| International
Workshop
Governance and the Global Water
System
Institutions, actors, scales of water governance
facing the challenges of global change
20-23 June 2006 in Bonn, Germany
WORKSHOP PROGRAMME
AND PRESENTATIONS AVAILABLE HERE.
Objectives and Key Themes
Global environmental change has multi-fold impacts on water related
services, uses and functions at different scales, and thus is aggravating
water related conflicts. Water governance regimes are under growing
pressure to adapt to these global challenges. The key objectives
of the workshop are to identify (a) institutions, actors and scales
which are of key relevance for enhancing adaptive capacity of governance
regimes towards global environmental change, and (b) how governance
regimes can be enabled to strengthen the adaptive capacity and
resilience of the global water system.
Based on an analysis of governance and management regimes and
key factors of human influence on the global water system,
recommendations for research on improved governance of global water
issues at relevant scales will be developed from a threefold perspective:
from basin to global perspective : the
relevance of global water issues in river basin or governance regime
case studies – experience from different continents to cover
different institutional, cultural, economic, environmental conditions
from global to basin perspective : in
depth analysis of a specific global water issue in its relevance
for water governance in river basins
comparative perspective : comparative
analysis of different river basin case studies
The workshop is organised under the umbrella of the Global Water
System Project (GWSP) to support the implementation of an international
research programme on global water governance within the scientific
framework of the GWSP.
Human influence
on the Global Water System
The current state of knowledge must be consolidated on key human
drivers and their effects on the adaptive capacity of the global
water system – e.g. human induced large scale transfer of
water by land use change, food production and virtual water trade.
Past and future trends for the water sector should be highlighted – e.g.
organizational structure and globalization, trends in technologies
and for demographic trends and urbanization, in particular the
development of large agglomerations (mega-cities) and their implication
for the vulnerability of the water system to global change.
How to characterise water governance regimes
Overview of water governance regimes and how they can be characterised
(institutional settings at basin, national, global scales), and
the development of a classification scheme. Specific attention
should be given to the interplay between formal (e.g. legal frameworks,
binding agreements) and informal (cooperative agreements, dialogues,
customs) institutions. The relationship between enhanced vulnerability
and institutions should be addressed and major knowledge gaps be
identified. The workshop should provide an overview on existing
conceptual frameworks and their applicability for a comparative
analysis of the adaptive capacity of water management regimes.
Global water governance and multi-scale policy processes
There is an urgent need to identify and analyse implications
of current and future policy processes and water governance regimes.
The dominant scale for integrated water management is the river
basin. Particular attention should be given to identify the potential
need to manage some water related problems at global scale and/or
take the global scale into consideration in basin management approaches.
Contact
Dr. Daniel Petry
Scientific Officer
Global Water System Project
International Project Office
Walter-Flex-Str. 3
53113 Bonn, Germany
phone: +49 228 736186
fax: +49 228 7360834
e-mail:
daniel.petry@uni-bonn.de
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