The Shifting Territorialities of the Rhone River’s Transboundary Governance a Historical Analysis of the Evolution of the Functions, Uses and Spatiality of River Basin Governance

The Rhone River has been a major development factor for the two countries and regions situated along its banks. The Swiss part of the Rhone is characterised by the great diversity of its uses. It is mainly used for agriculture in its upper part and for hydropower production in Geneva where management of the Rhone is delegated to a semi-public company. In France, since 1933, the « Compagnie Nationale du Rhone » is in charge of the river management from the Swiss border to the Mediterranean Sea. The river has been strongly modified with the construction of 19 hydropower infrastructures. Emergence of new water management perspectives (IWRM), the implementation of the water framework directive and the increase of environmental legislations modified the very nature of the Rhone. If, on both sides of the border, the management of the river has been partly delegated to hydropower companies, public stakeholders tend to look for new ways of managing the river basin. This communication aims to show the issues related to a River when its flow is essentially governed through Hydropower companies. Our communication has several objectives. Firstly, we analyse the existing management arrangements of the Rhone River. We analyse the rivalries emerging among the different uses of the Rhone, focusing on the central function of hydropower companies and their multiple scales of intervention. Secondly, we concentrate ourselves on how public actors attempt to tackle the central issue of increasing coordination at the basin scale. Finally, we discuss different questions: which scale to adopt to achieve an IWRM in a transborder context? To what extent could it be done in an intersectorial perspective while hydropower has such a central function in the regulation of the River? Should it be based on the river basin scale or on more flexible and multi-scalar arrangements?