Water councils – a new tool for local stakeholder participation
Sweden consists of 119 local catchments of different sizes –
some of them covering only smaller areas while others include
several municipalities and counties. To ensure involvement of
stakeholders in accordance with the WFD, the water authorities
in the South Baltic River Basin District (RBD) and the Skagerrak and
Kattegat RBD (districts 4 and 5 in Fig. 1) have initiated the establishment
of so called water councils at the local catchment level
(SWA, 2007). The idea of a water council is to create a trans-sectorial
and transdisciplinary platform for integrated water management
to facilitate a common understanding and identification of water
quality problems and solutions (SWA, 2007). To receive economic
supportfrom the water authorities a broad representation of stakeholders
in the water councils is one of the requirements. Further,
the economic support given is dependent on the size of the catchment,
the number of municipalities and inhabitants, and may vary
over the years. The water councils have to report annually to the
water authorities on its scope, activities and organization. The
transformation from a traditional water association to a water
council implies a change from a focus on monitoring water quality
only towards water management. The water councils do not automatically
get a legal role in water governance. However, the water
authorities have proposed thatthe water councils should formulate
comments and suggestions on RBMPs and PoMs for their particular
catchment area, be for a conflict-solving and discussion, and if
possible undertake water quality measures. As initiators, the water
authorities in the South Baltic, and Skagerrak and Kattegat RBDs