The OECD Water Governance Principles in Flood Risk Management
Understanding Conflicts and Frictions in Dutch Flood Protection
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Abstract
The OECD Water Governance Principles provide a guideline for good water governance. However, these principles can conflict with each other when applied in practice. This contribution aims to understand which dilemmas arise and how such conflicts play out. It is explored in an in-depth case study on Dutch flood risk management in which conflicts between the principles emerge when applied to flood risk management practice. Interviews with water managers were used to collect data on which principles contradict each other and how these conflicts work out in practice. The study reveals that although the principles seem obvious, some principles indeed clash when applying them, while others do not lead to conflicts. Principles on efficiency, trust, and engagement have high potential for conflicts.
Contributor Notes
Nadine Keller is consultant and stakeholder manager in the field of flood risk management and planning at Sweco Netherlands. She studied the master Spatial Planning at Utrecht University. Her special expertise is in water governance, the OECD principles on water governance, and flood risk management. Nadine is currently doing her (external) PhD research at the the Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning cluster at Wageningen University on the OECD principles on water governance and water management practice. E-Mail: Nadine.keller@hotmail.com
Barbara Tempels is assistant professor at the Department of Environmental Sciences at Wageningen University, The Netherlands. She is a spatial planner with expertise on flood resilience and environmental and spatial governance. She focuses on the spatial development and governance of flood risks, and more recently the integration of environmental and spatial policies. She has published on flood resilience, multi-layered water safety and actor-based approaches to spatial developments with reference to flood risks and urbanization. E-Mail: barbara.tempels@wur.nl.
Thomas Hartmann is the chair of land policy and land management at the school of spatial planning of TU Dortmund University, Germany. He is also affiliated with the Czech J.E.P. University in Ústí and Labem. Next to water governance, his research focuses on strategies of municipal land policy and the relation of flood risk management and property rights. He is also president of the international academic association on planning, law, and property rights (www.plpr-association.org) and vice-chair of the European COST Action LAND4FLOOD (www.land4flood.eu). E-Mail: thomas.hartmann@tu-dortmund.de.