that systematic water metering is still not under discussion. The insufficient data
collection for flow management could be related to the lack of updated legal
requirements.
11.3 Different Priority Settings and Potential Tensions
The fact that floods and droughts are semantically opposites does not mean that any
flood control measure is necessarily hindering drought risk management.
Conversely, they should not be dealt with separately. People have been fighting
against flood risk in all these regions for a longtime, and a dynamic synergy has
built among stakeholders. It was clear that stakeholders got used to work together
and discuss water-related problems. In that sense, flood risk governance has contributed to bridging connections between stakeholders that can potentially enhance
drought governance. However, in terms of synergies, it will also become increasingly important to ensure that the policy measures, and concrete strategies and
instruments designed to deal with flooding for each region, are not counteracting
any policy developments made for drought and water scarcity.
Drinking water production and flood protection are the main objectives guiding
the dam management of both water boards in Vilaine and Eifel-Rur. However, there
is a subtle difference that can be noticed when discussing with stakeholders in the
way these two priorities are handled by the water boards, reflecting some divergence in perceptions, flexibility, and regulation context between the two cases.
The management rules of the Arzal dam, appended to the Water Management
Plan (Schéma d’Aménagement et de gestion des eaux SAGE, see Chap. 6), reflect
the hierarchy of objectives to be achieved. Drinking water provision is the first
priority and it is widely accepted by all stakeholders interviewed in the Vilaine
governance assessment meetings.
In Eifel-Rur the obligation of the water board to provide a well-established level
of protection against floods seems to overcome the guarantee of continuous
drinking water production. In this context, adapting the dam management rules to
prevent water scarcity, even when there is a clear deficit of precipitations (reservoir
recharge), is quite troublesome. For this reason, achieving all the high water quality
standards demanded by German regulation can be very complicated in drought
situations. The strategy for flood prevention in Eifel-Rur implies that the water level
in the reservoir must be kept sufficiently low during the winter until the spring to
ensure enough storage capacity in case of exceptional flood events which may be
associated with intense rainfall or snow melt. However, if there is not enough
precipitation or snow melt during the spring period, when water is collected, there is
not enough water to meet all the quality conditions for drinking water providers
(e.g., water temperature below 10 °C and oxygen above 4 mg/l). It is a lengthy
process to change the flood protection rule to adapt the reservoir level for drinking
water purposes in cases when precipitations arrive earlier than expected. The water
board first needs to prove, based on data analysis, that the proposed changes would
11 Cross-cutting Perspective Freshwater
221
collection for flow management could be related to the lack of updated legal
requirements.
11.3 Different Priority Settings and Potential Tensions
The fact that floods and droughts are semantically opposites does not mean that any
flood control measure is necessarily hindering drought risk management.
Conversely, they should not be dealt with separately. People have been fighting
against flood risk in all these regions for a longtime, and a dynamic synergy has
built among stakeholders. It was clear that stakeholders got used to work together
and discuss water-related problems. In that sense, flood risk governance has contributed to bridging connections between stakeholders that can potentially enhance
drought governance. However, in terms of synergies, it will also become increasingly important to ensure that the policy measures, and concrete strategies and
instruments designed to deal with flooding for each region, are not counteracting
any policy developments made for drought and water scarcity.
Drinking water production and flood protection are the main objectives guiding
the dam management of both water boards in Vilaine and Eifel-Rur. However, there
is a subtle difference that can be noticed when discussing with stakeholders in the
way these two priorities are handled by the water boards, reflecting some divergence in perceptions, flexibility, and regulation context between the two cases.
The management rules of the Arzal dam, appended to the Water Management
Plan (Schéma d’Aménagement et de gestion des eaux SAGE, see Chap. 6), reflect
the hierarchy of objectives to be achieved. Drinking water provision is the first
priority and it is widely accepted by all stakeholders interviewed in the Vilaine
governance assessment meetings.
In Eifel-Rur the obligation of the water board to provide a well-established level
of protection against floods seems to overcome the guarantee of continuous
drinking water production. In this context, adapting the dam management rules to
prevent water scarcity, even when there is a clear deficit of precipitations (reservoir
recharge), is quite troublesome. For this reason, achieving all the high water quality
standards demanded by German regulation can be very complicated in drought
situations. The strategy for flood prevention in Eifel-Rur implies that the water level
in the reservoir must be kept sufficiently low during the winter until the spring to
ensure enough storage capacity in case of exceptional flood events which may be
associated with intense rainfall or snow melt. However, if there is not enough
precipitation or snow melt during the spring period, when water is collected, there is
not enough water to meet all the quality conditions for drinking water providers
(e.g., water temperature below 10 °C and oxygen above 4 mg/l). It is a lengthy
process to change the flood protection rule to adapt the reservoir level for drinking
water purposes in cases when precipitations arrive earlier than expected. The water
board first needs to prove, based on data analysis, that the proposed changes would
11 Cross-cutting Perspective Freshwater
221