4.4.2 Coherence
Passing to the governance system’s coherence, the evaluation is also quite positive.
The main actors, such as the state level, the districts, the municipalities, the water
authorities and the drinking water companies, mutually accept their share of the
tasks, responsibilities and funding given by law. The dependence among these
levels is well recognised by the interviewed individuals. EU environmental policies
seem to have played an important role in introducing a more holistic and synergistic
approach to the management of the reservoirs. To some degree the coordination of
the lower competent authorities appears to be more coherent than that at a higher
level.
Among the factors determining a positive degree of coherence is that the WVER
is in charge of practically all relevant water management tasks in the region. All
these responsibilities being within one organisation rather than distributed between
different actors is probably helpful in establishing a coherent framework. The
institutional structure of WVER also helps that with water users also being the
waterboard members, involved in decision-making and paying for the services
provided, this structure provides a framework conducive to good coherence of, for
example, perceptions, goal ambitions, strategies and instruments. In addition, different stakeholders have goals that match quite well. For instance, the fishermen
associations are interested in large fish populations in the reservoirs, which are also
of interest to the waterboard in their role of drinking water supplier because of fish
population’s positive effects on water quality, in their role of responsible for WFD
implementation, and also for the objectives of the national park authorities.
In the WVER region, the interviews show a sense of trust and mutual dependency between the actors, expressed for instance in their positive evaluation of
participatory approaches being used in water management. All actors interviewed
were quite satisfied by the way the waterboard is working with them and how
actors’ perspectives are considered when proposing measures, for instance, for the
implementation of the WFD. All in all, the stakeholders interviewed expressed their
belief in the extremely high value of the trust-based collaboration that has been built
over the years, and that has evolved positively over time. However, the consensual
and voluntary approach towards measure implementation seems in some cases to be
reaching its limits, with some negotiation processes on contentious topics being
practically at a standstill for a number of years now.
This notwithstanding, we can identify potential conflicts of interest that could
worsen in case of water scarcity. The existence of very old water rights (with strong
legal precedence) seems to create opposing goals between some users from a
drought perspective. Industry users with a certain water right do not at present have
incentives to reduce their water use or to partly reduce their water rights. A further
point is that the strategy for flood prevention implies keeping the water level in the
reservoir sufficiently low until the spring, to ensure enough storage capacity in case
of exceptional precipitation events which may be associated with intense rainfall or
snow melt. However, if there is not enough precipitation or snow melt during the
4 Eifel-Rur: Old Water Rights and Fixed Frameworks for Action
75
Passing to the governance system’s coherence, the evaluation is also quite positive.
The main actors, such as the state level, the districts, the municipalities, the water
authorities and the drinking water companies, mutually accept their share of the
tasks, responsibilities and funding given by law. The dependence among these
levels is well recognised by the interviewed individuals. EU environmental policies
seem to have played an important role in introducing a more holistic and synergistic
approach to the management of the reservoirs. To some degree the coordination of
the lower competent authorities appears to be more coherent than that at a higher
level.
Among the factors determining a positive degree of coherence is that the WVER
is in charge of practically all relevant water management tasks in the region. All
these responsibilities being within one organisation rather than distributed between
different actors is probably helpful in establishing a coherent framework. The
institutional structure of WVER also helps that with water users also being the
waterboard members, involved in decision-making and paying for the services
provided, this structure provides a framework conducive to good coherence of, for
example, perceptions, goal ambitions, strategies and instruments. In addition, different stakeholders have goals that match quite well. For instance, the fishermen
associations are interested in large fish populations in the reservoirs, which are also
of interest to the waterboard in their role of drinking water supplier because of fish
population’s positive effects on water quality, in their role of responsible for WFD
implementation, and also for the objectives of the national park authorities.
In the WVER region, the interviews show a sense of trust and mutual dependency between the actors, expressed for instance in their positive evaluation of
participatory approaches being used in water management. All actors interviewed
were quite satisfied by the way the waterboard is working with them and how
actors’ perspectives are considered when proposing measures, for instance, for the
implementation of the WFD. All in all, the stakeholders interviewed expressed their
belief in the extremely high value of the trust-based collaboration that has been built
over the years, and that has evolved positively over time. However, the consensual
and voluntary approach towards measure implementation seems in some cases to be
reaching its limits, with some negotiation processes on contentious topics being
practically at a standstill for a number of years now.
This notwithstanding, we can identify potential conflicts of interest that could
worsen in case of water scarcity. The existence of very old water rights (with strong
legal precedence) seems to create opposing goals between some users from a
drought perspective. Industry users with a certain water right do not at present have
incentives to reduce their water use or to partly reduce their water rights. A further
point is that the strategy for flood prevention implies keeping the water level in the
reservoir sufficiently low until the spring, to ensure enough storage capacity in case
of exceptional precipitation events which may be associated with intense rainfall or
snow melt. However, if there is not enough precipitation or snow melt during the
4 Eifel-Rur: Old Water Rights and Fixed Frameworks for Action
75