Stakeholder discourse and water management – implementation of the participatory model CATCH in a Northern Italian alpine sub-catchment

摘要

The Water Framework Directive (WFD, directive 2000/60/EC) was created toensure the sustainable use of water resources in the European Union. Acentral guideline included throughout the directive is a call for theparticipation of stakeholders in the management of these resources.Involving stakeholders is an important step to ensure that catchmentmanagement plans take into consideration local experience in the developmentof these plans and the impact of the plans on local interests. This paperdescribes and analyses the results of a series of workshops to facilitateimplementation of the WFD at a catchment level based on the stakeholderparticipation model, CATCH.To test the usefulness of the CATCH model, developed forwater management in a catchment area, a sub-catchment in an alpine valley inthe north-east of Italy, the Alta Valsugana in the Province of Trento, waschosen as the setting for a series of workshops. In this valley water isfundamental for activities associated with agriculture, domestic use, energyproduction, sports and recreation. In the recent past the valley has hadserious problems related to water quality and quantity. Implementation ofwater management plans under the WFD may lead to conflicts within thecatchment between different stakeholder interest groups. Includingstakeholders in the development of management plans not only follows theguidelines of the WFD but also could result in a more locally adapted andacceptable plan for the catchment.A new stakeholder analysis methodology was developed and implemented inorder to identify the relevant stakeholders of the area and then two sets ofworkshops involving the key stakeholders identified were conducted in Spring2006. The CATCH meetings were a new experience for the participants, who hadto deal with both the principles of the WFD in general and the participationrequirement in particular. During the meetings, the CATCH model played avery important role in structuring the participatory process. It provided ageneral framework consisting of a sequence of steps that helped theparticipants to reach the goal of the process: the identification andevaluation of measures to improve water management in the catchment. Thistest of the CATCH model showed it to be a dynamic and flexible tool, usefulfor structuring and guiding the participation process, without imposingundue restrictions on influencing the outcome of stakeholder participationin a small catchment.