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sustaining a healthy environment. The decisive point here is that all impacts should be
considered – and not only a single one. We see this as a major fault in past decisions
on dam building where in many cases the focus was merely on energy production.
The actual management options to realise a single or multiple of these goals can
look quite different and can incur different costs and benefi ts. It could be naturebased or technical, decentralised or centralised, small- or large-scale. After an identifi cation of potential approaches, different options could be compared by
cost-benefi t-analysis (Hansjürgens 2004 ), multi-criteria-analysis (Hansjürgens
2011 ), or other methods (TEEB 2010 , 2012 ).
If properly designed an economic analysis can thus be an important source for
decision-making and can ideally ensure that all relevant costs and benefi ts are taken
into account.
5.4 Concluding Remarks
Major water engineering projects (MWEPs) can have both substantial benefi ts and
costs. Which one prevails is not just a question of the project but also of the assessment. If substantial trade-offs such as irreversible losses in ecosystem services or
social costs are neglected, it will be perceived as benefi cial, while the extent of
losses remains hidden. Hence, based on such an incomplete informational basis, no
large-scale investment decisions should be made. By already taking the neglected
values of water into account during the planning phase of MWEPs, the faults of the
past could be avoided.
We have presented an economic framework, namely the Total Economic Value
(TEV), to assess the often neglected costs and benefi ts; and there is a range of
potential valuation methods that can be used to assess the related costs and benefi ts
of various options (TEEB 2010 ).
However, a defi nition of what values, stakeholders, and effects are relevant can
never be an exclusively scientifi c task. The realisation of projects fundamentally
depends on political and societal actors and embedding institutional structures. It
therefore also requires approaches and engagement beyond science – one could call
them transdisciplinary. To comprehensively assess the outcomes of water-related
investment decisions, our key recommendation is to integrate science, stakeholders,
and political decision makers within an integrative, participatory, and process-based
assessment approach – especially if large-scale outcomes are to be expected.
Open Access This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
Noncommercial License, which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in
any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
B. Hansjürgens et al.
sustaining a healthy environment. The decisive point here is that all impacts should be
considered – and not only a single one. We see this as a major fault in past decisions
on dam building where in many cases the focus was merely on energy production.
The actual management options to realise a single or multiple of these goals can
look quite different and can incur different costs and benefi ts. It could be naturebased or technical, decentralised or centralised, small- or large-scale. After an identifi cation of potential approaches, different options could be compared by
cost-benefi t-analysis (Hansjürgens 2004 ), multi-criteria-analysis (Hansjürgens
2011 ), or other methods (TEEB 2010 , 2012 ).
If properly designed an economic analysis can thus be an important source for
decision-making and can ideally ensure that all relevant costs and benefi ts are taken
into account.
5.4 Concluding Remarks
Major water engineering projects (MWEPs) can have both substantial benefi ts and
costs. Which one prevails is not just a question of the project but also of the assessment. If substantial trade-offs such as irreversible losses in ecosystem services or
social costs are neglected, it will be perceived as benefi cial, while the extent of
losses remains hidden. Hence, based on such an incomplete informational basis, no
large-scale investment decisions should be made. By already taking the neglected
values of water into account during the planning phase of MWEPs, the faults of the
past could be avoided.
We have presented an economic framework, namely the Total Economic Value
(TEV), to assess the often neglected costs and benefi ts; and there is a range of
potential valuation methods that can be used to assess the related costs and benefi ts
of various options (TEEB 2010 ).
However, a defi nition of what values, stakeholders, and effects are relevant can
never be an exclusively scientifi c task. The realisation of projects fundamentally
depends on political and societal actors and embedding institutional structures. It
therefore also requires approaches and engagement beyond science – one could call
them transdisciplinary. To comprehensively assess the outcomes of water-related
investment decisions, our key recommendation is to integrate science, stakeholders,
and political decision makers within an integrative, participatory, and process-based
assessment approach – especially if large-scale outcomes are to be expected.
Open Access This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
Noncommercial License, which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in
any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
B. Hansjürgens et al.