Documents published in Scipedia

• Rethinking the institutional framework to manage droughts

  F. Trillas, G. Delacámara

  Abstracts_4rceec (2024). 169

  
  

  Abstract

  As water is a complex resource essential to human life and numerous activities, which largely departs from the characteristics of both public and private good, governance around its allocation and reallocation for different uses is not trivial. This explains why specific institutions have historically emerged to manage the resource or resolve conflicts arising from the multiple uses that compete with each other. It would be the case of the Water Court of Valencia or the Hydrographic Confederations. These specific institutions must interact with the traditional administration (in Spain, the central government, the autonomous communities and local bodies, which interact in a complex map of competences) and with private or mixed operators where appropriate, as well as with communities of irrigators, operators of energy conversion plants and other groups. The recurring drought episodes in Spain and Catalonia, more frequent and intense as a result of climate change, suggest the importance of thoroughly analyzing how the existing institutions have dealt with these episodes, and detecting dysfunctions and aspects to be strengthened. Climate change, in fact, amplifies a pre-existing phenomenon in much of the territory: drought is the acute manifestation of a structural challenge (long-term water scarcity), therefore, the institutional framework that addresses it it is as important as technological advances or investments to deal with it. Our contribution will make proposals along the lines of a federal improvement of the existing institutional framework, with a special focus on Catalonia, but with a Spanish and European perspective as well, to deal with the risk of drought, specific drought events and to advance the water security in a context of inevitable adaptation to climate change. Francesc Trillas (UAB) and Gonzalo Delacámara (IE)        

  Abstract
  As water is a complex resource essential to human life and numerous activities, which largely departs from the characteristics of both public and private good, governance [...]

  • 0
  •  read