TY - JOUR
T1 - Frontiers of land and water governance in urban regions
AU - Hartmann, Thomas
AU - Spit, Tejo
PY - 2014/1/1
Y1 - 2014/1/1
N2 - A society that intensifies and expands the use of land and water in urban areas needs to
rethink the relation between spatial planning and water management. The traditional
strategy to manage land and water under different governance regimes no longer suits
the rapidly changing environmental constraints and social construction of the two key
elements in urban development. The dynamics of urban development and changing
environmental constraints cause an urgent need for innovative concepts in the overlapping
field of land and water governance.1 The claim for more space for rivers for flood
retention (Hartmann, 2011) and environmental protection (Moss & Monstadt, 2008),
the fragmentation of the drinking water sector (Moss, 2009), or unsolved upstream–
downstream relations (Scherer, 1990) are illustrative of these dynamics. Therewith,
increasingly, water management steps into the governance arena of spatial planning, and
spatial planning needs to reconsider its notions of water issues.
Particularly in urban regions, engineering and technical solutions of water management
reach their boundaries; new frontiers for the common governance of land and water
emerge (Figure 1). Although agriculture remains important for land and water governance
(Calder, 2005), and it is the biggest consumer of water and occupies large areas of land,
this special issue focuses on the urban realm because in the tense relation between water
and land, the need for innovative approaches is more urgent. Urban regions are intensively
used by many different stakeholders with competing interests, so that frictions between
socio-economic dynamics and environmental constraints of land and water are more
complex and more intense. Hence, the challenges of finding creative and path-breaking
solutions in those areas are most pressing.
AB - A society that intensifies and expands the use of land and water in urban areas needs to
rethink the relation between spatial planning and water management. The traditional
strategy to manage land and water under different governance regimes no longer suits
the rapidly changing environmental constraints and social construction of the two key
elements in urban development. The dynamics of urban development and changing
environmental constraints cause an urgent need for innovative concepts in the overlapping
field of land and water governance.1 The claim for more space for rivers for flood
retention (Hartmann, 2011) and environmental protection (Moss & Monstadt, 2008),
the fragmentation of the drinking water sector (Moss, 2009), or unsolved upstream–
downstream relations (Scherer, 1990) are illustrative of these dynamics. Therewith,
increasingly, water management steps into the governance arena of spatial planning, and
spatial planning needs to reconsider its notions of water issues.
Particularly in urban regions, engineering and technical solutions of water management
reach their boundaries; new frontiers for the common governance of land and water
emerge (Figure 1). Although agriculture remains important for land and water governance
(Calder, 2005), and it is the biggest consumer of water and occupies large areas of land,
this special issue focuses on the urban realm because in the tense relation between water
and land, the need for innovative approaches is more urgent. Urban regions are intensively
used by many different stakeholders with competing interests, so that frictions between
socio-economic dynamics and environmental constraints of land and water are more
complex and more intense. Hence, the challenges of finding creative and path-breaking
solutions in those areas are most pressing.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84908365754&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/02508060.2014.962993
DO - 10.1080/02508060.2014.962993
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84908365754
SN - 0250-8060
VL - 39
SP - 791
EP - 797
JO - Water International
JF - Water International
IS - 6
ER -