Cross-sectoral coordination and institutional innovation in water governance 1

Abstract

Water provides many ecosystem services (e.g. for irrigation, cooling, drinking, biodiversity, hydropower) that are often in conflict with each other. Consequently, water is an essential resource for other sectors such as health, energy, or agriculture. However, in many places water resources are in crisis. Exacerbated by increasing pressures of climate change and biodiversity loss, the protection of water resources and water-related ecosystems becomes increasingly critical, while also the protection from water gains importance, for example through flood protection measures. Addressing these challenges will again have consequences for drinking water provision, agricultural land use, or the state of ecosystems, in turn affecting a wide diversity of interests and stakeholders. Thus, water governance is complex spanning multiple sectorial, territorial, social and political boundaries. Analytically addressing these pressing challenges in water governance, papers submitted to this panel should deal with complex interactions among the different levels of governance (international to local), different stakeholders (e.g. public, private, civic), or different sectors (e.g. agriculture, biodiversity, energy). Papers should aim at describing and understanding the interactions among (some of) these different dimensions, or they should deal with the design, adaptation and innovation of institutions capable of dealing with this multi-scalar complexity. The panel aims to provide a platform to discuss new and innovative conceptual approaches and methods to understand the design and implementation of integrated modes of water governance. We specifically invite contributions relying on interdisciplinary approaches, new and innovative concepts, methods and empirical research, and contributions opening up the research agenda for the future.

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