engaging with water scarcity and drought issues. This is largely due to severe cuts in
government funding, which have drastically reduced the amount of funding available
for stakeholders. At present, in order to access funds, proposed measures in Germany
require up to 80 % minimum co-financing by municipalities. When the remaining
percentages are not achieved, the initiatives are either tabled or die. This not only
leaves a large number of initiatives critical for addressing water scarcity and drought
and other issues unfunded, but also it leaves the funds unused. This in turn has led to
a large accumulation of financial resources that are available but not accessible.
In addition, actors within the nature conservation arena have increasingly resort
to project acquisition (such as LIFE or INTERREG) as well as available funding at
the state level for specific projects, such Natura 2000 monitoring. An alternative
approach, particularly applied in governing nature reserves, that has emerged are
public–private partnerships (PPPs). PPPs are increasingly the trend to maintain
conservation areas and the ecosystem services which they provide. While the trend
is promising, it also underscores the decreasing flexibility of governance systems to
address new policy issues such as drought and water scarcity.
Simultaneously, there is a lack of resources in terms of the competencies among
nature conservation actors that has limited them to tackling issues of drought. Due
to a lack of power, and also agency, they often lack the flexibility that other actors,
such as the water boards, possess.
Lastly, there exist limited resources in the legal sense as well. Competing interests
between agriculture and nature areas have been at the heart of legal tensions as impacts
of drought are felt on both sides. Though measures to encourage water efficiency
schemes have helped to divert tensions, there is a critical need for more integrated land
and water management perspectives in order to avoid resorting to legal tools.
The interplay of motivations, cognitions and resources in the case study processes shows that keeping the nature perspective influential is sometimes a difficult
task. Even so, in many areas there are actors that see it as a vulnerable aspect of
drought resilience and are prepared to protect it.
Open Access This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/), which
permits any noncommercial use, duplication, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, a
link is provided to the Creative Commons license, and any changes made are indicated.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the work’s Creative
Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if such material is not included in
the work’s Creative Commons license and the respective action is not permitted by statutory
regulation, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to duplicate, adapt, or
reproduce the material.
Reference
Robins M (2014) Drowning out nature on the levels? ECOS 35(1):27–30
244
H. Bressers and U. Stein
government funding, which have drastically reduced the amount of funding available
for stakeholders. At present, in order to access funds, proposed measures in Germany
require up to 80 % minimum co-financing by municipalities. When the remaining
percentages are not achieved, the initiatives are either tabled or die. This not only
leaves a large number of initiatives critical for addressing water scarcity and drought
and other issues unfunded, but also it leaves the funds unused. This in turn has led to
a large accumulation of financial resources that are available but not accessible.
In addition, actors within the nature conservation arena have increasingly resort
to project acquisition (such as LIFE or INTERREG) as well as available funding at
the state level for specific projects, such Natura 2000 monitoring. An alternative
approach, particularly applied in governing nature reserves, that has emerged are
public–private partnerships (PPPs). PPPs are increasingly the trend to maintain
conservation areas and the ecosystem services which they provide. While the trend
is promising, it also underscores the decreasing flexibility of governance systems to
address new policy issues such as drought and water scarcity.
Simultaneously, there is a lack of resources in terms of the competencies among
nature conservation actors that has limited them to tackling issues of drought. Due
to a lack of power, and also agency, they often lack the flexibility that other actors,
such as the water boards, possess.
Lastly, there exist limited resources in the legal sense as well. Competing interests
between agriculture and nature areas have been at the heart of legal tensions as impacts
of drought are felt on both sides. Though measures to encourage water efficiency
schemes have helped to divert tensions, there is a critical need for more integrated land
and water management perspectives in order to avoid resorting to legal tools.
The interplay of motivations, cognitions and resources in the case study processes shows that keeping the nature perspective influential is sometimes a difficult
task. Even so, in many areas there are actors that see it as a vulnerable aspect of
drought resilience and are prepared to protect it.
Open Access This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/), which
permits any noncommercial use, duplication, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, a
link is provided to the Creative Commons license, and any changes made are indicated.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the work’s Creative
Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if such material is not included in
the work’s Creative Commons license and the respective action is not permitted by statutory
regulation, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to duplicate, adapt, or
reproduce the material.
Reference
Robins M (2014) Drowning out nature on the levels? ECOS 35(1):27–30
244
H. Bressers and U. Stein