Enhancing Adaptive Governance for Water Restoration

Many rivers, coastal waters, and lakes are in need of restoration in Finland. Particularly large share of rivers (40 %) and coastal waters (60%) are below the good ecological status (GES) as defined in the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC). Likewise, about 600 lakes (10% of lake surface in Finland) are also below GES. Achieving of GES is often not possible without active restoration measures. The authorities have a limited role to carry out active restoration projects, as most of the waters are privately owned. Regulatory powers allow authorities to impose limitations to new discharges, but it is seldom possible to require active restoration measures. The ecological status of a river, lake or coastal waters is a result of complex historical development and it is not easy to show whose action has been more important than that of others. Authorities have little resources to carry out restoration projects which are limited to few specific cases, like restoration of an important wetland for biodiversity. Moreover, authorities need permission from the water area owners to carry out such projects. Hence, in many cases little happens unless private actors take an initiative. In most restoration cases, there are numerous water area owners and other potential beneficiaries. This situation calls for self-organisation of private actors. Without self-organisation, no single person may have strong enough interest – or even legal possibility – to initiate and carry out a restoration project. Self-organisation of private actors does not mean, that government would not have a role at all. The government needs to set overall goals and standards to be followed, but also to enable and facilitate restoration projects carried out by self-organised actors, and to ensure that the actions contribute to the achievement of the objectives. In addition to the private actors and authorities, various kinds of networks support the realization of restoration projects. The essence of the adaptive governance framework is to be able to support and handle the diversity of restoration projects, where the ambitions and motivations of the actors, financial and knowledge resources, and legal requirements may vary. Moreover, the adaptive governance enables consideration of the uncertainty in the evolution of the water ecosystems impacted by concurrent climate change, and multiple human pressures, and enable learning from the local experiments. In this interdisciplinary presentation combining both ecological and socio-legal perspectives, we will assess the adaptive capacity of the governance framework to enable and facilitate restoration projects based on the ideas of self-organisation and collaborative governance. We will discuss the role of authorities and the means available for them. We will draw examples from the current development of the networks of local actors or ‘Water visions’ in Finland and pay particular attention to the emerging modes of such collaborative governance. Finally, we will discuss how the governance framework either hampers or facilitates realization of restoration projects.