Browsing by Author "Bressers, Hans"

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The Fine Art of Boundary Spanning: Making Space for Water in the East Netherlands
(2010) Warner, Jeroen; Lulofs, Kris; Bressers, Hans
"The desire to comply with the European Water Framework Directive, which seeks to promote Integrated Water Management, has led to a large number of proposed projects that in turn make huge demands on the financial and administrative capacity of water managers, who need to combine multiple fields of interest and participation such as agricultural interests, regional economic development, natural values, water safety and water quality issues to complete each project. To achieve these goals, water managers will often need to negotiate and strike alliances with actors in other policy areas such as spatial planning and local and regional economic development. The article first introduces 'boundary spanning' in a water management context. The concept builds on the concept of 'boundary work' as a strategy to arrive at organisational goals – to reduce uncertainty and deal with complexity in the organisational environment. The contribution then discusses briefly two recent innovative regional water projects, both located in the East Netherlands: a retention basin project on the river Vecht and the planning of a new channel, the Breakthrough. It further analyses strategies pursued by 'boundary spanners' and integrates the analysis with that of a focus group workshop and interviews held with Dutch boundary spanners working for Dutch regional Water Management Boards. The cases show that it is preferable to apply boundary spanning strategies earlier rather than later, and that opponents are also aware of this option."
How Social Learning Influences Further Collaboration: Experiences from an International Collaborative Water Project
(2014) Vinke-de Kruijf, Joanne; Bressers, Hans; Augustijn, Denie C. M.
"Social learning in collaborative settings can play an important role in reducing water management problems. In this paper we analyze the nature and effects of these learning processes in an international collaborative setting. We assert that social interactions contribute to substantive and relational learning, which involves changes in the motivations, cognitions and resources of individual actors. In addition, interactions may contribute to social learning, which is the case when actors develop collective outcomes on which further collaboration can be based. We use these theoretical insights to examine a water project in which Dutch and Romanian actors collaborate. Their interactions changed their individual motivations, cognitions, and resources and led to collective outcomes. Some of the learning processes were constructive, others were not. Because the unconstructive learning by external actors was decisive, the collaboration did not establish a basis for further collaboration. The case study demonstrates that a single project can include multiple and diverse social learning processes, which may have a positive or negative effect on further collaboration. Whose learning has most impact closely relates to how resources are distributed across actors, and hence the context of a learning process. Thus, whether learning forms a basis for further collaboration depends not only on how much actors learn but in particular on who learns what."
Water Governance Decentralisation and River Basin Management Reforms in Hierarchical Systems: Do They Work for Water Treatment Policy in Mexico’s Tlaxcala Atoyac Sub-Basin?
(2016) Flores, Cesar Casiano; Vikolainen, Vera; Bressers, Hans
"In the last decades, policy reforms, new instruments development, and economic resources investment have taken place in water sanitation in Mexico; however, the intended goals have not been accomplished. The percentage of treated wastewater as intended in the last two federal water plans has not been achieved. The creation of River Basin Commissions and the decentralisation process have also faced challenges. In the case of Tlaxcala, the River Basin Commission exists only on paper and the municipalities do not have the resources to fulfil the water treatment responsibilities transferred to them. This lack of results poses the question whether the context was sufficiently considered when the reforms were enacted. In this research, we will study the Tlaxcala Atoyac sub-basin, where water treatment policy reforms have taken place recently with a more context sensitive approach. We will apply the Governance Assessment Tool in order to find out whether the last reforms are indeed apt for the context. The Governance Assessment Tool includes four qualities, namely extent, coherence, flexibility, and intensity. The assessment allows deeper understanding of the governance context. Data collection involved semi-structured in-depth interviews with stakeholders. The research concludes that the observed combination of qualities creates a governance context that partially supports the implementation of the policy. This has helped to increase the percentage of wastewater treated, but the water quality goals set by the River Classification have not been achieved. With the last reforms, in this hierarchical context, decreasing the participation of municipal government levels has been shown to be instrumental for improving water treatment plants implementation policy, although many challenges remain to be addressed."