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Governance Regime Factors Conducive to Innovation Uptake in Urban Water Management

Experiences from Europe

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Citation

Rouillard, Josselin; Vidaurre, Rodrigo; Brouwer, Stijn; Damman, Sigrid; Ponce, Alberto A.; Gerner, Nadine V.; Riegels, Niels; Termes, Montserrat. 2016. "Governance Regime Factors Conducive to Innovation Uptake in Urban Water Management: Experiences from Europe." Water 8, no. 10: 477.

Innovative ways to manage the urban water cycle are required to deal with an ageing drinking and waste water infrastructure and new societal imperatives. This paper examines the influence of water governance in enabling transformations and technological innovation uptake in urban water management. A governance assessment framework is developed and applied in three case-studies, examining different scales and types of innovations used to tackle challenges in European urban water management. The methodology combines documentary analysis and interviews to reconstruct historical storylines of the shift in the water governance of urban water management for each site. The research provides detailed empirical observations on the factors conducive to innovation uptake at the local level. Critical governance factors such as commitment to compromise, the necessity to build political support, and the role of "entrepreneurs" and coalitions are highlighted. The paper also explores the role of discursive strategies and partnership design, as well as that of regulative, economic and communicative instruments, in creating barriers and opportunities to initiate and secure change. A number of recommendations targeted at innovators and water managers are presented in the conclusion.

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Language
English
Authorship
Stijn Brouwer
Sigrid Damman
Alberto Antorán Ponce
Nadine V. Gerner
Niels Riegels
Montserrat Termes
Funding
Published in
Water, 2016, 8(10), 477
Published by
Year
ISSN
2073-4441
DOI
Project
Project ID
Table of contents
Keywords
transitions, cities, sustainability, adaptation, water governance
Europe, Aarhus, Emscher, Zaragoza, Denmark, Germany, Spain
case study

Source URL: https://www.ecologic.eu/14936