Local-Regional Governance Approaches for more Effective TBA Management

Worldwide countries face challenges to restore and preserve water resources in accordance with UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6. These challenges relate to the ecological, hydrological and hydrogeological domain, societal and policy context, and the role of legal frameworks. Transboundary aquifers (TBAs) and dependent ecosystems present yet another challenge in attaining SDG 6 due to issues related to a lack of coherence of legal and policy frameworks between neighbouring countries. In Europe, the Water Framework Directive (WFD, 2000/60/EC) offers an overarching framework to secure Europe’s waters for future generations. As it uses a river basin approach, it holds a strong potential for effective transboundary management. The requirements set in the WFD regarding international cooperation show a strong resemblance to the target set for transboundary water management in SDG 6. Although the European Commission flagged the WFD as effective in terms of cooperation (2019), water quality improvement seems to have been impeded to date. The studies conducted so far often focus on effectiveness at the scale of river basins. Here, we have studied how governance approaches at the local-regional level support the attainment of water quality ambitions, using scientific literature and empirical material on water quality governance approaches in the Netherlands. Because of the hydrogeological nature of the Netherlands, substantial parts of the country’s aquifers are transboundary. Several of the cases studied are directly influenced by transboundary challenges. In general, our analysis identifies five areas for improvement of water quality governance approaches that are relevant and should be considered in the context of transboundary aquifers. These areas for improvement affect policy responses to drivers, pressures and the state of river basins and related aquifers. This means that the linkages between governance approaches, water system characteristics and the driving forces from other sectors that lead to water quality improvement are much more complex than described in the literature so far and require a joint approach from different sectors and knowledge domains, e.g. hydrology, ecology, law, sociology and economy.