"Public participation and River Basin Management in the implementation of the WFD -Taking stock and looking foreward"

Colloquium held at Institute for Environmental Communication, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany, 1-3 September 2010

In September 2010, a group of 23 political scientists, sociologists, geographers and spatial planners met in Lüneburg to discuss the implementation of the WFD from multiple perspectives. The participants represented geographic diversity across Europe in order to account for an all-embracing coverage of the realities, challenges and opportunities that emerge in the EU member states as a result of WFD implementation.

After some introductory conceptual presentations on the aims and rationales of participation and river basin management in the context of the WFD, every EU participant gave a short presentation on her/his country of expertise. The "country reports" were followed by another set of presentations on comparative or cross-cutting empirical analyses and a very productive discussion.

The colloquium had two broad aims. First, with regard to contents

to systematically take stock of current participatory water governance in a plurality of EU member states;
to stimulate a discussion about causal hypotheses explaining the variance of governance practices across Europe;
to facilitate a debate on new governance challenges emerging as a result of participation and administrative reform in water governance.

Second, with regard to future research and collaboration

to promote an exchange on theoretical, methodological and empirical experiences and challenges
to contribute to the emergence of an inter-disciplinary network of scholars interested in governance aspects regarding the WFD and related issues; and, last but not least
to further new collaborative research projects and research proposals.

Organizing Team
Prof. Dr. Jens Newig, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany
Prof. Dr. Mariele Evers, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany
Oliver Fritsch, MA, Aarhus University, Denmark
Leonie Lange, Dipl.-Uwiss., Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany

To download the workshop agenda and the presentations held, please scoll down.