Organizing cross-sectoral collaboration in river basin management: case studies from the Rhine and the Zhujiang (Pearl River) basins

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the drivers and constraints for effective cross-sectoral collaboration in river basin management and the extent to which factors identified in related literature determine success or failure of collaboration in selected case studies. Cases selected were from industrialized and densely populated catchments, where trade offs across human activities are particularly intense. This article focuses on three sub-basins: one in the Dutch section of the Rhine; a second in the German section of the Rhine; and a third in China’s Zhujiang (Pearl River) basin. This selection, inspired by the work of the EU-China River Basin Management Programme (2007–2012), enabled a comparative analysis on two levels: (a) between the Chinese and the European sub-basins in order to better understand collaborative forms of management in two very different basin governance regimes; (b) between the two European cases in the Rhine in order to assess how collaborative arrangements vary within the same basin. Empirical work enquired into how cross-sectoral collaboration operates in key catchment management processes; what drivers lie behind collaboration initiatives; and whether obstacles hinder the emergence of collaboration. Our findings highlight various mechanisms through which the wider formal and informal institutional contexts, and processes of institutional interplay, influence more proximate factors identified in the literature. Furthermore, our research illustrates the central role that actor networks and the state play in initiating and sustaining collaboration in water management and river basin governance.

KEYWORDS:

• Cross-sectoral collaboration
• river basin management
• role of the state
• institutional interplay
• informal institutions
• actor networks

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the interviewees for their time and for sharing their views and experiences. The paper is based on work conducted under the remit of the EU-China River Basin Governance Research and Network Project (www.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/ribago/).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For basic information about the Wupper sub-basin, see: www.wupperverband.de.

2. Interviews were conducted in the course of two research projects carried out from 2009 to 2011 in the Wupper catchment (for more information see funding section at the end).

3. www.wupperverband.de.

4. www.wupperverband.de.

5. Other funding mechanisms – which do not follow the beneficiary-pays principle – are only of minor importance in Wupperverband. The major funding mechanism has changed only slightly over the years; the latest small adjustment derived from new tasks required by the implementation of EU WFD. The basic principles were not questioned.

6. The positive perception described seems to be connected to the culture of consensual decision-making introduced since 1997, when the Wupperverband got a new director. He succeeded in actively promoting consensus among all members, despite difficulties in changing formal decision-making arrangements based on qualified majority voting. He effectively ended a period of more bureaucratic and hierarchical decision-making in the water board.

7. http://www.wupper.nrw.de/Kooperationen/index.jsp.

8. Local municipalities work together in the field of environmental protection through an environmental office executing joint policy (including issuing of permits, monitoring and fines).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Co-Reach Programme for Coordination of Research between Europe and China and the International Institute of Macau. In addition, the authors have benefited from participation in the ESRC International Research Training Network on River Basin Governance (grant number RES-810-21-0071). Empirical research was also conducted in the context of the Leibniz-Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning’s (IRS) research project ‘Public Goods in Transition’ from 2009 to 2011 (www.irs-net.de) and in the context of the German Research Foundation supported research project ‘Waterscale’ (www.waterscale.info) from 2010 to 2013. Empirical work in the Dutch case study was conducted in the context of the I-Five project, funded by Rijkswaterstaat Waterdienst.