The thesis deals with the use of computer software to inform policy planners in the context of debates about evidence based policy making and the role of experts and expertise in policy planning. Specifically it analyses the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) in the Netherlands and the development of a decision support system that was explicitly intended to be used by policy planners in the process of developing the programmes of measures to reach the WFD objectives. Through detailed analyses of both processes it shows how the WFD implementation process and the development of the instrument mutually influenced each other in ways that make the two domains hard to untangle. This is contrary to the ideal of evidence-based policy planning ideal that requires two separate domains with the policy domain asking questions, while the expertise domain only provides answers. Actor-Network Theory was applied to show the entanglement and to develop the roles of both human and non-human actors.@en

This study investigates the impact of an exhibition on natural hazards on risk awareness of the inhabitants of the Ubaye Valley in southern France. Risk communication practices need to be effective to contribute to disaster reduction, but their impact is rarely evaluated. Using a pre-test/post-test research design as well as a longitudinal study, changes in awareness of adults, teenagers and children were measured. The responses to a questionnaire were analyzed using non-parametric tests. The questionnaire dealt with several factors determining or influencing awareness: attitudes to risk, previous experiences of emergencies, exposure to awareness raising, ability to mitigate/prepare/respond, worry level, self-reported awareness, hard knowledge and demographic characteristics. Generally, risk awareness was higher after visiting the exhibition. The exhibition had most impact on visitors that had experienced few natural hazards or that were little informed a priori. In contrast to teenagers and children, the awareness of adults increased only for risk in general and not for specific natural hazards. Moreover, the results show that the exhibition was more effective in raising awareness of the hazards that occur rarely. For more frequent and more locally occurring hazards, such as debris flows, other means of communication should be considered.

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ABSTRACT: This paper analyses the drivers and constraints for effective cross-sectoral collaboration in river basin management and the extent to which factors identified in related literature determine success or failure of collaboration in selected case studies. Cases selected were from industrialized and densely populated catchments, where trade offs across human activities are particularly intense. This article focuses on three sub-basins: one in the Dutch section of the Rhine; a second in the German section of the Rhine; and a third in China’s Zhujiang (Pearl River) basin. This selection, inspired by the work of the EU-China River Basin Management Programme (2007–2012), enabled a comparative analysis on two levels: (a) between the Chinese and the European sub-basins in order to better understand collaborative forms of management in two very different basin governance regimes; (b) between the two European cases in the Rhine in order to assess how collaborative arrangements vary within the same basin. Empirical work enquired into how cross-sectoral collaboration operates in key catchment management processes; what drivers lie behind collaboration initiatives; and whether obstacles hinder the emergence of collaboration. Our findings highlight various mechanisms through which the wider formal and informal institutional contexts, and processes of institutional interplay, influence more proximate factors identified in the literature. Furthermore, our research illustrates the central role that actor networks and the state play in initiating and sustaining collaboration in water management and river basin governance.

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The Water Framework Directive (WFD)(2000/60/EC) aimed to improve water quality throughout the European Union. In 2000, the text was fixed, but the text’s meaning remained fluid. The goal of the WFD may be the same for all European water bodies – reaching ‘good status’ or ‘good potential’ – each country decides, within limits, how to define “good” and how to reach this goal. Actual implementation of the WFD emerges from actions by changing associations of actors, which keep transforming the WFD meaning through their agency. This paper discusses one of the projects in the Netherlands that has been mobilized within WFD implementation. As of 2005, a modelling tool to assess effectiveness of measures for water bodies – the WFD Explorer – was developed to make (scientific) expertise accessible for policy developers and decision makers. The Explorer was to have a role in harmonising practices for WFD implementation and in coordination processes. As it stands now, however, the Explorer is not accepted by several prospective users – which re-introduces diversity as other tools with similar objectives are being developed. The WFD asked for qualifications of water bodies in terms of the substance water (including chemical and physical properties), the infrastructure of water, and flora and fauna in that water. The (perceived) properties of the materiality of the substance were negotiated within the WFD and the Explorer. Explorer development saw huge debate about which (sets of) rules needed to be mobilized in order to compute effects of measures on water quality. The Explorer required scientific knowledge to be consolidated before incorporating it in an instrument, which proved to be extremely complicated. Although Latour may not have had such an instrument in mind when writing Science in Action (1987), developing a policy-support instrument while the knowledge required is still very much contested is exceedingly value-laden.@en

First-level inspections could be provided by skilled volunteers or technicians to pre-screen the functional status of check dams. This paper discusses the design and testing of a support method in collaboration with the responsible technicians in evaluating inspection reports. Reports are based on linguistic rating scales that are systematically aggregated into indices by means of a multi-criteria TOPSIS method with fuzzy terms. The aggregation procedure is carried out for three parameters representing the structure’s status while highlighting any lack of completeness of inspection reports. The method was evaluated using inspection reports collected during a workshop in the Fella basin in the Italian Alps. The method allows the responsible technicians to set rules to categorise the aggregated indices in one of three levels, each corresponding with a course of action. Rules were useful to categorise the aggregated indices according to the structure’s status. Disagreements on rating defects suggest that a weighted aggregation procedure to calculate the indices might lead to overestimating or underestimating defects. Complementary data from historical inspections or remote sensing are required to initiate specific actions. The method can be applied to pre-screen different types of hydraulic structures after adaptation to the local conditions and functional requirements.@en