WP1: Essential Definitions for Collaborative Water Governance
This work package's main objective is to gather background information and inputs to address the design of basin councils and their proper integration into the country's institutional and planning framework. Recognizing the need to decentralize water management in an acceptable, efficient, and sustainable manner, WP1 is divided into two key areas.
What is our work?
WP4: Developing Mechanisms for Inclusive and Adaptive Participation
Traditional, centralized approaches to water governance are often insufficient for today’s complex challenges. As a result, collaborative governance has become critical, with basin organizations serving as the primary platforms for bringing diverse actors together. However, collaboration is not automatically successful; it requires carefully designed participation mechanisms to ensure inclusiveness, foster consensus, and avoid reinforcing existing power imbalances. When done right, participation can lead to better cooperation, social learning, and enhanced adaptive capacity, which are essential for innovation and resilience. This work package aims to assess, compare, and develop recommendations for participation mechanisms that create inclusive and adaptive basin councils in Chile.
WP 4.1: Evaluation of International Participatory Experiences
This first stage will build a foundation by learning from global best practices. The methodology involves an extensive literature review on participation in environmental decisions and collaborative contexts. This will be complemented by a multiple-case study analysis of four international water basin organizations in Uruguay, Brazil, the US, and Spain. By examining these diverse cases, which have long histories of collaboration, the goal is to identify different strategies for fostering inclusive and adaptive participation. The findings will be compiled into a set of "Participation Recommendations".
WP 4.2: Identifying Barriers to Participation in the Chilean Context
Effective participation practices cannot be simply transferred from one context to another, as local social and ecological dimensions are crucial for success. Therefore, this stage will explore the specific barriers to user participation in three different Chilean water basins. These basins will be selected to represent a diversity of collaborative histories: one with a long history of organization, one with a more recent trajectory, and one with no previous history of water user organizations. Information will be collected through in-depth interviews and active participation to identify contextual barriers, such as divergent expectations, unclear rules, or the physical and social characteristics of each basin.
WP 4.3: Towards Inclusive and Adaptive Participation in the Chilean Context
This final stage will synthesize the knowledge gathered from the previous stages—the international recommendations (WP4.1) and the analysis of Chilean challenges (WP4.2)—along with results from the other Work Packages. The primary output will be a report with tailored recommendations for designing effective participation processes in Chilean water basin organizations. These recommendations will be discussed and validated with key stakeholders, including officials from the Ministry of Environment, the General Water Directorate, and members of the pilot water basins, to ensure they are practical and relevant for strengthening an adaptive approach to water management in Chile.
Research Objective
To critically assess polycentric water governance systems and its key components to promote sustainable and resilient societies by boosting a participatory and democratic approach.
Specific Objective
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Identify and analyze the key questions that should be answered to advance in the design and implementation of effective water governance mechanisms at the basin level in Chile.
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Assess effective and adaptive collaborative management of water user associations, identifying possible institutional improvements.
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Understand how collaborative polycentric governance at water basin level contributes to community resilience in the context of climate change.
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Evaluate the comparative advantages of different management approaches and develop recommendations for inclusive participation and adaptive governance.
Work package 1
WP3: Analysis of Water Basin Resilience to Climate Change
The concept of resilience (the ability of a system to absorb disturbances and adapt) is key to facing climate change and the increasing frequency of extreme events. Although the concept is robust, it often lacks practical application, being "conceptually strong but operationally weak". This work package seeks to identify and analyze the economic, environmental, social, and participatory factors that support or hinder the resilience of water basins in Chile. The objective is to understand how polycentric governance can better prepare communities for the water-related risks they face
WP 3.1: Proposal of Indicators to Assess Resilience
The first stage focuses on developing a set of indicators to measure the different dimensions of resilience in the four basins under study. To do this, a detailed characterization of each basin will first be carried out, examining its demographic, climatic, economic, and hydrological aspects.
Then, a set of indicators will be proposed under the SMART framework (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound) to ensure their quality and relevance. Finally, a resilience assessment survey will be conducted with a panel of experts from various disciplines, and the results will be statistically analyzed.
WP 3.2: Towards a Holistic Assessment of Resilience
A simple list of indicators does not offer a comprehensive view. To overcome this limitation, the second stage consists of aggregating the individual indicators into a composite indicator, or synthetic index, which allows for a multidimensional assessment of resilience.
To ensure more reliable results, two advanced methodological approaches will be used: the Distance-Principal Component (DPC), a statistical method that reduces subjectivity, and the Goal Programming Synthetic Indicator (GPSI), a non-statistical technique.
The application of these indices will allow for the comparison of resilience among the different basins, the identification of their main strengths and weaknesses, and thus the promotion of policies to enhance it.
Work package 2
Research Methodology
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Identify and analyze the key questions that should be answered to advance in the design and implementation of effective water governance mechanisms at the basin level in Chile.
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Assess effective and adaptive collaborative management of water user associations, identifying possible institutional improvements.
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Understand how collaborative polycentric governance at water basin level contributes to community resilience in the context of climate change.
-
Evaluate the comparative advantages of different management approaches and develop recommendations for inclusive participation and adaptive governance.
Work package 3
WP1: Essential Definitions for Collaborative Water Governance
This work package's main objective is to gather background information and inputs to address the design of basin councils and their proper integration into the country's institutional and planning framework. Recognizing the need to decentralize water management in an acceptable, efficient, and sustainable manner, WP1 is divided into two key areas.
WP 1.2: Institutional Insertion and Articulation
WP 1.1: Water Basin Council Design
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to water challenges; governance at the basin level must be tailored to local specificities. Therefore, this work area focuses on answering fundamental questions for the effective design of water basin councils:
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Why? To identify the challenges and gaps in water management that will be addressed with their creation.
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For what? To define the missions, functions, and objectives of these governance entities.
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Who? To determine who should be part of the councils, how they are chosen, and how they participate.
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How? To establish the necessary tools and instruments, such as financial resources, for their successful operation.
To achieve this, the methodology includes a multiple-case-study analysis of four international water basin organizations, an extensive literature review, and a workshop to transfer and validate the results with key stakeholders like the General Directorate of Water and the Ministry of the Environment.
Water basin councils cannot operate in isolation; they must be articulated with the existing institutional framework. Chile has a diversity of public and private organizations with functions related to water resources. Therefore, this second area seeks to answer how the new basin councils will relate to existing organisms and to territorial and water planning instruments, such as the Strategic Plans for Water Resources in Basins.
The methodology is based on a widespread bibliographic review and expert surveys of international cases, using the OECD's water governance principles as a reference. Additionally, four basin organizations will be analyzed to understand their institutional insertion. The results will be discussed in a workshop to develop policy proposals, which will be presented to decision-makers through policy briefs and presentations.
Work package 4
WP2: Assessment of Collective Water Management by Water User Associations in Chile
This work package focuses on assessing the collective water management carried out by Water User Associations (WUAs) in Chile. In the country, these organizations are responsible for the local management and distribution of water. However, this model faces significant challenges: a high percentage of WUAs are not formally organized, and in many that are, user participation is low. This situation has led to the over-extraction of aquifers and conflicts. The objective of this WP is to analyze different cases of collective management, identify problems, barriers, and facilitators for cooperation, and find entry points for applying the international recommendations obtained in WP1.
WP 2.1: Chilean Case Study Analysis
This first stage seeks to analyze and compare the dynamics of different WUAs in Chile. To do this, a combined analytical framework (CIS Framework) will be applied, which is a robust tool for studying social-ecological systems. The methodology will focus on four water basins in the country, where semi-structured interviews will be conducted with WUA members. Through these interviews, their perception of the levels of participation and democracy within their organizations will be analyzed, as well as the barriers and drivers for fostering a more participatory system.
WP 2.2: Identifying Necessary Changes and Points of Entry
Once the diagnosis is complete, this second stage focuses on identifying the elements, processes, or rules that need to change to achieve more participatory local water governance. The main activity will be a prospective and participatory workshop that will bring together members of the studied WUAs along with public authorities. In this workshop, a shared vision of the situation will be discussed, factors affecting participation will be identified, and hypothetical scenarios will be explored to generate viable proposals that strengthen the collaborative management of water