Governing river basins in Brazil: a model for evaluation
Beate Frank
1. Governing water and water governance: an introduction
The interlinked and complex problems that have contributed to the so called water
crisis have motivated in-depth reforms and new policies in the water sector, which have
been taking place in recent decades in many countries. Perret (2006) referred to this
reform process as going on in developing countries, but as the literature shows,
discussions and attempts to improve water governance structures have occurred in
nations distributed over all continents, and sometimes between countries. Central to the
reform process is a shift from traditional engineering tasks - water providing, hydropower
extraction, flood control, pollution control, etc. - to institutional aspects, aimed at finding
acceptable solutions for all stakeholders, considering the complex nature of water
ecosystems and their sustainability.
The water crisis is ever more realized as a crisis in governing water. Governing,
according to Koimann (2003, 4), can be considered as “the totality of interactions, in
which public as well as private actors participate, aimed at solving societal problems or
creating societal opportunities; attending to the institutions as contexts for these
governing interactions; and establishing a normative foundation for all those activities”.
The problems that water management has faced indicate that governing water via usual
formal state institutions doesn’t work anymore, and that new governance structures for
water management need to be created and developed. The emergence of the idea of
governance relates to the fact that such problems need to be tackled simultaneously at all
relevant policy levels, from the local to the regional to the national to the supranational
levels, and that these levels need to be connected (FINGER, 2006).
Governance generally refers to all sorts of new arrangements for creating order
and structuring collective action (STOKER, 1998). As Peet and Watts (1996) pointed out,
the exploration of new governance structures springs from a new emphasis on “naturesociety relations” that is related to the collapse of socialisms and the rise of a neo-liberal
hegemony, the resurgence of environmental concerns, and the rise of political ecology.
1
Koimann (2003, p.4) argues that “governance can be seen as the totality of
theoretical conceptions on governing”. Further, he distinguishes three modes of
governance: self-governance, co-governance, and hierarchical governance. Self
governance is the capacity of societal entities to provide the necessary means to develop
and maintain their own identity, and thus show a relatively high degree of social-political
autonomy (KOIMANN, 2003, p.79). In co-modes of governance the essential element is
that the interacting parties have something ‘in common’ to pursue together, that in some
way autonomy and identity are at stake (KOIMANN, 2003, p.96).
The term governance is widely used, not always in exactly the same sense. More
common is the concept of governance as providing “a framework for understanding
changing processes of governing” (STOKER 1998, p.18), and therefore work on
governance reflects interest in exploring new processes for “creating the conditions for
ordered rule and collective action” (STOKER 1998, p.17). In this respect, Evans (2002)
suggests that the creation of collaborative arrangements – which he calls state-society
synergies – is essential for constructing improved public policy outcomes.
Renewed governance is also one of the core ideas of the new phase of water
management, with the following core principles: decentralization and the development
of new forms of local governance, participation and the quest of greater equity,
sustainability and environmental concerns, liberalization and overall state/public
withdrawal in technical and financial terms. Such reforms have been implemented
through the following policy options: (1) integrated water resource management policies
at river basin level, (2) the emergence of new decentralized institutions, at both river
basin (basin committees or catchment management agencies) and local levels (water
user’s associations), (3) the development of alternative environmental, social, economic
and policy frameworks and tools and (4) irrigation management transfer policies and the
privatization of individual schemes (PERRET, 2006).
In Brazil, such a formal reform has been taking place since the 1990s, due to a
number of problems experienced in the last decades, as described below. In 1991, São
Paulo State, the most industrialized in Brazil, was the first to enact a new water law based
largely on the Dublin Principlesi for integrated water management, defined formally in
1992. In 1997 a nationwide water law was enacted, based on the same ideas. The social
2
participation of water users and civil society stands out in all water laws, in consonance
as well with the 1988 Brazilian Constitution that called for greater participation in public
policies of various types.
As a consequence, great importance is given to the new Brazilian decentralized
institutions, river basin committees, intended to be state-society synergies, according to
Evans, or, co-governance structures, according to Koimann. The question this paper
addresses is related to the effectiveness of these committees. I do not ask whether they
are or not effective, but how this effectiveness can be defined and by which process
variables it is influenced. I argue that to be able to actually govern water issues, or to
effectively address the problems that governments alone did not, these structures have not
only to be created but also to be prepared. Therefore, it is necessary not only to discuss
how the governance structure has changed, but how the governance in the new
institutions is being built or has to be built to achieve the aimed results.
To understand the water problems river basin committees are facing, the next
section provides a brief description of Brazilian water issues.
A basic concept related to the attempts to develop water management at river
basin level is the idea of Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM). In the third section
I describe this concept and some critical views, and its relation with scale and with the
participatory water management bodies.
The fourth section is dedicated to developing an approach to understanding the
process of building river basin governance, or establishing a river basin committee, based
on collaboration approaches from several authors.
The last section describes the scope of my proposed research project designed to
apply the developed approach to Brazilian river basin committees, to gather empirical
data to test the model and to identify the needs to improve process to make river basin
committees more effective.
2. The Brazilian water issuesii
The main water resources demand in Brazil, including abstractions, consumption,
and return rates by user type, is presented in Table 1. Abstractions for consumptive uses
3
in 2000 (the reference year) totaled 1,592 m3/s, with 53% of this volume (841 m3/s)
effectively consumed and 751 m3/s returning to the river basins.
Table 1: Abstractions, consumption, and return rates, by user type
Types of use
Abstraction
Consumption
Return
M³/s
%
M³/s
%
m³/s
%
Urban
420
26
88
11
332
44
Industrial
281
18
55
7
226
30
Rural
40
3
18
2
22
3
Livestock
112
7
89
11
23
3
Irrigation
739
46
591
69
148
20
Total
1592
100
841
100
751
100
Although Brazil has significant water potential, it is important to underscore the
appreciable variability in time and space of water in the various regions. Consequently,
basins in areas with low availability and heavy use of water resources experience water
shortages and stress situations. According to the index used by the United Nations to
express water availability, Brazil is in a very comfortable situation, with only the Eastern
Northeast Atlantic Region in an unfavorable situation in terms of water stress (1,145
m3/person/year). This figure corresponds to less than one half of the water volume
estimated by the United Nations (2,500 m3/persons/day) as sufficient for community life,
aquatic eco-systems, and sustaining human, social and economic activities.
The following data will explain the internal differences through the country. The
average annual flow-rate of rivers in Brazil is 179,000 m3/s (5,660 km3/year),
corresponding to approximately 12% of the world’s available water resources. Taking
into account the rivers flowing into Brazil from other countries through the Amazon,
Uruguay and Paraguay Basins, total available water volume reaches some 267,000 m3/s,
corresponding to 18% of available water worldwide.
The Amazon Hydrographic Region holds 73.6% of the Nation’s surface water
resources, followed by the Tocantins/Araguaia region, with 7.6%, and the Paraná region,
4
with 6.4%. The lowest surface water availability rates are found in Eastern Northeast
Atlantic, the East Atlantic, and the Parnaíba Hydrographic Region (see map in Figure 1).
Figure 1: Brazilian hydrographic regions
Despite the abundant water coming from the highlands (Planalto), the Pantanal
Region (Paraguay Hydrographic Region) is not a water producer, resulting in a low
contribution by the Pantanal Region to surface run-off.
In most parts of Brazil, flow-rate regularization levels are set through reservoirs,
which ensure some 60% average flow-rate. In addition to power dams, there are other
reservoirs designed to boost water supplies, such as the weirs along some water courses
in Northeast Brazil that are vital for supplying communities, watering livestock, and
irrigation in this semi-arid region.
In semi-arid areas of Brazil, irregular rainfall of 800 mm or less, and high
evapotranspiration rates, imply that many streams and rivers vanish during longer dry
seasons, causing drought, with severe economic and social impacts on local communities.
5
Collection of rainwater in small water-storage cisterns for subsequent use is one of the
alternatives for mitigating the scourge of drought for low-income communities with
limited access to water in semi-arid areas.
Groundwater (spring and well water), generally of good quality, is being used
intensively for a wide variety of purposes, such as human water supply, irrigation,
industry and recreation. Estimates indicate that there are at least 400,000 boreholes. In
Brazil, 15.6% of households use only groundwater. Although the use of groundwater
sources supplement surface water in many regions, in some parts of the country they
constitute the main source of water.
The high quality of groundwater in Brazil is substantiated by the significant
consumption of bottled mineral and tabled waters, particularly in major urban centers.
But over the past few decades, anthropogenic activities have adversely affected some
aquifers. The main problems include: drilling of boreholes without adequate construction
designs, not complying with the technical standards; location-specific pollution due to a
lack of adequate sanitation systems; excessive pumping from boreholes along the coast,
which increases the inflow of the seawater wedge, resulting in salinity problems; leaks
from fuel storage tanks; and the use of agricultural inputs with ample potential for diffuse
pollution, among other problems.
Critical water pollution regions are located close to major metropolitan regions,
associated mainly with the discharge of household sewage. Despite ongoing water quality
problems in Brazil, the progress achieved in remedying the situation that existed some
decades ago should not be disregarded.
Nationwide, the main water pollution is caused by discharge of household
sewage, because only 47% of Brazilian municipalities have sewerage collection
networks, and only 18% of sewage receives any form of treatment. In rivers with low
water-availability levels, particularly in the semi-arid region and high urbanized areas,
the consequences for the water quality are visible.
Mining activities, industrial liquid wastes, and point and non-point pollution
resulting from urban and agricultural run-off and solid wastes are major problems
throughout Brazil, in practically all Hydrographic Regions.
6
The effects of soil impermeabilization in major cities are all too evident, while the
use of permeable coverage materials to enable rainfall seepage is rare. In parallel to the
expansion of impermeable areas, the density of population is growing steadily, and
demand for drinking water is increasing, making issues of human water supply a major
concern.
In summary, the Brazilian river basins present some water shortage problems, and
a large variety of environmental problems caused by land use and water uses, related to
the characteristics of the river basins and their sizes. Therefore, the needs for
management and problem solving are recognized differently at different scales and by
different actors.
The implementation of participatory water management concepts in Brazil,
introduced by the new water laws already mentioned is a great challenge. The Brazilian
Federal Constitution establishes that all three levels of government – federation, states
and municipalities - are jointly responsible for environmental protection, but
responsibilities related to water resources management are defined differently. Surface
waters are under federal domain if rivers cross more than one state or are shared with
other countries, and under state domain, if the entire river flows within a single state.
Groundwater is exclusively under state domain. So, unlike environmental management,
municipalities have no formal authority over bulk water management. Nonetheless, they
are responsible for water supply and sewage systems, both important water uses, and for
land use management, which is, of course, closely connected to water quality and
quantity.
This means that cooperation among the different administrative levels is
necessary for water management to occur in most river basins.
The National Water Resources Management System (SINGREH) was created in
1997 in the attempt to confront the complexity of this situation. In addition to state and
federal agencies responsible for water management, this system includes a participatory
National Water Resources Council (CNRH), water councils in each state, and River
Basin Committees, in which civic participation is particularly important. In each state, the
characteristics of the councils and committees vary substantially, due to the socioeconomic and political-cultural diversity among regions. But all have formal
7
responsibilities related to conflict resolution and defining water use plans at the state or
basin level.
In addition to these councils and committees, the national government and each
state have created a water resources management department or agency, almost always
connected to environmental agencies. Their functions basically involve providing
technical support to councils and committees and implementing – in collaboration with
council, committees and agencies – a set of management tools including water planning,
water use permits and a bulk water charging system, established by the new water laws.
This framework is a work in progress. By 2007 more than 130 river basin
committees at state level and 6 at federal level had been legally created. This does not
mean that governance was achieved in all river basins. Some challenges for water
governance in Brazil can be identified (Moreira and Frank, 2007). The greatest challenge
to be faced in solving water use conflicts at the river basin level is the political culture.
Traditionally, public officials have made decisions unilaterally. Not only does this
bureaucratic culture need to change, but also society must overcome its inexperience in
this kind of dialogue if participatory water management is to become a reality.
3. Integrated River Basin Management (IRBMiii): from coordination to
collaboration
The concept of integrated water resources management (IWRM) is not new, but it
has changed over the course of time (WATSON, 2004). Is has been applied for many
decades in United States, Canada, England and Wales, Australia, New Zealand and
France (MITCHELL, 2007). In general IRBM is an holistic or ecosystem approach for
the river basin, with different interpretations according to Mitchell (1990, 2007). There is
the notion of “comprehensive” water resources development, the older notion, and there
is the “integrated” interpretation. While the former requires a broader consideration and
management of all the different elements, relationships and processes within a water
resources system, the latter concentrates on the interactions among elements that are
significant in a particular river basin (WATSON 2004). Mitchell (2007) argues that the
8
comprehensive approach is useful at a strategic level, whereas the integrated
interpretation is a more selective approach, useful at an operational scale, “focusing on
those variables, relationships and processes understood to be the main influences on the
behavior and variation of the catchment system and for which management intervention
can be expected to make a difference” (MITCHELL, 2007, p. 52).
A new or more advanced view in the discussion about IRBM is advocated by
Postel and Richter (2005), which is the idea of river governance instead of water
governance, because, in their view, the focus on the basin is not enough. This perspective
considers the natural flows and thus the river ecosystem as one of the building blocks for
better river governance. They argue that there is “scientific consensus that restoring some
measure of a river’s natural flow pattern can revitalize river health and resuscitate
endangered fish and wildlife even in a heavily dammed and mechanized river” (POSTEL
and RICHTER, 2003, p.167), and that has to be considered as goals of IRBM. The
subject arose in connection with the world commission on dams (WCD), whose
recommendations have “built the foundation and frame for a new architecture of river
governance” (POSTEL and RICHTER, 2003, p.177).
Two other concepts have to be cleared to understand the IRBM challenge: the
meaning of integration and the meaning of scale.
Warner (2007) describes IWRM as “decompartmentalising” of water management
functions. Based on Mitchell (1990), he sees integrated management as a multi-layered
systems approach, integrating: (1) relations between surface and groundwater, quantity
and quality, (2) relations between water and land use, and (3) relations between water and
stakeholder interests. To this set of relations to be integrated, Warner (2007) adds
relations between water institutions.
This fourth kind of integration proposed actually is not new, but has been called
coordination. Throughout the time IWRM has been defined, conceptualized and
implemented in different ways, it was always founded on a “myth” of inter-agency
coordination (WATSON 2004). According to Watson, many organizations, policy
makers and researchers, including the Global Water Partnership (2001, p.1), continue to
subscribe to the myth that improved co-ordination is the key to successful IWRM
practice. Co-ordination means an arrangement whereby two or more organizations create
9
and/or use existing decision rules in order to align their separate policies or activities. As
such, a formal rigid and rule-based relationship is implied, which enables organizations to
assist each other in working towards their separate objectives (WATSON, 2004, p245).
While improved co-ordination can reduce to some extent the fragmentation, Watson
argues, it does not represent an adequate strategy. In the last years, rivers have been
identified more and more as unstable, open and chaotic socio-biophysical systems, giving
rise to wicked management problems (complex, uncertain, changeable and conflictual,
according to Holling 1978, and WATSON 2004). In such circumstances, the ends and the
means of management are uncertain, effective solutions are beyond the reach of any
single agency or organization, and producing agreement over causes, consequences and
decisions about a problem is extremely difficult.
Mitchell (2007, p. 52), however, argues that not always it is necessary to coordinate inter-agency efforts: “There will be many situations in which relatively
straightforward initiatives by one agency will be sufficient to deal with an issue”.
A number of other changes challenge the legitimacy of traditional state
institutions. Governments no longer appear to occupy a supreme position in policy
processes because of a redistribution of responsibilities among complex networks of
private and new third-sector organizations. Watson argues that this implies that
intergovernmental and inter-agency co-ordination cannot provide the kind of systemresponse capability that is often required and that it is time to reform the myth of coordination in IRBM (WATSON, 2004). He suggests its substitution by an alternative
myth, the myth of collaboration.
As Watson asserts, collaboration extends the level of interaction well beyond coordination, improving institutional arrangements and responses for IRBM that “reflect the
complex, uncertain, dynamic, interconnected, open and adaptive characteristics of the
river basin system themselves”, because “a system’s survival is threatened when the
response repertoire cannot match the variety emanating from the environment” – law of
requisite variety (Ashby 1960; WATSON 2004, 2007).
Scale, the second concept mentioned as an important element to discuss
collaboration for IRBM, refers to the physical dimensions, in either space or time, of
10
phenomena or observations (REID, et. al 2006). Actually, it means the size of the
watershed intended to be managed.
The Register of International River Basins (UN 1978) of the world defines a river
basin as the area that contributes hydrologically (including both surface- and
groundwater) to a first order stream, which, in turn, is defined by its outlet to the ocean or
to a terminal (closed) lake or inland sea. Different denominations, however, are used in
English speaking countriesiv.
Watershed sizes can range from very large basins to very small catchments.
Schueler (2000; RANDOLPH, 2004) uses the following classification of watershed sizes:

Catchment: area that drains development sites to their first intersection with
stream

Subwatershed: 1 to 10 square miles (second order streams)

Watershed: 10 to 100 square miles

Subbasin: 100 to 1000 square miles

Basin: 1000 to 10,000 square miles
Above these units, the denomination sub-region and region are included
(RANDOLPH, 2004). Of course, integration of management at each of these areas
implies different scales, and will also require different practices and meanings, from a
very operational (catchment) to a strategic one (basin). And “adopting a particular scale
of assessment limits the types of problems that can be addressed” (REID, et. al, 2006,
p.8).
For management proposals the concept of level is also important. Level is a
characterization of perceived influence. It is not a physical measure but, according to
Reid et al (2006), it is what people accept it to be. Thus, scale and level are not related.
Now, Mitchell (2007) and Verhallen and Warner (2007) raise the question of
whether collaboration among stakeholders, through river basin decision-making bodies,
is compatible with IRBM, because stakeholders tend to focus on more local areas within
a larger system. To overcome this tension, Mitchell (2007) suggests working
simultaneously at two scales: the entire basin and sub-basins, with appropriate decision-
11
making bodies. The collaborative for the entire basin should integrate representation from
all sub-areas and sectors in the basin.
4. Building river basin governance
The approaches for water management adopted in different countries and in
different conditions, at river basin or watershed level, are discussed by several scholars.
Two main directions are acknowledged in these studies: the human relations necessary to
establish a collaboration process and the institutional challenges to develop collaboration.
These differences are related to the multidisciplinary nature of the research subject. This
means that the different approaches don’t show controversies, but instead, different
aspects or different characteristics of the same objects. In this section several approaches
are discussed and then compared. Table 2 is an attempt to summarize them.
Barbara Gray is a behavioral scientist. Based on several empirical studies about
collaborative processes not related to water management, she established a process
model. She defines collaboration as: “(1) the pooling of appreciations and/or tangible
resources (eq. information, money, labor, etc), (2) by two or more stakeholders, (3) to
solve a set of problems which neither can solve individually” (GRAY, 1985, p.912).
An underpinning concept of collaboration is the domain, which “can be thought
of as the set of actors (individuals, groups, and/or organizations) that become joined by a
common problem of interest.” Gray argues that a domain level focus is essential both for
understanding and for solving common problems. Further she describes some
circumstances in which collaborative problem solving among stakeholders is warranted:
the existence of “indivisible” problems, limitations of traditional adversarial methods of
resolving conflicts, and increasing environmental turbulence.
Her focus on collaboration within domains differs from other perspectives in
inter-organizational relations, because: (1) she focus on domain level development; (2)
she is concerned with underorganized systems, that is, the domain of interest representing
potential networks of organizations rather than already established networks or
federations of organizations; (3) she is concerned with problem domains which cannot be
satisfactorily managed by a single organization or by an oligopoly, but instead advance
the interests of all stakeholders; (4) she adapts a process-oriented approach, concerned
12
with the need for a development of collaborative relationships within organizational
domains.
Based on these assumptions, Gray suggests a process model of collaboration in
three steps: (1) problem-setting, (2) direction-setting, (3) structuring to regulate
collaborative activities. For each of these steps she describes the conditions which
facilitate the process. Thus, problem-setting is facilitated by identification of
stakeholders, stakeholder expectations
about outcomes, degree of recognized
interdependence, legitimacy, and convenor characteristics; direction-setting is facilitated
by coincidence of values among stakeholders and dispersion of power among
stakeholders; and structuring is facilitated by degree of ongoing interdependence,
external mandates, redistribution of power, geographic factors and influencing the
contextual environment.
Geographic factors mean the scale of the problem domain. If the common
problem of interest is a local one, it is easier to structure collaboration. Thus, the
dimension of the watershed that is to be managed, already mentioned in the previous
section, is a crucial aspect. It is interesting that the result of the collaboration process influencing the contextual environment - is seen as a condition for structuring. This
means that Gray emphasizes the outcomes of collaboration as a necessary condition to
structure further collaboration.
Watson (2004, 2007) is a geographer working on institutional issues of resources
management. He discusses collaboration as a way to achieve IWRM - integrated water
resources management – using a successful case study, the Fraser River Basin, in British
Columbia (Canada). His model for the collaboration process goes beyond Gray’s model
discussed above. Collaboration here is portrayed as an emergent and iterative process
rather than a highly structured and linear arrangement. Obstacles or disagreements may
be encountered at any point in the process which may require the participants to re-visit
earlier phases in order to re-define or re-organize their joint activities and arrangements.
This collaborative governance model states that by improving the quality of the
decision-making process, collaboration reduces the risks of dispute and implementation
failure in the policy circle. Attempts at collaborative problem solving may involve
13
several repetitions of this cycle and the length of time devoted to each phase will vary
from case to case. All told, collaboration is a fragile and complex process.
In the model, (1) context means that a wide variety of changes in contextual
conditions can trigger decisions to pursue collaboration or to reject approaches from other
organizations. (2) Problem-setting is concerned with establishing the identity of the
problem and the legitimate stakeholders who occupy the problem domain. Although this
seems logical, it is common to jump to conclusions without examining the nature of
problems in sufficient depth and to try to get agreement on the solution before there is
agreement on the problem. (3) Direction setting means the identification of desirable
future conditions and a direction for action. In order to gain legitimacy and support,
super-ordinate goals must reflect the desires and aspirations of the collaborating
organizations, be feasible, and also must be deemed worthwhile by society at large. In
practice the establishment of long-term goals and actions is unlikely to be straightforward
due to different understandings, values, attitudes, and aspirations among the collaborating
organizations and groups in the policy arena. (4) Structuring means that interorganizational structures and procedures must be created to guide subsequent collective
action. These explicit mechanisms are often missing and there is a tendency to rely on
bureaucratic management principles. Failure to develop adequate structural arrangements
for the inter-organisational environment has major implications, since the collaborators
will not be able to move forward in the desired direction. (5) Outputs and outcomes:
Watson (2004, p 248) argues that collaboration should not be viewed as an end in itself:
“By working through the first three phases of collaboration, organizations should be able
to develop joint policies, programs and projects (outputs) designed to produce outcomes,
which are consistent with established long-term goals and ambitions. Failure to generate
outputs or to achieve positive outcomes is likely to undermine the commitment of
participants to the collaborative arrangement.”
Sabatier, a political scientist, developed with other authors (SABATIER et al,
2005; LUBELL, 2005) a dynamic framework for watershed management, based on
empirical studies of many watershed partnerships in the United States. This kind of
partnerships has several variants - collaborative engagement processes, collaborative
watershed partnerships and collaborative superagencies - that can be distinguished by two
14
dimensions: duration and decision-making power or influence (informal advisory versus
formal authority). Following Ostrom (1990), they conceptualize “a collaborative process
as essentially a set of rules regarding the types of participants, their entry and exit from
the process, their authority to undertake tasks, and how their actions lead to policy
outcomes” (SABATIER et. al, p15).
They find that collaborative watershed institutions represent a new approach to
environmental governance, combining important elements of old management
approaches with a series of adaptations and innovative choices that exploit emerging
opportunities (LUBELL et. al, 2005, p.261). They develop a framework with six main
components – context, process, legitimacy, civic community, policy outputs and
watershed outcomes – strongly related to each other. Their research findings are
summarized in six main themes related to this dynamic framework of collaborative
institutions, and focalize mainly the relations among the components of the dynamic
framework: (1) process and context, (2) participation and representation, (3) civic
community, (4) effectiveness, (5) legitimacy, and (6) survival.
The first theme, process and context, focus on how collaborative institutions
depend on the context. Collaborative institutions consist of formal and informal rules for
making collective decisions and governing actual resource use behavior. The ability to
combine core ideas of collaborative institutions in various ways directly contributes to the
adaptive capacity and survivability of the institution. Therefore, “a successful
environmental governance institution adapts to the structure of the action-decision arena
(the context), including the type of environmental problems, the constellation of political
actors and venues, existing policy tools, civic culture, and socioeconomic conditions”
(LUBELL et. al, p262).
The next theme, participation and representation, discusses who participates in
collaborative institutions, which segments of the population they represent and why
people participate. Data from some watershed partnerships indicate that people
participate for two primary reasons: (1) to improve ecological and/or socioeconomic
conditions in the watershed and/or (2) to protect themselves by making sure the
partnership does not do something to harm their basic interests.
15
Civic communityv represents the basic human dimensions that relate to the
success or failure of collaborative processes. Six aspects of civic community were
considered: human capital, social capital, trust, political efficacy, collective action beliefs
and legitimacy. Among them, trust was identified as the most important for collaborative
action to succeed. Collaborative processes that give members a sense of fair treatment
can create considerable trust and new social and human capital.
The effectiveness of partnership is related to outputs and outcomes. As seen
above, people are primarily interested in policy outputs from the collaborative process
because these are seen as essential contributors to policy outcomes, but they do so if they
judge the process to have substantive legitimacy. It is almost impossible to measure
whether the policy outputs of a collaborative process affected a policy objective.
Another empirical result is that the age of the partnership influences the
effectiveness. Data indicate that “the number of activities increases substantially over
time and that partnerships found it easier to agree on, and implement, specific projects
than they did to agree on a comprehensive management plan” (Leach, Pelkey and
Sabatier, 2002; LUBELL et al). The outputs also are influenced by context variables,
including a perceived watershed crisis and preexisting norms of reciprocity, and process
variables, the extent of trust and having organizational representatives with the authority
to negotiate. For implementation projects, the only important variables were partnership
age and the amount of grant funding.
With respect to the theme legitimacy, Lubell et. al argue that it must be
understood as a twofold normative requirement, expressed by procedural criteria (based
on fundamental value of autonomy and hold that those bound by watershed policy must
have a voice in formulating it) and substantive criteria (based on fundamental values of
welfare and justice and hold that watershed policy outcomes must improve the conditions
of life for watershed stakeholders and the costs and benefits must be distributed fairly).
Collaborative institutions display a wide range of structures with respect to procedural
legitimacy. The authors observe that, “there is some evidence that involvement in
collaborative institutions does satisfy many of the participants’ own concerns regarding
procedural fairness” and, “as in other domains of social life, it could be very difficult to
cultivate full participation among groups excluded from political power in the past”
16
(LUBELL 2005, p.282). The substantive legitimacy of watershed collaboration is
difficult to determine, and therefore stakeholder perceptions of changes in the watershed
may be used as a surrogate for data on actual changes in evaluations of substantive
legitimacy.
The last theme is survival, which is about the circumstances in which watershed
collaboratives will survive long enough to have a reasonable chance of improving
watershed conditions. Lubell et. al (2005) conclude that survival in this sense is a
function of both procedural and substantive legitimacy.
In Table 2, I consider the components of the approach as the elements of the
dynamic framework, reframed by the description of the six themes: (a) context, (b)
process, (c) participation and representation, (d) legitimacy, (e) civic community, (f)
effectiveness (outputs and outcome), (g) survival.
The next approach to be considered was developed by Warner and Verhallen
(2007) and Verhallen et. al (2007), as a result of an international research initiative on
multi-stakeholder platforms (MSP), with case studies in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin
America. Jeroen Warner is a political scientist with experience in environmental conflict,
risk and participation and Annemarie Verhallen is a sociologist, specialized in innovation
of vocational training. An MPS is defined as a decision-making body (voluntary or
statutory) comprising different stakeholders who perceive the same resource management
problems, realize their interdependence for solving it, and come together to agree on
action strategies for solving the problem (Steins and Edwards 1998; WARNER, 2007).
MSPs are viewed as new forms of cooperation in the face of water conflicts.
Using experiences of several case studies, Warner and Verhallen (2007)
developed a typology for MSPs. As platforms are the result of interrelations among
different social actors, embedded in different social and political contexts, they argue that
there is no room for normative definitions on how they must be structured or which
methodology is the best for their functioning. In other words, “there is no such a thing as
a standard MSP” (Warner and Verhallen, 2007, p23).
They defined twelve dimensions to describe MSPs, as follows: (a) arenas
(domains) refers to the sectors or groups that are part of the platform; (b) multiple use
refers to all water uses, including environmental flows; (c) power balance is related to
17
efforts to address imbalance between a multitude of interests; (d) saliency of goal is
required because if a problem is experienced as urgent and salient, a resource platform
will seem logical for its participants; (e) joint fact finding refers to an open and inclusive
information and knowledge process; (f) decision space refers to the level of authority no mandate, only consultative or informative to plenty of mandate - with influences in
decision making processes, depending on the degree to which central governments are
willing to share power; (g) support generating means the extent of the support – human
and financial - generating capacity; (h) synergy means that the platform is able to
generate added value, that people try to understand and augment each other’s
perspectives and jointly come up with new and bold approaches; (i) adaptivity refers to
the ability of the platform, over time, to redirect its work for land and water resources,
because the development of platforms take years; (j) favorable context refers to a
context absent for severe conflicts or chaos for the platform to function; (k) governance
structure means that non-coercive government guarantees stable preconditions and
shares power; (l) outcome is substantial to address land and water management issues in
a practical way and means that the platform is seen as a relevant network to tackle them;
(m) reflective capacity means that the platform takes time for reflection of the outcome,
the process, the content, their efficacy and efficiency.
The role of facilitation and framing is not included in the above typology,
although it impacts on all dimensions. Warner’s and Verhallen’s research finds that “just
sitting together does not solve problems. People have to bring, or develop, skills for
making a multi-stakeholder process work.” To form a dialogue in which collaborating
persons fully grasp the complex situation, including an understanding of the different
perspectives and interest, requires proper awareness-raising, training and facilitation. In
several of the studied cases a charismatic leader or facilitator (or facilitating organization)
is platform’s convener or motivator. Different organizations play this role in top-down
and bottom-up MSPs. Facilitators have a key function in almost all steps of structuring
the MSP, and “it therefore seems highly important that the platform and its facilitator
obtain the legitimacy and mandate from the participants, and that the facilitator’s
activities are monitored by all” (WARNER and VERHALLEN, 2007, p28).
18
Scholz and Stiftel (2005), presented the results of an interdisciplinary research
project carried out in Florida, on the collaborative approaches adopted to solve eight
water conflicts. They distinguished first order from second order conflicts. While first
order conflicts are the conflicts solved by traditional institutions, normally related to one
specific water use, second order conflicts are considered conflicts among different uses,
for which solutions of a new kind of governance must be developed.
Due to the complex nature of water conflicts, they argue that adaptive
management tools did not work, due to the fact that they are useful when there is broad
agreement on policy goals but on about the appropriate means to achieve these goals.
Therefore a new approach, where goals and means are inseparable, is necessary. Thus
they define adaptive governance (AG) as an approach that “involves the evolution of
new governance institutions capable of generating long-term, sustainable policy solutions
to wicked problems through coordinated efforts involving previously independent system
of users, knowledge, authorities, and organized interests” (SCHOLZ and STIFTEL, 2005,
p.5).
The Florida case studies reveal that AG faces five challenges: (1) representation
- requires innovative means of ensuring legitimate, meaningful involvement of affected
groups in a manner congruent with the norms of representation in the overall political
system; (2) decision-making process - deliberative process design requires a decisionmaking process capable of recognizing and articulating the needs of affected users and
consolidating them into practical policies that can achieve consensus; (3) scientific
learning – requires incorporation of diverse scientific viewpoints to answer critical
policy questions, monitor outcomes, and challenge policy assumptions inconsistent with
new findings; (4) public learning – requires transformation of beliefs and preferences
about legitimate water rights and decision processes among users as well as the
community and political institutions; and (5) problem responsiveness – requires that the
process produces an efficient, equitable, and sustainable solution.
Discussion about the AG approach case studies show that public learning,
including both increasing knowledge about possible outcomes of different policy and
behavioral choices, and also changing views about the legitimacy of decision processes
and behavioral restrictions, is the most ambiguous and less understood of the challenges
19
(Scholz and Stiftel 2005b, Lubell 2005, p174). According to Lubell, adaptive governance
does not necessarily imply collaboration, but that the complexity of watershed problems
provides a niche for the evolution of collaborative institutions and explains how
cooperation can be developed through a successful adaptive governance network.
Ozawa (2005) discusses the role of science in the adaptive governance approach.
Based on three sets of challenges of science in public decision making, she proposes
guidelines to face these challenges that can be understand as guidelines for public
learning processes. Besides these guidelines, she argues that AG requires new attitudes
toward interacting with one another and institutions restructured to support such
interactions; she also advocates that these attitudes are necessary to develop trust, to
focus on knowledge that matters, to incorporate different sources of knowledge and to
resolve tensions between rights and environmental responsibilities.
Sabatier (2005) argues that the AG approach gives comparatively little attention
to human behavior. He sees scientific learning by policy adversaries as much more
problematic, but indicates some conditions that facilitate such learning. The most
interesting is the creation of a forum, dominated by scientific norms, and prestigious
enough to force professionals to form different coalitions to participate.
The authors conclude that the consensus process of adaptive governance is a
major contribution to water governance, but nevertheless, the role the adaptive decision
process can play within the overall governing system is limited by the resistance of
existing authorities to delegate power to local, ad hoc processes. To improve adaptive
governance, the five challenges suggest three key-themes: (1) stronger collaboration in
consensual processes, (2) more realistic use of scientific information, and (3) greater
incorporation of market incentives (Scholz and Stiftel, 2005b, p.233). In Table 2, the
first two of these themes describe the challenges (decision process and public learning). I
consider the third theme, greater incorporation of market incentives, a new challenge or
condition for the overall working process.
The last approach considered here is the work of Saleth (2006), based on Saleth
and Dinar (2004). He develops a framework to evaluate water institutions, so that the
“critical linkages between formal and informal institutions as well as the structural and
spatial linkages among local, regional and national institutions”, are considered
20
(SALETH, 2004, p3). According to Saleth (2006), water institutional structure includes
the structurally nested and embedded legal, policy and organizational rules governing
various facets of water resource management. The overall performance of water
institutions and their ultimate impacts on water sector performance depends not only on
the capabilities of their individual institutional components and aspects but also on the
strength of structural and functional linkages among them. The water institutional
environment or context characterizes the overall social, economic, political and resource
context within which the water institutional structure evolves and interacts with the water
sector. This defines the context row of Saleth’s approach in Table 2.
Saleth, following Saleth and Dinar (2004), argues that there are many theories to
explain different aspects of institutional reform processes, which must be used in a
complementary way. For a better and more realistic description of the process of
institutional change he proposes a four-stage model, as follows: (a) mind change
(perceptional convergence), (b) political articulation (crystallization of the demand), (c)
actual institutional change (implementation of the reform program), (d) ultimate impact
of institutional change (perceptible flow of benefits). The four stages are linked in a
circular process subject to constant subjective and objective feedbacks, learning,
participation and adaptations. All these elements characterize the approach and are
considered in Table 2.
In the implementation stage – the actual institutional change - financial,
organizational and bureaucratic aspects play a major role. The impact of institutional
change on economic performance is not immediate but has a very long gestation period,
in which behavioral changes play a major role.
Although Saleth (2006) focus on the macro and formal segments of water
institutions, he argues that the framework can be generalized and applied to basin and
local contexts.
An important remark about the framework is made in respect to the demand-side
role of education and the supply-side role of research. The author suggest that “the way
water institutions and their change process are conceptualized here can be seen as a
starting point for developing institutional learning and evaluation tools to facilitate a
better and more consensual understanding of institutions among both the public and
21
policy-makers” (SALETH, 2006, p17). In comparison with the other approaches,
however, the four stage model is a poor model to describe the evolution of water
institutions at the river basin level.
Table 2 presents a comparison of the six discussed approaches. They are chosen
as the most important due to the different perspectives of their authors. The literature
indicates however, that beyond the above described approaches there are other studies
related to the subject. Mitchell (2007), a geographer with long experience in river basin
management, based on analysis of integrated water resources management experiences
and multistakeholder platforms in Canada, Australia, Britain and the USA, deduced
lessons for effective stakeholder implementation and integrated water resources
management. His arguments are directed towards overcoming the tension in using IWRM
and MSPs together, that are mainly related to the scale problem. He also mentions the
“top ten hint list” for successful catchment management, proposed by the United States
Department of Agriculture Conservation Technology Information Center (Stout, 1998;
MITCHELL, 2007). Kemper et. al (2007), developed an analytical framework to analyze
the decentralization process that results in establishing basin-level institutional
arrangements. This means that the evaluation, the learning process and the necessary care
that has to be taken in conducting platforms or partnerships or general collaboration
efforts at river basin level have been an object of research for many scholars.
The content of Table 2 shows a shift, from left to right, from human relations and
social aspects of collaboration to institutional aspects of creating new structures for water
management.
Each of these approaches consider different and complementary
perspectives of the collaboration process in the new decision bodies.
Table 2: Comparison of approaches for river basin governance (next two pages)
22
Approaches →
Collaboration
process
(Gray 1985)
Collaboration for
IWRM
(Watson 2004)
Watershed
partnerships
(Sabatier et al;
Lubell et al 2005)
Multistakeholder
Platforms for
IWRM
(Verhallen et al;
Warner 2007)
Adaptive
governance
(Scholz and Stiftel
2005)
Institutional change
process
(Saleth 2006)
Scientific
backgrounds
Behavioral
sciences
Geography
Political Sciences
Sociology and
Political Sciences
Economics
Conclusions based
on…
Various empirical
studies, not related
to water
Fraser basin (BC –
Canada)
Watersheds USA
Level of formality of
collaboration
Several
High
Low
Catchment/river basin
in Asia, Latin
America, Africa and
Europe
Several
Political Sciences and
Regional and Urban
Planning
Eight water conflicts in
Florida
Low
High
(a) Context
(a) Context
(potential obstacles)
Type of environmental
problems
Constellation of
political actors and
venues
Existing policy tools
Civic culture
Socioeconomic
conditions
(j) Favorable
context
[conflict history
described individually]
Political system
Legal system
Demography
Economic development
and policies
Resources/
environment
Water sector
performance
(b) Problem-setting
(c) Participation and
representation
(a) Arenas
(b) Multiple use
(c) Power balance
Facilitator
(a) Representation
(a) Mind change
Legitimate involvement
of affected groups
Political entrepreneurs
Categories ↓
Context
Problem
perception
(a) Problemsetting
Identification of
stakeholders
Stakeholder
expectations about
outcomes
Degree of
recognized
interdependence
Legitimacy
Convenor
characteristics
(key questions)
Identity of the
problem
Legitimate
stakeholders
River basin and higher
levels governance in
developing countries
Information and
learning
(b) Political
articulation process
Actual reform program
23
Approaches →
Collaboration
process
(Gray 1985)
Collaboration for
IWRM
(Watson 2004)
Watershed
partnerships
(Sabatier et al;
Lubell et al 2005)
Multistakeholder
Platforms for
IWRM
(Verhallen et al;
Warner 2007)
(b) Directionsetting
(c) Direction setting
[Goals defined a priori,
because watershed
partnerships are created
to improve water
quality]
(d) Saliency of goal
(establishment of long
term goals and actions
is unlikely to be
straightforward)
(c) Structuring
(d) Structuring
(b) Process Institutions
Degree of ongoing
interdependence
External mandates
Redistribution of
power
Geographic factors
Influencing the
contextual
environment
Interorganizational
structures and
procedures must be
created to guide
collective action
for collaborative
watershed management
Categories ↓
Goals
Coincidence of
values among
stakeholders
Dispersion of
power among
stakeholders
Structuring
Results
(d) Legitimacy
Procedural and
substantive
(e) Civic community
Human capital
Social capital
Trust
Political efficacy
Collective action beliefs
(e) Output
(f) Effectiveness
Policies, programs and
projects and
Outputs
Outcomes
Outcomes
(g) Survival
consistent with longterm goals and
ambitions
Adaptive
governance
(Scholz and Stiftel
2005)
Institutional change
process
(Saleth 2006)
(e) Joint fact finding
(f) Decision space
(g) Support
generating
(h) Synergy
(i) Adaptivity
(k) Governance
structure
(b) Decision process
(c) Institutional
change
(l) Outcome
(m) Reflective
capacity
(e) Problem
responsiveness
Stronger collaboration in
consensual processes
Behavioral changes
(c) Scientific learning
(d) Public learning
More realistic use of
scientific information
(f) Greater
incorporation of
market incentives
(d) Actual impact
Expectation consistency
Adaptive instrumental
evaluation
Subjective and objective
factors
24
Collecting the most relevant contributions of the discussed approaches, I suggest a
new framework, presented in Figure 2. In this framework, there are seven main
components. According to almost all approaches summarized in Table 2, the context is
the background for the collaboration. Influenced by this context, four components form a
circle – problem-setting, direction-setting, structuring and results – similar to the
collaboration circle proposed by Watson (2004). Inspired by the research results from
Sabatier and Lubell, the process structure and results are strongly influenced by the civic
community and by legitimacy. Legitimacy is, thus, like a central invisible indicator for
the soundness of the process at all.
Context
Problem
recognition
Results
Legitimacy
Outputs and
outcomes
Direction-setting
Political articulation for
establishment of actions
and long term goals
Civic
community
Structuring
Creation of interorganizational
structures and procedures to
guide collective action
Figure 2: Framework for adaptive governance of river basin
According to the framework, building governance for river basin begins through
problem recognition, a perception or awareness that a new approach for solving a
problem of the context is necessary. If this perception is shared by the domain, a
participative process will start. If the perception is easily shared with a broader public, the
initiative will gain legitimacy.
25
In the next step the direction has to be set. A collaborative effort needs to have a
direction, an overall goal that is shared by all participants. To pursue and to define
actions related to the goal is necessary, because generally people don’t engage for a long
time based only on ideas. Concrete tasks are necessary to mobilize stakeholders, because
participation needs some action, and action influences legitimacy.
Once the direction is defined, structuring the collaboration is necessary. As Gray
(1985) put forward, short term collaborations may not require structuring. River basin
committees, however, are thought of as long term collaboratives, and therefore they must
create interorganizational structures and procedures to guide collective action. This is
certainly the less understood component in the evolution of Brazilian river basin
committees. The civic community, which represents the basic human dimensions related
to the success or failure of collaborative processes (LUBELL et al 2005), is influenced by
the collaboration structure. Both structure and civic community influence legitimacy and
are influenced by it. Thus the legitimacy can be thought of as a mirror that tells about and
“controls” the collaborative process. However, legitimacy alone does not guarantee
collaborative survival.
Both structure and civic community influence the last step, the results, which
influence legitimacy and also feed back to the structure. According to Lubell et al (2005),
results indicate the process effectiveness. The results are outputs and outcomes aligned
with previously defined goals; they may change the context and bring new participants to
the table. Results, therefore, are necessary for collaboration survival.
As mentioned by Watson (2004), this framework isn’t a single loop cycle.
Building governance of river basins requires a permanent looping through the four steps,
looking towards the goals and the legitimacy mirror. Looping implies integrating new
stakeholders in the collaborative, to redefine goals, review procedures, improve
structures, and evaluate results. Looping in the collaboration circle is, therefore, a public
learning process.
The context encompasses socioeconomic conditions, natural resource uses, type
of environmental problems, the constellation of political actors and venues, the civic
culture, the legal system, the existing policy tools, and the performance of the water
26
sector. The latter comprises water management and environment agencies, which are
essential partners in the collaboration.
Eventually this context favors a change in problem awareness, a perception that
problems have to be tackled in another way, via collective action. If some political
entrepreneurs are successful in gathering people around the new idea, they will promote a
political articulation to initiate collaboration. Important conditions to fulfilling this step
are a clear problem identification, the representation of multiple uses and interests, the
perception that stakeholders are legitimate, the recognition of interdependence among
stakeholders, and a skilled and legitimate convener.
As argued by Warner and Verhallen (2007), “just sitting together does not solve
problems”. To form a dialogue in which collaborating persons fully grasp the complex
situation, including an understanding of the different perspectives and interest, requires
proper awareness-raising, training and facilitation. This task begins in the first step of the
collaboration circle, in organizing the domain. Therefore the facilitator plays an essential
role in the collaboration process.
Another condition that can facilitate the first step is the dimension of the basin. In
small watersheds all the other conditions are easier to fulfill.
The direction-setting seems easy but is unlikely to be a straightforward step. It can
be facilitated if stakeholders have similar values and if power is well distributed among
them. Although long term goals are important to guide collaboration efforts, short term
actions, as already mentioned, are necessary to bring collaboration to life.
Structuring implies the creation of inter-organizational structures and procedures
to guide collaboration. Different as usual institutions, the structure must be synergic and
adaptive to cope with, one, the instabilities of the political system in which it is supposed
to act, and two, the unpredictability of the river system which it is supposed to manage.
The conditions which facilitate structuring are the perception of a high degree of
interdependence, external mandates of representatives and redistribution of power.
Legitimacy, as indicated in Figure 2, also conditions structuring. Some tools are helpful
in structuring collaboration: a decision process which facilitates consensus, scientific
learning to deal with incomplete knowledge, and public learning to promote information
and experience sharing and to transform collaborative decisions into practice (Scholz and
27
Stiftel 2005; Lubell 2005). Structuring is, thus, the most difficult and work-intense step to
develop.
The last step encompasses the results generated by the collaboration: the outputs,
in form of policies, programs and projects, and also the outcomes, the actual impacts on
the watershed. Another intangible output is the reflective capacity of the collaborative,
which helps to close and to reinitiate the circle.
In the above described framework I do not mention the legal attributes of river
basin committees, nor the water management tools which committees should apply in
connection with water agencies and other components of the Brazilian Water
Management System. As policy tools they are part of the context. Management tools are
there to help committees in problem solving; they are tools and not results. As shown in
the framework, problems can only be solved if a sound structure is built. And as argued
by Frank and Schult (2005), a public learning process is necessary to learn how to use the
policy tools to solve problems and to achieve at least part of the goals.
5. Research proposal
The research activity to be implemented in 2008 aims to analyze at least three
river basin committees using the framework proposed in the previous section.
Three data sets will be used in this study: 1) qualitative descriptive data (Projeto
Marca D´Água 2003, complete reports at www.marcadagua.org.br and published papers);
2) survey data collected in 2004; 3) qualitative data to be collected from March to June
2008, with special attention to the tools used in the structuring process.
28
Bibliography
ASHBY, R. Design for a brain. Chapman and Hall, London. 1960.
BAKER, Mark and KUSEL, Jonathan. Community Forestry in the United States: learning from
the past, crafting the future. Washington: Island Press. 2003
BRASIL. Ministério do Meio Ambiente. National Water Resources Plan. Executive Summary.
2006
EVANS, Peter. 2002. Introduction: Looking for Agents of Urban Livability in a Globalized
Political Economy. In Livable Cities? Urban Struggles for Livelihood and Sustainability.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
FINGER, TAMIOTI and ALLOUCHE (Ed.) The multi-governance of water: four case studies.
State University of New York Press. 2006
FRANK, B., SCHULT, S. I. M. A ação local no âmbito da gestão de recursos hídricos: uma
proposta conceitual para a capacitação In: XVI Simpósio Brasileiro de Recursos Hídricos, 2005,
João Pessoa. Anais XVI Simpósio .... 20 a 24 nov 2005. Porto Alegre: Associação Brasileira de
Recursos Hídricos, 2005. v.1.
GLOBAL WATER PARTNERSHIP (2001). Toolbox for Integrated Water Resources
Management. Global Water Partnership, Stockholm, Sweden.
GRAY, Barbara. Conditions facilitating interorganizational collaboration. Human Relations. V
38, P 911. 1985
KEMPER, Karin; BLOOMQUIST, William; DINAR, Ariel (Ed.) Integrated river basin
management through decentralization. The World Bank and Springer. 2007
KOIMANN, Jan. Governing as Governance. SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks, New
Delhi, 2003.
LUBELL, Mark. Public learning and grassroots cooperation. In: SCHOLZ, John T. and
STIFTEL, Bruce. Adaptive governance and water conflict: new institutions for collaborative
planning. Washington: Resources for the future. 2005
LUBELL, Mark; SABATIER, Paul; VEDLITZ, Arnold; FOCHT, Will; TRACHTENBERG, Zev;
MATLOCK, Marty. Conclusions and recommendations. In: Swimming upstream: collaborative
approaches to watershed management. SABATIER, FOCHT, LUBELL, TRACHTENBERG,
VEDLITZ, MATLOCK (Ed.). Cambridge (MA): Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 2005.
P261-296
MITCHELL, Bruce. Integrated catchment management and MSPs. In: Multi-stakeholder
platforms for integrated water management. Jeroen Warner (Ed.) [Ashgate studies in
environmental policy and practice]. England, USA: Ashgate. 2007. P49-67
MOREIRA, Maria Manuela and FRANK, Beate. Water governance in Brazil: progress and
challenges. In: Latin American Studies Review. Berkeley: CLAS. 2007 (???)
OSTROM, Elinor. Governing the commons: the evolution of institutions for collective action.
Cambridge: Cambridge Academic Press. 1990.
OZAWA, Connie P. Putting science in its place. In: SCHOLZ, John T. and STIFTEL, Bruce.
Adaptive governance and water conflict: new institutions for collaborative planning.
Washington: Resources for the future, P185-195. 2005
29
PEET, Richard and Michael WATTS. 1996. Liberation Ecology: Development, sustainability,
and environment in an age of market triumphalism. In: Liberation Ecologies: Environment,
Development and Social Movements. London: Routledge.
PERRET, Silvain. Introduction. In: Water governance for sustainable development:
approaches and lessons from developing and transitional countries. PERRET, Silvain; FAROLFI,
Stefano and HASSAN, Rashid. 2006
POSTEL, Sandra and RICHTER, Brian. Rivers for life: managing water for people and nature.
Washington: Island Press. 2003
POSTEL, Sandra and RICHTER, Brian. Rivers for life: managing water for people and nature.
Washington: Island Press. 2003
Projeto Marca D´Água - seguindo as mudanças na gestão das bacias hidrográficas do
Brasil: Retratos 3X4 das bacias pesquisadas. Brasília: Projeto Marca D´Água, 2003.
QUIRK, Paul J. Restructuring state institutions: the limits of adaptive leadership. In: SCHOLZ,
John T. and STIFTEL, Bruce. Adaptive governance and water conflict: new institutions for
collaborative planning. Washington: Resources for the future, P204-212. 2005
RANDOLPH, John. Environmental land use planning and management. Washington: Island
Press, 2004.
REID, Walter V.; BERKES, Fikret; WILBANKS, Thomas J. and CAPISTRANO, Doris.
Bridging scales and knowledge systems: concepts and applications in ecosystem assessment [A
contribution to the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment]. Washington: Island Press, 2006.
SABATIER, Paul. Linking science and public learning: an advocacy coalition perspective. In:
SCHOLZ, John T. and STIFTEL, Bruce. Adaptive governance and water conflict: new
institutions for collaborative planning. Washington: Resources for the future, P196-203. 2005
SABATIER, Paul; FOCHT, Will; LUBELL, Mark; TRACHTENBERG, Zev; VEDLITZ, Arnold;
MATLOCK, Marty. Collaborative approaches to watershed management. In: Swimming
upstream: collaborative approaches to watershed management. SABATIER, FOCHT, LUBELL,
TRACHTENBERG, VEDLITZ, MATLOCK (Ed.). Cambridge (MA): Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. 2005. P1-21
SALETH, R. and DINAR, A. The institutional economics of water: a cross-country analysis of
institutions and performance. Cheltenham (UK): Edward Elgar. 2004
SALETH, R. Maria. Understanding water institutions: structure, environment and change
process. In: PERRET, Silvain; FAROLFI, Stefano and HASSAN, Rashid. Water governance
for sustainable development: approaches and lessons from developing and transitional
countries. 2006
SCHOLZ, John T. and STIFTEL, Bruce. Conclusions: the future of adaptive management. In:
Adaptive governance and water conflict: new institutions for collaborative planning. Scholz
and Stiftel. Washington: Resources for the future, P224-238. 2005.
SCHOLZ, John T. and STIFTEL, Bruce. Introduction: the challenges of adaptive governance. In:
Adaptive governance and water conflict: new institutions for collaborative planning. Scholz
and Stiftel. Washington: Resources for the future, P1-11. 2005.
SCHUELER, T. Basic concepts of watershed planning. In: The practice of watershed
protection. T. Schueler and H. Holland (Ed.). Ellicott City, MD: Center for Watershed
Protection, 2000, pp145-61.
30
STEINS, N.A. and EDWARDS, V.M. Platforms for collective action in multiple-use CPRs,
Paper presented at the 7th annual conference of the International Association for the Study of
Common Property, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, June 10-14, 1998.
STOKER, Gerry. Governance as theory: five propositions. International Social Science Journal
50 (155), 17–28. 1998.
The Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development. Dublin, Ireland, January 31, 1992
UN Center for Natural Resources Register of International Rivers. New York: Pergamon, 1978.
VERHALLEN, Annemarie; WARNER, Jeroen and SANTBERGEN, Leo. Towards evaluating
MSPs for integrated catchment management. In: Multi-stakeholder platforms for integrated
water management. Jeroen Warner (Ed.) [Ashgate studies in environmental policy and practice].
England, USA: Ashgate, 2007. P259-271
WARNER, Jeroen and VERHALLEN, Annemarie. The nature of the beast: towards a
comparative MSP typology. In: Multi-stakeholder platforms for integrated water
management. Jeroen Warner (Ed.) [Ashgate studies in environmental policy and practice].
England, USA: Ashgate. 2007. p21-29
WARNER, Jeroen. The beauty of the beast: multi-stakeholder participation for integrated
catchment management. Multi-stakeholder platforms for integrated water management.
Jeroen Warner (Ed.) [Ashgate studies in environmental policy and practice]. England, USA:
Ashgate. 2007. p1-19
WATSON, Nigel. Collaborative capital: a key to the successful practice of integrated water
resources management. In: Multi-stakeholder platforms for integrated water management.
Jeroen WARNER (Ed.) [Ashgate studies in environmental policy and practice]. England, USA:
Ashgate. 2007. P31-48
WATSON, Nigel. Integrated river basin management: a case for collaboration. International J.
River Basin Management. 2 (4), pp. 243-257. 2004.
i
The Dublin Statement (1992) principles: (1) Fresh water is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential to
sustain life, development and the environment; (2) Water development and management should be based
on a participatory approach, involving users, planners and policy-makers at all levels; (3) Women play a
central part in the provision, management and safeguarding of water; (4) Water has an economic value in
all its competing uses and should be recognized as an economic good.
ii
This section is based mainly on the National Water Resources Plan (BRASIL, 2006)
iii
The terms IRBM (Integrated River Basin Management) and IWRM (Integrated Water Resources
Management) are used as synonyms in the literature. For instance, Watson uses IRBM in 2004 and IWRM
in 2007, in the same context and referring to the same former publications. The term IRBM indicates with
more explicitness that the integration is thought to happen at river basin level. It seems that the adopted
term in each case express editor’s preferences. IRBM is the term chosen by the International Journal of
Integrated River Basin Management.
iv
River basin is synonymous with what is referred to in the United States as a watershed and in the United
Kingdom as a catchment, and includes lakes and shallow, unconfined groundwater units (confined or fossil
groundwater is not included).
v
The term civic community was first used by Putnam, Leonardi and Rafaella (1993, apud LUBELL et all,
2005), and refers to a republican theory of successful self-governance.
31