#19: River basin organisation

River basin organizations are important actors in coordinating water policy across the different levels of government, with the shared objective of harmonizing water policy at river basin level. River basin management has been proposed to fill existing administrative gaps and to ensure a holistic and hydrological approach to coordinating water policy between sub-national actors and levels of government.

River basin organisations bear a wide array of responsibilities, with the common objective of harmonising water policies at the basin level. On the one hand, the basin perspective makes it easier to integrate physical, environmental, social and economic influences on water resources. On the other hand, the decentralisation of water

Governance can be defined as the various institutionalised modes of social coordination to produce and implement collectively binding rules, or to provide collective goods (Börzel & Risse, 2010,p. 114).

Börzel, T. A., & Risse, T. (2010). Governance Without a State: Can It Work? Regulation & Governance, 4(2), 113–134. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-5991.2010.01076.x

has increased the number of relevant (administrative) boundaries and organisations. With the introduction of basin management, problems of interplay have emerged and currently these have not been sufficiently addressed by practitioners and scientific research. Communication between these organisations across levels and in various policy fields is essential for an efficient

Water management refers to the activities of analysing and monitoring water resources, as well as developing and implementing measures to keep the state of a water resource within what has been negotiated as desirable bounds (Pahl-Wostl, 2015).

Pahl-Wostl, C. (2015). Water Governance in the Face of Global Change—From Understanding to Transformation. Wiesbaden: Springer International Publishing.

that can support adaptive

Water governance is the social function that regulates development and management of water resources and provisions of water services at different levels of society. It comprises all actors, processes and structures involved. Good water governance guides water use towards a desirable state and away from an undesirable state (Pahl-Wostl, 2015).

Pahl-Wostl, C. (2015). Water Governance in the Face of Global Change—From Understanding to Transformation. Wiesbaden: Springer International Publishing.

.

The Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) is an independent expertise-based governmental agency in Australia, responsible for the management of water resources of the Murray-Darling Basin. More specifically, the main activities of the agency are the creation and implementation of a plan for the sustainable use of the Basin’s water resources, the monitoring of water quality/quantity, the research on water resources and the River’s ecosystem and the engagement of the community in water-related issues. All of its decisions are taken with consideration to the interest of the Basin as a whole, which spans across four Australian States. Planning and management decisions entail both horizontal and vertical challenges that originates from the different sectors that interact with the basin at each governmental level and from the variety of administrative functions between different levels of government. The multilevel

Governance can be defined as the various institutionalised modes of social coordination to produce and implement collectively binding rules, or to provide collective goods (Börzel & Risse, 2010,p. 114).

Börzel, T. A., & Risse, T. (2010). Governance Without a State: Can It Work? Regulation & Governance, 4(2), 113–134. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-5991.2010.01076.x

of the MDBA results in a decision-making process that is not top-down, but of a rather cyclical structure where a large number of individuals, organizations and institutions have the chance to affect the resulting policy output.