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Technical Exchange on River Basin Management Planning
13-14 February 2017, Hyderabad
India-EU Water Partnership Technical Exchange
Development of Integrates Water Resources Management Plans in India Hyderabad, India, 13-14 February 2017
Conflict and cooperation in Spanish water governance: Some lessons learned
Nuria Hernández-Mora Senior water governance expert
Spain
Outline
1. Characterization of water governance in Spain
2. Water allocation mechanisms
3. Institutions for cooperation
I. Basic characterization of water governance in Spain
Spain – Indian basins basic comparison
Surface area
(km²)
Population (million)
Total managed
water (Mm3)
Number of states in the basin/
Country
Spain 504.645 46 55.000
15 autonomous regions
14 river basin districts 8 shared river basins
Godavari 312,812 61 8 states
Krishna 258,948 70 3 states
Mahanadi 141,600 41 2 states
Spanish river basins and autonomous regions
Irrigation18,461 Mm3/yr
(82%)
Industrial uses407 Mm3/yr
(2%)
Services784 Mm3/yr
(4%)
Domesticwater supply2574 Mm3/yr
(12%)
< 400 mm 400-800 mm 800-1200 mm > 1600 mm
Precipitation
Climatic variability and main water users
Main consumptive water uses
Hydroelectricity: 22,000 Mm3 stored capacity (40% of all stored water)
A hydraulically mature society
INTERBASIN WATER TRANSFERS DAM CONSTRUCTION
Water resources under pressure: Status of surface water in Spain
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
Miño-Sil Duero Tajo Guadiana Guadalquivir Ceuta Melilla Segura Júcar Ebro
PORC
ENTA
JE D
E M
ASA
S D
E A
GU
A
Main pressures:
• Agricultural diffuse pollution
• Insufficient urban and industrial wastewater treatment
• Hydromorphological alterations
• Over-allocation of water rights
Jurisdiction for water legislation, policy
making and watershed management in Spain
• Treaties, Regulations, Directives, Case law (European Court of Justice)
• Environmental quality, agriculture, nature protection, water quality
European Union
• Spanish constitution, laws, regulations & decrees • Water planning and management of inter-regional river
basins
Central government
• Agricultural policy, land use policy, environmental policy • Water legislation, planning and management in intra-
regional river basins
Autonomous regions
• Urban supply and sanitation
• Urban land use planning & waste management Municipalities
II. Four interrelated
water allocation mechanisms: water rights,
water planning,
interbasin water transfers
water markets
Administrative mechanisms for water allocation
Spatial scale Characterization Legal instrument Year
approved Allocation criteria
Interna-tional
Spain-Portugal
shared rivers Albufeira Convention 1998
Hydroelectricity, water supply, flood protection
and environmental flows.
Country Allocation
among river basin districts
National Hydrologic Plan
2001
“National hydrological balance” for economic
and territorial strategies
River Basin District
Allocation to different
users
River Basin Management Plans
1998
2009-2015 2015-2021
(1) Economic & regional development.
(2)+(3) Environmental and socioeconomic considerations
User Holder of water use
rights
Water use concessions, permits
and private groundwater rights
1879 1985
2003
Existing rights Order of priority
allocation
Improved governance, water markets and interbasin water transfers are alternative measures to deal with water scarcity. Governance is a pre-condition to all.
Drought hazard in Europe
Baseline (1961-90)
2050s (2041-2070)
Source: Floerke at all (2011)
Drought hazard in Europe
Managing drought Risk management versus emergency responses
Drought management plans on a river basin scale
Integrated with River basin management plans
Drought indicators and monthly drought maps
Four risk & management levels: normal, pre-alert, alert and emergency levels
Each level triggers different management measures
Drought Management Commissions
Emergency drought decrees
2004-2008 drought in the Ebro Basin
Interbasin water transfers in Spain
POLITICAL & SOCIAL
CONFLICT
In Spain, on average 500 Mm3 are transferred annually (1% of total volumes abstracted/used)
The Tajo-Segura transfer
1 457 Mm³/year
764 Mm³/year
348 Mm³/year
0 Mm³/year
500 Mm³/year
1000 Mm³/year
1500 Mm³/year
2000 Mm³/year
2500 Mm³/year
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Stream flow entriesVolume transferred
47%
The need to deal with uncertainty and climatic variability
The need for a basin perspective: The collapse of the Mar Menor lagoon
Lessons learned on interbasin water transfers
• “Small is beautiful”:
• Small regional transfers can effectively help solve regional water scarcity problems and help guarantee urban water supply
• As the geographical scale increases, so do the social, environmental and political implications AND conflicts
• Conflict increases when administrative-political boundaries are crossed
• Economic and environmental considerations: Who pays? Who benefits?
• Risks of overestimating available resources, uncertainties associate with climate change processes (Colorado River basin allocation, Tajo-Segura transfer, etc.)
• Interbasin water transfers often only transfer scarcity problems (and associated sociopolitical conflicts) from one basin to another
• The existence of transfer infrastructures can heavily condition present and future water management decisions in both linked river basins
• Highly regulating water trading mechanisms introduced in Spain in 1999
• The most significant volumes of formal water trading use interbasin transfer infrastructures in times of drought to avoid legal limits (and political outfall) of transfer decisions.
• Informal water trading continues in many water-stressed regions and serves to resolve local problems of scarcity. However, the lack of administrative supervision fails to defend the public interest.
Water markets
Some pre-conditions for the introduction of water markets • Clearly defined, solid and stable institutional context
• Clear goals (environmental improvements, reduced social conflict, prevent drought-related losses, reduce water scarcity...)
• Transparency with regard to market characteristics and operation (contracts, actors involved, characteristics of the permits traded, volumes traded, price, location, temporal scale, etc.)
• Clearly delineated "boundaries” for the market: clear water rights, existing permitted uses, volumes effectively used, geographic scale, etc.
• Incorporated into broader basin management plans.
• Constant evaluation of socioeconomic, environmental, territorial impacts, BUT not aggregated, instead geographically distributed
• Public scrutiny of its selection, design, implementation and evaluation.
III. Institutions for interagency, interstate and international cooperation
MINISTRY OF FOOD, AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Water supply and sanitation
RIVER BASINS
MUNICIPALITIES
RIVER BASIN AUTHORITIES
AUTONOMOUS REGIONAL GOVERNMENTS
Water planning and management in intraregional basins
Agricultural policy
Land use policy
Natural resources and environmental policy
Water planning and management in interregional basins
SPANISH GOVERNMENT
WATER USER ASSOCIATIONS
EUROPEAN UNION
NATIONAL WATER
COUNCIL
INTERREGIONAL SECTORAL CONFERENCES
(environment, agriculture, health, education, etc.)
INTRAREGIONAL SECTORAL
CONFERENCES
BASIN WATER COUNCIL
PARTICIPATED BOARDS
CIVIL SOCIETY Irrigation water management
River Basin planning and management institutions Dam release commissions & Water management boards (part of RBAs)
Made up of water users and RBA’s staff
Mission: Allocate water within the basin among permitted users
Effective cooperation mechanisms for everyday management
Basin Water Councils
Made up of representatives of: water users (±33%), central government (±25%), autonomous regions (±30%), local governments (±4%), social and economic interests (±2%),
Mission: Discuss and approve river basin management plans
End of the process – all the work done beforehand
Drought management boards
Ad-hoc multi-stakeholder commissions
Mission: management of scarcity during droughts to minimize impacts
Very effective facilitating cooperation and consensus
Interregional and inter-sectoral coordinating institutions
National Water Council (established by 1985 Water Act)
Similar composition to the Basin Water council but on a national scale & broader social-technical-expert participation
Approves basin plans and any water related rules and regulations
Documents negotiated beforehand. Opportunity to express dissent.
Competent Authorities Committee (established in WFD context)
Aims to facilitate the effective coordination between different administrations for the achievement of WFD-related river basin management plans
Ineffective design resulted in failure to achieve goals
General frustration and lack of cooperation at a political level
National Sectoral Conferences
Various topics, among them Environment (including water) and Agriculture & Rural Development
Made up of the national Minister and the corresponding regional ministers
Information exchange, debate on national & international sectoral legislation & policies, budgetary distribution
Meets 1-2 times per year.
Regional sectoral conferences
Same as above but organized in the scale of the autonomous region
Interregional and inter-sectoral coordinating institutions
Lessons learned
Multiple institutions, but cooperation and coordination still inadequate
Change in water policy goals (from water resources development and quantity allocation to ecological restoration and ecosystem goals) has brought more players (and opportunities and challenges) to the table
Technical cooperation often effective and increasing
“Void” between technical work & collaboration and final political decision-making: “political meteorites”
Need to improve effectiveness of mechanisms for political cooperation:
Strengthen and institutionalize interagency technical cooperation
Make management plans a co-responsibility of different competent authorities (not only water-related, but also agriculture, rural development, coastal management, land use planning, etc.)
Some additional references Varela, C. y N. Hernández-Mora. (2010) Institutions and institutional reform in the Spanish water sector: A historical perspective. En: Water Policy in Spain. Garrido, A. and M.R. Llamas (eds). CRC Press/Balkema, Leiden, The Netherlands.
De Stefano, L. y N. Hernández-Mora (2012) Water planning and management after the EU Water Framework Directive. En: Water, agriculture and the environment in Spain: Can we square the circle?, L. De Stefano y R. Llamas (eds.) CRC Press / Balkema, Taylor & Francis Group, pp: 35-44.
Hernández-Mora, N. and L. Del Moral. (2015) Developing markets for water reallocation: Revisiting the experience of Spanish water mercantilización. Geoforum 62: 143-155. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.04.011
Hernández-Mora, N., L. del Moral, F. La Roca, A. La Calle, y G. Schmidt (2014) Interbasin water transfers in Spain. Interregional conflicts and governance responses. En: Globalized water: A question of governance, G. Schneider-Madanes (ed). Dordrecht, Springer. Pp: 175-194.
Thank you for your attention
Nuria Hernández- Mora Senior Water Policy Expert
