Governance for Drought Resilience

This book is about governance for drought resilience. But that simple sentence alone might rouse several questions. Because what do we mean with drought, and how does that relate to water scarcity? And what do we mean with resilience, and why is resilience needed for tackling drought? And how does governance enter this equation? We argue that governance assessment—the study of restricting and facilitating characteristics of a governance setting—can greatly aid implementation of drought adaptation measures, thereby increasing drought resilience.

Over the last decade, Europe’s drought management and policy has been characterized by a predominantly crisis-oriented approach. However, the widening gap between the impacts of drought episodes and the ability to prepare, manage and mitigate such droughts has motivated the European Union (EU) to make significant improvements that address drought management using a preventative approach.

This chapter introduces the Governance Assessment Tool that has been used in the DROP project and forms the analytical basis of this book. We start with the origins of the tool in Contextual Interaction Theory, and proceed with the dimensions and criteria that form the backbone of the tool, and form a matrix. In these matrix evaluative questions are formulated that can be discussed with local and regional stakeholders. Based on their answers and further information and insights a judgment can be reached to what extent the governance circumstances are supportive, restrictive or neutral for the implementation of measures. A visualization with coloured cells of the matrix can show in one quick glance the governance state of affairs in that region. To create more precise visualization arrows can be added to each box indicating upward or downward trends for that box. The chapter ends with a discussion on the application of the GAT. The tool can both be used in relatively simple ways and as in the DROP-project in a very elaborate way.

This chapter summarises our analysis of drought governance in the Eifel-Rur region of Germany. Within the Interreg IV-B project DROP a team of researchers from five universities and knowledge institutes performed two field visits to the Eifel-Rur region and held interviews with authorities and stakeholders.

Historically, flooding has dominated the physical and political landscape of Somerset—particularly over the winter of 2013/2014 when a devastating and high profile flood hit the region. However, the area is also sensitive to drought and water scarcity (D&WS) events—with the region being on the precipice of an increasingly severe drought throughout 2010–2012. This paper focuses on the governance of D&WS in Somerset—one of the six regional case studies in ‘The DROP project’ which explores adaptation and resilience to the climate impacts of drought and water scarcity across North West Europe. The project team visited Somerset twice—once in September 2013 following the period of water scarcity, and again in October 2014 after a period of flooding recovery. The study found on the first visit that there were many positive elements to the regional processes of governance for drought and water scarcity in Somerset. These ranged from the types of instruments and measures used; the extent of the relationships and capacities that were increasingly being built to deal with policies and on-the-ground measures for D&WS; and the increasing visibility of the issue of D&WS for the region after a period of extended dryness. The implications for drought governance in the context of flooding recovery are also discussed, particularly engaging with critical geographical literatures on the emotional and political work underpinning water management in the region, and how such processes are underpinned by broader meta-governance failures in the English water sector.

This chapter presents an analysis of the drought adaptation governance of the Vilaine catchment in the Brittany region in France and, more specifically, of the Arzal dam and reservoir located at the outlet of the river. Accordingly, the analysis focuses on the lower part of the Vilaine catchment, where two pilot studies were conducted during the DROP project.

This chapter presents a summary of the analysis results of the governance of drought-related issues in the Flanders region of Belgium. In the context of the Interreg IV-B project DROP, a team of researchers from four universities and knowledge institutes visited Flanders twice to perform interviews with authorities and stakeholders (October 2013 and May 2014). The visit was supported by colleagues at the Flemish Environment Agency (Vlaamse Milieumaatschappij, VMM). The exchange was held in the form of individual and group interviews and workshops with stakeholders including representatives from different institutions and sectors, e.g. from the drinking water company, national and local nature protection organizations, local farmers and local and national farmers organizations, the Flemish Environment Agency, different provinces, e.g. Province Vlaams-Brabant, and local municipalities, e.g. Kortemark Municipality. The analysis was guided by the drought-related Governance Assessment Tool (GAT) developed for the project.

In this chapter, we will concentrate on the Dutch water authority of Vechtstromen, more specifically the region of Twente part of Vechtstromen. The Twente region has some 135,000 ha and about 630,000 inhabitants. Though most of the Netherlands is flat and the highly artificial system of waterways often enables to let water in from outside each region, a substantial part of the Twente region does not have this option and is thus fully dependent on rainwater and groundwater. Apart from the wetland nature areas, especially the northeast of the region is for this reason relatively vulnerable for water scarcity and droughts.

Agriculture is among the major water user sectors in the North-west Europe region. While the use of water for energy production, mainly for cooling of power plants, has a higher share in most of the countries in the region, agricultural water use maintains an average of 24 % share within the total water use in Europe. This chapter elaborates on the governance of drought adaptation in the North-west Europe region from an agricultural perspective. For this purpose, the elements of the governance systems that are relevant for agricultural production and water use processes are examined and their influence on drought management and adaptation processes are investigated.

This chapter explores the links between drought governance and the vulnerability of freshwater for drinking water supply, with a focus on drought adaptation. The public awareness of drought and water scarcity risks in such a flood-prone region is still low. However, the fact that fresh water availability for drinking water supply is threatened not only by a decrease in water availability, related to climate variability and climate change, but also due to the increase in water demand, related to population and economic growth, this issue can potentially motivate the introduction of drought and water scarcity risks into the public and political agenda. Even if the northwestern European countries in this study have similar climatic settings, other aspects of their contexts can be quite contrasting in each pilot case. Depending on where the freshwater reservoir is placed, upstream or downstream within the catchment, different levels and scales are mobilized to tackle water management challenges. The priority hierarchy of water uses in case of drought can also be surprisingly different in neighboring countries. Even if some actions, as the expansion of spatial water networks connectivity, have started to improve the robustness of drinking water systems, the solutions that require a paradigm shift to a most systemic strategy including water demand control remain out of the agenda and could greatly improve the resilience of the region to drought and water scarcity risk.

To understand the relationship between nature and water scarcity and drought problems, we turn our attention to five case studies to illuminate key points. We introduce the areas and their specific relationship to nature and ways in which drought is already impacting natural areas and their ability to cope. The policy context is also elaborated to provide insight to the current milieu, including relevant actors and relevant economic and social challenges.

This chapter proposes a comparative approach of the drought governance context in the six regions studied. In sum, the governance context for drought resilience policies and measures in most of the regions studied can be regarded to currently be “intermediate”. The implementation of the governance assessment tool does not allow a clear picture of the drought and water scarcity governance context in those NW regions. The governance appears to be half capable of providing a favourable context in terms of the actors and decision levels involved in all of the regions, but does not provide a favourable context to develop and implement a coherent drought policy. The chapter also outlines the specificities of the regions for each of the cross cutting issues (i.e., nature, fresh water and agriculture). Three main issues can be pointed out in order to characterise the way the sectors needs are taken into account: A water governance in general which gives more weight to representatives of economic interests than to environmental ones; a hierarchy as regards water uses in case of water scarcity which favours water supplies and contrasted initiatives which try to better take into account drought in/for all sectors.