Science Informed Policies for Managing Water

2021

Clearly policy makers should consider the impacts of any decisions they might make before making them. Science can provide estimates of various economic, ecologic, environmental, and even social impacts of alternative policies, impacts that determine how effective any particular policy will be. These impact estimates can be used to compare and evaluate alternative policies in the search for identifying the best one to implement. Among all scientists providing inputs to policy making processes are analysts who develop and apply models that provide these estimated impacts and, possibly, their probabilities of occurrence. But just producing them is not a guarantee that they will be considered by policy makers. This paper discusses ways scientists, including systems analysts, can effectively contribute to and inform those involved in making water management decisions. Brief descriptions of a variety of past and on-going water management policy making processes illustrate both some succe...

Water policy, 2007

This article reviews research on the application of economic concepts and tools to the analysis of the preservation, conservation, development, consumption, supply and allocation of water resources. It summarizes research on economic analysis to support policy formulation, implementation and evaluation, including both project appraisal and the design of institutions. Economic analysis can support ex post analysis of existing mechanisms that influence the allocation of water: Such mechanisms include laws, regulations, supply management, demand management, population and climate change. Economic analysis can also be used to conduct ex ante analysis to design future water allocation institutions. These institutions include various forms of marginal cost pricing, valuation of water in alternative uses, water quality management, optimization models, integrated supply and demand management, transboundary management, virtual water, decentralized management, common property institutions and watershed councils.

2002

Attempts to bridge the gap between those who generate scientific information and those who use it have not always been successful. This is true in part because most research methodologies encourage a relatively narrow, disciplinary focus on questions, frequently avoiding the complexities and interdependencies of the “real” world. A true dialog between end users of climate information and those who generate data is rarely achieved. Improved scientific information is important to managing water supplies in the context of increasing competition for water. However, scientists may not fully understand the context within which water management decisions are made, or have the appropriate training to ensure that the information that they produce is useful. There are major limitations to the applicability of current scientific products, in part because they are generated without a full understanding of institutional and political limitations to using the products in implementing new manageme...

ECWS-7 2023

Water governance in the EU is enshrined in the Water Framework Directive (WFD), with the engagement of stakeholders being one of the governance cornerstones. The inclusion of the interests of scientific and non-scientific groups in decision-making is crucial. Our objective is to examine the contribution of the participatory approach to the effectiveness of local water resource management. Within the Eye4water project, a participatory assessment was applied for the Lissos river basin, through joint identification and evaluation of the main water-related issues. Firstly, we identified the social system engaged to the basin through stakeholders' mapping. Secondly, based on criteria selection, three stakeholders' groups were invited to a workshop. Our preliminary results show that mutual learning should be encouraged at multiple levels. Well-recognized threats such as water pollution, flood risk, and groundwater lowering are present, while biodiversity issues are quite underrepresented.

2012

This report provides the overall synthesis of the findings of the GEF IW:Science project. It is based on a series of reports produced for each of five classes of global transboundary water system: River Basins, Lakes, Groundwater, Land-based Pollution Sources, and Large Marine Ecosystems and Open Oceans. Summarizing the key findings and recommendations from these underlying Synopsis and Analysis Reports, an integrated perspective on a broad range of transboundary water issues is provided.

Journal of Contemporary Water Research & Education, 1998

Water

Effort to narrow the gap between the production and use of scientific knowledge for environmental decision-making is gaining traction, yet in practice, supply and demand remains largely unbalanced. A qualitative study based on empirical analysis offers a novel approach to exploring key factors, focussing on seven water models in the context of two organisations at the science-policy interface: the PIREN-Seine in France and the CRC for Water Sensitive Cities in Australia. Tentative linkages drawn from these examples identify: (1) objective and expertise; (2) knowledge and tools; and (3) support structures as main drivers influencing the production of scientific knowledge which, in turn, affect the use and utility of modelling tools. Further insight is gained by highlighting the wide spectrum of uses and utilities existing in practice, suggesting that such 'boundary organisations' facilitate interactions and exchanges that give added value to scientific knowledge. Coordinated strategies that integrate inter-, extra-, and intra-boundary activities, framed through collaborative scenario building and the use of interactive modelling platforms, may offer ways to enhance the use and utility of scientific knowledge (and its tools) to better support water resources management, policy and planning decisions, thus promoting a more cohesive relationship between science and policy.

Journal of Hydrology, 2013

Well-designed public policy stimulates social progress. However, when governments translate political vision into programmes for social change, the complexity of issues can overwhelm the policy-making process, creating disappointment and suboptimal outcomes. In this paper we examine why evidencebased policy-making approaches often fail to provide policy-makers with credible, consistent and clear outcomes matching broad social interest. The need for public policy primarily arises from a lack of perfect knowledge, which causes individuals and agencies to behave in ways that counter social interest. We therefore suggest that effective public policy formulation involves: determining what evidence is available, relevant and useful; as well as identifying critical gaps to making public policy necessary and meaningful. Murray-Darling Basin case examples highlight key stages in effective natural resource policy formulation, and sources of difficulties that need to be managed to maximize scientific contributions. These examples show that effective public policy decisions can still be made and information asymmetry managed via strong evidence, expert analysis to verify that evidence, and an understanding of knowledge gaps such that critical interventions can be agreed upon and objectives achieved in view of how they will be managed and resourced. Finally, we draw attention to the opportunities available and challenges that exist for hydrologists, economists and other social scientists to work together in assisting the policy process, and in particular to minimize the burden of information constraints in making effective water resource policy.

Diverging perspectives toward environmental problems, their causes, and solutions can exacerbate controversy in participatory decision making. Past research has examined the lay–expert divide in perceptions about diverse risks, but relatively few studies have examined multidimensional perspectives on water scarcity across expert groups with different knowledge systems.We address this gap by examining conflicting perspectives across ‘lay’ residents and academic and policymaking ‘experts’ in Phoenix, AZ. We analyze ecological concern about water issues, risk perceptions regarding the factors contributing to scarcity, and policy attitudes pertaining to resource management alternatives. All three groups expressed substantial concern for broad-scale water issues, especially drought. Residents exhibited a heightened tendency to blame other people for water scarcity, in addition to opposition toward stringent approaches such as water pricing. While strongly supporting the acquisition of more supplies, policymakers exhibited lower concern about regional water use rates while displacing blame away from anthropogenic causes compared to both residents and academic experts. Scientists, on the other hand, stressed the need for stricter regulation of water demand. Findings point to the challenges of meshing different knowledge systems for collaborative research and policy making.

Reviews in Fisheries Science, 2006

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