, universities, and consultancies. It is evident that participants perceived a need for scientific data on issues like problem description and causal relations, ecological effects, effective remedies, and cost-effective solutions. On the issue of hydrological models specifically, a majority of the participants saw them as a necessary basis for forming a common stakeholder perception of the problems (34). Authorities included officers with control and/or enforcement functions at the local and regional levels and courts. Other users of water more or less coincided with ‘‘the general public,’’ and the difficulties of finding a good representative structure for this group were recognized and discussed at length. All groups but one emphasized the need to involve this group as far as possible. One of the round I farmer groups expressed skepticism about involving any such groups in vital parts of the work: ‘‘They shouldn’t be totally excluded, but they shouldn’t be given too much influence either. With too much influence, we’d have to sell our farms immediately!’’ (35). When asked to propose a suitable composition of the Catchment Committee Board, the suggestions of the five groups in round II were more or less identical and included representatives from all four groups mentioned previously (see Table 1).


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Figure 2. Stakeholder expectations of public participation and stakeholder involvement in future water resource management.

Overcoming Stakeholder Conflict at the Subcatchment Scale: The Fish Bypass Two of the groups in round II chose to concentrate on the potentials of participation in restoring fish migration by the construction of bypasses for fish. Brown trout and salmon can be found in the Ro¨nnea˚ main watercourse and in several of its larger tributaries. A number of hydropower plants restrict fish migration upstream of Klippan, approximately 40 km from the coast. A fish bypass was chosen because many considered it to be a ‘‘populist measure’’ that would benefit the initiation of Catchment Committee work and public participation in other issues further ahead. The suggested plan for participation started out very widely. Information about the initiative was to be spread broadly to both the general public and specific stakeholders. One identified stakeholder, the hydropower company, would lose a nonnegligible amount of power generation capacity if the bypass were constructed but could on the other hand gain public goodwill for supporting it. Another stakeholder group was the ‘‘absentee house owners’’ (36), that is, real estate owners residing in neighboring urban centers. This group had strongly resisted the construction of a bypass and the formation of a fishing association in an earlier initiative, as they thought this would compromise their privacy and interfere with their rights as house owners. The major interests expected to favor the construction of a bypass were recreational fishermen, angling organizations, and the tourist industry (see Table 2). Methods suggested to inform and invite the public into the process were street events and media coverage. To reach more specific interests, invitations targeted to relevant organizations and persons should be used. During the first phases of the participatory process, the final goal of the process would be open for formulation and

Table 1. The proposed Catchment Committee Board.


reformulation among the participating interests. This would leave room for reaching a common problem definition and define common goals. ‘‘It is not self-evident that we actually pursue the process. If resistance is 100% from everyone, then there isn’t really any point’’ (37). ‘‘If it turns out that it is an unreasonable idea, we will have to let it go. We cannot harp on about the same old objectives forever when they might be outof-date and unnecessary’’ (38). This was seen as necessary to allow for unprejudiced discussions between conflicting interests. Methods suggested for this phase were focus groups and seminars. They should optimize two-way communication and learning between the stakeholder groups and be properly planned and facilitated in order to optimize these aspects. One of the groups also suggested that schools should be involved in the work, letting pupils interview their grandparents about water issues ‘‘in the old days’’ and then present the results at the seminar/focus group. Having reached a common problem formulation and defined a number of alternative solutions, efforts were recommended to involve a broader segment of the population again to give everyone an opportunity to react on the suggested solutions. For this, consultation, media coverage, and street events were suitable methods, preceding a final decision by the Catchment Committee Board on which alternative should be chosen. Throughout the process, an interactive Web page was also suggested.

Active Stakeholder Involvement in Implementation of Mitigation Measures at the Subcatchment Scale: Improving the Wastewater Treatment Systems of Rural Households Three of the five heterogeneous groups in round II chose to focus on developing a participatory plan for implementing costeffective investments in rural household wastewater treatment

Table 2. Identified stakeholders: the fish bypass.


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facilities. Approximately 60% of rural households in the Ro¨nnea˚ catchment presently lack adequate treatment of household effluents and contribute to approximately one-third of phosphorous transports into the bay of Ska¨lderviken (39). In certain subcatchments, like the Ringsjo¨ catchment, they play an even more important role. Although adequate legal tools exist to control this source of pollution and substantial efforts have been taken to enforce it, particularly in the Ringsjo¨ catchment, many household effluents from there remain untreated or are released with only partial treatment. High enforcement costs and lack of resources at the municipal level is one part of the explanation; low awareness among the general public of the contribution of untreated household wastewater to eutrophication is another. The main challenge here seemed to be the active involvement of a stakeholder group that did not want to be involved—in fact, did not want to be defined as a stakeholder group—in the first place. House owners not connected to the municipal wastewater system have to pay for treatment facilities out of their own pockets. However, the high cost of treatment and the lack of any immediate benefit to the individual undertaking the investment renders this type of investment a low priority in most household budgets. In order to make participation work where legal enforcement has failed, catchment dialogue participants suggested that ‘‘some kind of alarm clock is needed’’ (40), that is, efforts to raise awareness of house owners regarding their contribution to eutrophication. The unwilling and individualist character of this stakeholder group made methods for targeting the general public seem appropriate. Consequently, school activities, street events, and local and regional media coverage were suggested as means of reaching unconnected rural households. At the early stages, a firm but realistic incentive structure regarding subsidies, time limits, and fines would help encourage active participation of house owners. Later on, repeated distribution of information leaflets to concerned households, seminars, and focus groups was suggested. Throughout the process, the need for a constant flow of practical information on different technical solutions was emphasized. In order to get such information and to achieve efficient dissemination of it, two particular stakeholder groups were identified, namely, contractors and real estate agents (see Table 3). Contractors would have hands-on knowledge of different technical solutions and their costs, while real estate agents would be able to make future home owners aware of what the law prescribes. Other suggested methods were information notes at the local grocery store, information activities at local festivities, and the use of already existing local networks, such as village communities and joint management associations.

Summary of Stakeholder Perceptions of Degree and Target Groups The general conclusion from the discussions in rounds I and II is that participants in the Ro¨nnea˚ catchment dialogues were positive to a wide scope of public participation and stakeholder involvement in future water resource management. In their identification of relevant target groups for various purposes and methods, the participants clearly distinguished between the general public (‘‘Andersson, Svensson and Nilsson’’) and specific stakeholder interests (i.e. polluters, experts, authorities, and other water users). During round II, the necessity of targeting local communities and framing participation within a local context was also pinpointed. This can be compared with Meadowcroft’s (41) way of distinguishing between different groups in civil society. Meadowcroft argues that civil society

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Table 3. Identified stakeholders: rural households.

can be analyzed and targeted with the help of three different perspectives: the citizen, the stakeholder, and the local community. These perspectives can be traced also in the WFD CIS document on public participation, although the local community perspective is not as clear as the other two. Thus, stakeholder perceptions on which type of groups could be targeted for public participation activities more or less converge with the views and recommendations of the CIS document. That the local community perspective is the exception can, in the Swedish case, be explained by the strong role of local government compared to the rest of Europe. As for the degree of participation, the participants implicitly took accessibility to information and consultation for granted, as it is well institutionalized in the Swedish context. This could also be linked to their emphasis on active dissemination of information to the general public (particularly children) and stakeholders on a wide scale and with ‘‘a constant flow of information’’ to raise awareness, change individual behavior, and strengthen a sense of responsibility for common water resources.

STAKEHOLDER PERCEPTIONS OF METHODS FOR PUBLIC PARTICIPATION AND STAKEHOLDER INVOLVEMENT The participatory methods considered most efficient in reaching the general public were information leaflets, street events, school activities, e-democracy, formal consultation, and media coverage. Street events were perceived as giving the general public ‘‘the chance to at least stumble on an issue,’’ ‘‘a happening for the whole family,’’ and a way of reaching those who are not interested initially. There were many local or national events that a water event could be linked to, including Christmas fairs and midsummer festivities (42). But there must be a ‘‘hook’’ to capture people’s initial interest: ‘‘People are not susceptible for specific issues like this. For people to become interested you must offer them something to eat, or something funny’’ (43). Even though Sweden is often considered as being far ahead in terms of information technology, e-democracy was at first not seen as a very useful method to involve the public in water management processes. Strong apprehensions surfaced during round I about the potential of actually getting the general public to use Internet-based methods. Advantages such as efficient flows of information concerning plan documents, consultation, agendas, and calls for meetings were recognized ‘‘in theory,’’ but the participants doubted whether this potential would be fully realized in practice, at least in the near future. During round II, however, the usefulness of the Internet was increasingly recognized, specifically for reaching ‘‘the younger generation.’’



The use of the Internet could also make involvement from other groups possible, and it was repeatedly argued that ‘‘everything should be on the net, so that people at least have a chance to search for and find information.’’ Formal consultation as prescribed by the Environmental Code was also considered a useful tool for collecting the opinions of the general public, particularly in the later stages of a participatory process. A formal consultation process was favored because of its broad outreach and ability ‘‘to reach all organisations that have an interest in water management’’ and was included in several of the plans for participation at the subcatchment level. However, concerns were raised about the number of individuals and organizations that would actually involve themselves in a formal consultation process. New and innovative ways of organizing consultation and stimulating interest, such as using the local grocery store as an exhibition ground, were seen as a possible means of overcoming this problem. The catchment dialogue participants preferred methods allowing for information exchange and learning in between different stakeholder groups for promoting active involvement of stakeholders at both the catchment and the subcatchment level. Focus groups, seminars and the traditional Swedish ‘‘study circle’’ were considered suitable ways of involving stakeholders and people with a special interest in the planning process. The benefits of free discussion were repeatedly highlighted. The natural involvement of experts in both focus groups and seminars was also mentioned as a great advantage, allowing for two-way communication between experts and other stakeholders. A third positive aspect of this approach, repeatedly mentioned, was the use of a moderator—‘‘someone who keeps it together’’—considered crucial for catalyzing and managing the participatory process (29). It was also argued that several different methods for participation ought to be used in combination to reach optimal results: ‘‘I think it is unwise to use the same methods throughout the process. If you do that you will only reach some interests, and the others will disappear’’ (44). The participants’ perceptions are summarized in Figure 3. Some of the proposed methods involve a one-way flow of information, primarily from authorities/catchment committees to civil society. Most of them, however, provide for mutual learning and dialogue. Those involving dialogue and two-way communication are also those requiring the most resources, both in terms of personnel and money for the initiating actor

and in terms of time and effort for the participants. Experience from work with Agenda 21 shows that the use of such methods has declined in many municipalities over recent years, mainly because of budget cuts (27).

DISCUSSION The participants in the Ro¨nnea˚ catchment dialogues often voiced the view that increasing public participation in water resource management is not an easy task. The modern hectic lifestyle and the massive flow of information were two reasons repeatedly mentioned. A water service that already appears to be functioning efficiently was another: ‘‘I think it is difficult. We are spoiled because we have water on tap, and we can flush the toilet, so I don’t think we are likely to become actively involved’’ (45). Consequently, many participants expressed serious doubt about the possibility of achieving ‘‘a new water solidarity.’’ Some participants went further, claiming that participation was unnecessary during the early phases of the process: ‘‘My opinion is that in the first phases it should be those who actually understand the issue who should summarise the situation so that ordinary people—Svensson and Andersson—get some kind of fact-based description of the problem. After all, ordinary members of the public might suggest building a great big treatment works in the middle of everything. That wouldn’t work, I think. But I am one of those who don’t understand very much, so I can’t actually say much about it’’ (46). Thus, the notion that environmental issues are best taken care of by ‘‘experts’’ lingers on in the Swedish administrative culture (see also 26, 28, 30). The local community perspective (41) was repeatedly returned to when lack of public interest was discussed. The participants agreed that if something concrete were about to take place affecting the local environment or local life, people would be more likely to react and engage. ‘‘It is not until something happens in my back yard, it actually happens to me in my own small house, that I really care. If there were plans to construct a motorway straight through my village, people would certainly engage!’’ (47). All the plans for participation developed during Round II concerned very local issues, and suggested methods were adapted to suit local conditions. The local community perspective also figured prominently in discussions concerning the practical work of the Catchment Committee. The work could be either organized according to the type of task or defined through hydrological boundaries in subcatchments and sub-subcatchments. While many of the participants argued that the latter would create a greater potential for active engagement by more actors, others regarded the first as more practical and effective. Even though the participants in the Ro¨nnea˚ catchment dialogues were aware of the challenges in integrating public participation into future water resource management, they were on the whole very positive about it.

CONCLUSIONS

Figure 3. Stakeholder views and expectations on public participation and stakeholder involvement in future water management. Ambio Vol. 34, No. 7, November 2005

One of the challenges lying ahead in Europe’s future water management is to translate the WFD principles on public participation, via national legislation, to management practice at the catchment and subcatchment levels, where actual mitigation measures will be implemented. This implies that time, money, and skills must be channeled into this translation and combined with other implementation strategies in an effective way at the national level of implementation of the WFD. To what extent this translation succeeds will definitely affect the possibilities of achieving ‘‘good water status’’ by 2015.


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Public Involvement and Dispute Resolution: A Reader on the Second Decade of Experience at the Institute for Water Resources. IWR Report 82-R-5. U.S. Corps of Engineers, Alexandria, Virginia, p. 471. 7. Montin, S. 1998. Local Experiments of Democracy: Examples and Analysis. Fritzes, Stockholm (In Swedish). 8. Lauber, T.B. and Knuth, B.A. 2000. Citizen Participation in Natural Resource Management: A Synthesis of HDRU Research. HDRU Series No 00-7. Department of Natural Resources, Human Dimensions Research Unit, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA, 32 pp. 9. Priscolli, J.D. 1998. Public involvement, conflict management, and dispute resolution in water resources and environmental decision making. In: Public Involvement and Dispute Resolution: A Reader on the Second Decade of Experience at the Institute for Water Resources. Creighton, J.L., Dunning, C.M., Priscolli, J.D. and Ayres, D.B. IWR Report 82-R-5. U.S. Corps of Engineers, Alexandria, Virginia, pp. 41–58. 10. 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Local Agenda 21 for Sustainable Development: A Study of the Environmental Issue in a Society of Growth. PhD Thesis, Umea˚ University (In Swedish with English summary). 29. See Jonsson, A., Danielsson, I. and Jo¨born, A. 2005. Designing a multipurpose methodology for strategic environmental research: the Ro¨nnea˚ catchment dialogues. Ambio 34, 489–494. 30. The six methods were chosen so as to represent a wide range of different qualities in terms of target groups, flow of information (one way/two way), competencies and costs, and required effort from stakeholders (see Jonsson, A. 2004. Methods for increased public participation. In: Sustainable Water Management—Organisation, Participation, Influence, Economy. Lundqvist, L.J.(ed.). VASTRA, Gothenburg, pp. 87–103 ([In Swedish]). In the interpretation of results, it must be kept in mind that the popularity of a certain method should be interpreted as the popularity of the qualities of that and similar methods. 31. European Commission. 2002. Water Is Life. Water Framework Directive. Information leaflet, 4 pp. 32. Local authority: round I. 33. Local authority: round I. 34. See also Alkan-Olsson, J. and Berg, K. 2005. Local stakeholders’ acceptance of modelgenerated data used as a communication tool in water management: the Ro¨nnea˚ Study. Ambio 34, 507–512. 35. Farmer: round I.

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36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

‘‘Utbor.’’ Farmer: round II. Point source: round II. Andersson, L., Rosberg, J., Pers, L., Olsson, J. and Arheimer, B. 2005. Estimating catchment nutrient flow with the HBV-NP model: sensitivity to input data. Ambio 34, 507–512. Recreational interest: round II. Meadowcroft, J. 2004. Citizens, communities, organisations, and government: public participation in decision-making for sustainable development. In: Governance for Sustainable Development: The Challenge of Adapting Form to Function. Lafferty, W.M. (ed.). Edward Elgar, London, pp. 162–190. For example, ‘‘Handla Miljo¨va¨nligt-vecka,’’ ‘‘Bonde pa˚ stan,’’ ‘‘Mo¨llans dag.’’ Farmer: round I. Authority: round II. Authority: round II. Recreational interests: round I. Farmer: round I. This study was performed within the Swedish Water Management Research Program (VASTRA), which is financed by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (MISTRA).

Anna Jonsson is a researcher and teacher in environmental science focusing on public participation and institutional issues. Her address: Campus Norrko¨ping, SE-60174 Norrko¨ping, Sweden. [email protected]

