Is public participation an added value for river basin management?

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) represents one of the most advanced pieces of water policy developed during the last decades. Since its introduction in 2000, several technical and political issues arose regarding this Directive and its implementation, and have to be managed by European Member States at the national level, but in strict collaboration with local authorities and stakeholders. Whilst several studies have analysed the WFD from a technical point of view, a few are available that assess and compare the quality of public participation processes in river basin management at the European level. The present paper shows the outcomes of an own-developed questionnaire sent to European water and environmental authorities during 2015, which highlights the variable situation in terms of stakeholders’ involvement and methods adopted to interact with them, and also points out the scarce results that the consultation has obtained in terms of innovative measures to fulfil the requirements of the WFD. In light of the present situation, a better consideration of public consultation and associated methodologies is necessary for future management cycles, as well as a better coordination between Member States sharing river basins.     

Construction and Interpretation of a 60‐year Flow Record for the river Tay at Kenmore

The backward extension of a river flow record for the River Tay, based on daily water level observations from 1937–76, has created the third‐longest sensibly continuous daily flow record for any Scottish river based on direct observations. The paper describes the derivation of the record, and assesses the variability of the Tay discharge over the 60‐year period covered. Unprecedented winter, spring and flood flows in the late 1980s/1990s are reported, in the context of improving the understanding of hydroclimatic variability.     

Spatial adjustment as a mechanism for resolving river basin conflicts: the US–Mexico case

The conventional wisdom is that water resources should be managed on a basin-wide scale. However, a closer look at the scale of transboundary water institutions reveals that, for the most part, this is not the case. This study seeks to understand the gap between reality and theory by arguing that due to the common spatial discrepancy between benefits and costs of cooperation at the basin scale, other scales are advanced in order to offset this discrepancy. To test this hypothesis, the negotiation process over the spatial scale of the 1944 treaty between the US and Mexico over transboundary water is examined. The analysis of this case study indicates that due to its weakening position in an upstream/downstream conflict over the Colorado’s water in the early 20th century, Mexico demanded widening of the scale by integration of the negotiations over the Rio Grande with those over the Colorado’s water. This allowed the parties to trade the Rio Grande’s water for the Colorado’s and thus to offset the spatial discrepancies that precluded agreements in previous basin-level negotiations. However, this spatial strategy was found to have a high political cost, especially in the decentralized US system. Hence, the US had to use additional mechanisms to mitigate these internal transaction costs.     

The comfort of the river: understanding the affective geographies of angling waterscapes in young people’s coping practices

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on ethnographic research with angling intervention programmes working with ‘disaffected’ young people in the UK to demonstrate how young people use the affective geographies of waterscapes to regulate their feelings and escape stressful lives. But rather than interpret the restorative or therapeutic quality of waterscapes as the consequence of (passive) immersion into green/blue spaces, we argue that ‘comfort’ is derived from an ongoing, active engagement with(in) the world. Drawing on works influenced by phenomenological theories and relational understandings of the more-than-human world, we illustrate how the affectual qualities of waterscapes are continually ‘woven’ into being through the material and embodied practices of young anglers. However, understanding why waterscapes ‘matter’ to young people also requires accounting for those assemblages originating in the past that shape these co-experienced worlds.     

Storm flooding,coastal defence and land use around the Thames estuary and tidal river c.1250–1450

Climatic deterioration in the later middle ages was associated with an increasing frequency of marine storm surges affecting the coasts of the southern North Sea. This paper investigates the impact of storm surges upon the lands bordering the Thames estuary and tidal river between the mid-thirteenth and mid-fifteenth centuries. Land use in the coastal and riverine marshes is reviewed, and the means and costs of defence against marine flooding explored. The impact of flooding upon human use of the marshlands, upon the suburbs of medieval London and upon the Thames fisheries are all investigated. Stress is placed upon the complex interaction of economic and environmental factors in determining the response to the threat of marine flooding.