restrictive for other boxes. Excellent is the actor coherence in Twente, but more
restrictive are for example the slow integration of the drought resilience awareness
and the resulting reliance on voluntary preventive measures. Just like other chapters
the recommendations for the region Twente partly also concern matters such as
awareness and exchange. Another, more Twente-specific, recommendation is the
upscaling from farm-level approach to full area-level approach, where work transcends farm-level voluntary measures (although those should be continued as well)
and also includes larger scale measures to create more synergy between participating actors.
The third section consists of cross-cutting perspective chapters on the three
topics of Nature, Agriculture and Freshwater—consistent with the three pilots of
DROP.
Chapter 10 (Özerol and Troeltzsch) is the first of these cross-cutting chapters,
and discusses the topic Agriculture. The chapter shows how there is a tension
between the fact that agriculture is a key water user, therefore significantly
impacting drought and water scarcity circumstances, yet at the same time not being
prioritized over for instance drinking water and energy production. Awareness, both
public and private, is low, also due to the low visibility of drought in Northwest
Europe. Increasing this awareness has much potential for improving the way
drought and water scarcity are tackled in agricultural production.
Chapter 11 (Furusho et al.) discusses the topic of Freshwater. Here, the same low
visibility of drought hampers the uptake of drought adaptation measures. However,
the authors point to the fact that everyone agrees with the importance of freshwater
availability, and hence the topic of safeguarding future freshwater availability can
be used as an entryway into more drought awareness. In order to facilitate this
awareness building process the authors plead for more monitoring of water withdraws. The greater insight in the effects of water shortages in freshwater production
can help to trigger action.
The last cross-cutting chapter, chap. 12 (Bressers and Stein) discussed the field
of Nature. They apply contextual interaction theory to discuss the main conclusions
for this field. Motivation is highly varied, and interestingly for cognition the authors
conclude that awareness that drought is becoming a topic of increasing importance
is recognized widely by nature conservation actors. It appears that for Nature the
actors involved recognize the importance of drought better than for Agriculture or
Freshwater. Unfortunately, these same nature conservation actors have limited
resources. This means that for nature not the awareness among primary stakeholders themselves is the biggest problem, but their possibilities to address the issue
properly are.
In chap. 13 (Larrue et al.) we discuss our application of the Governance
Assessment Tool and the generic recommendations we can draw from the case
studies and cross-cutting studies. The aim of this book as such is a double focus on
both model development and refinement, as well as real-life application to regional
drought adaptation. In line with the observations in the outlook above the chapter
concludes with four overarching conclusions for the whole book: (1) Continuous
focus on realizing awareness is needed, (2) An increase in preparation and
1 Introduction
13
restrictive are for example the slow integration of the drought resilience awareness
and the resulting reliance on voluntary preventive measures. Just like other chapters
the recommendations for the region Twente partly also concern matters such as
awareness and exchange. Another, more Twente-specific, recommendation is the
upscaling from farm-level approach to full area-level approach, where work transcends farm-level voluntary measures (although those should be continued as well)
and also includes larger scale measures to create more synergy between participating actors.
The third section consists of cross-cutting perspective chapters on the three
topics of Nature, Agriculture and Freshwater—consistent with the three pilots of
DROP.
Chapter 10 (Özerol and Troeltzsch) is the first of these cross-cutting chapters,
and discusses the topic Agriculture. The chapter shows how there is a tension
between the fact that agriculture is a key water user, therefore significantly
impacting drought and water scarcity circumstances, yet at the same time not being
prioritized over for instance drinking water and energy production. Awareness, both
public and private, is low, also due to the low visibility of drought in Northwest
Europe. Increasing this awareness has much potential for improving the way
drought and water scarcity are tackled in agricultural production.
Chapter 11 (Furusho et al.) discusses the topic of Freshwater. Here, the same low
visibility of drought hampers the uptake of drought adaptation measures. However,
the authors point to the fact that everyone agrees with the importance of freshwater
availability, and hence the topic of safeguarding future freshwater availability can
be used as an entryway into more drought awareness. In order to facilitate this
awareness building process the authors plead for more monitoring of water withdraws. The greater insight in the effects of water shortages in freshwater production
can help to trigger action.
The last cross-cutting chapter, chap. 12 (Bressers and Stein) discussed the field
of Nature. They apply contextual interaction theory to discuss the main conclusions
for this field. Motivation is highly varied, and interestingly for cognition the authors
conclude that awareness that drought is becoming a topic of increasing importance
is recognized widely by nature conservation actors. It appears that for Nature the
actors involved recognize the importance of drought better than for Agriculture or
Freshwater. Unfortunately, these same nature conservation actors have limited
resources. This means that for nature not the awareness among primary stakeholders themselves is the biggest problem, but their possibilities to address the issue
properly are.
In chap. 13 (Larrue et al.) we discuss our application of the Governance
Assessment Tool and the generic recommendations we can draw from the case
studies and cross-cutting studies. The aim of this book as such is a double focus on
both model development and refinement, as well as real-life application to regional
drought adaptation. In line with the observations in the outlook above the chapter
concludes with four overarching conclusions for the whole book: (1) Continuous
focus on realizing awareness is needed, (2) An increase in preparation and
1 Introduction
13