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Water is a basic source of life and its availability at adequate quantities and qualities is necessary for humans, economic production and ecosystems. The process of evaluating and authorising "water-related" interventions/projects is critical in the context of sustainable river basin governance. Evaluations to date, have in many cases failed to account for sustainability concerns. A number of projects have been approved and financed whose economic, social and especially, environmental costs and benefits were highly contested. This may be explained by the fact that the evaluation process continues to be economy-oriented and the environmental and social dimensions are only accounted for after the most cost competitive option has been selected. Moreover, in many cases the evaluation process continues to be "closed" to multiple interests, "screening off" certain alternatives and criteria for assessment. The new Water Framework Directive establishes the river basin as the sensible geographical unit upon which resource governance may achieve its sustainability objectives, and asks for the prior evaluation and authorisation of all new river basin interventions. However, the directive does not provide extensive guidance to the river basin authorities on how to carry such evaluations. Unless the evaluation procedure of new projects evolves into a new, multi-dimensional and multi-stakeholder participatory approach, river basin objectives as expressed in the new Water Framework Directive will be at stake.
ADVISOR's main objective is to provide an integrated project evaluation framework and methodology for the sustainable governance of Europe's river basins. It aims to develop a set of guidelines to implicated EU river basin authorities and agencies describing an integrated project evaluation process, establishing criteria for assessing the "sustainability quality" of an evaluation process and providing a number of practical tools to operationalise the proposed guidelines. The final outcome will be achieved through the: establishment of an integrated theory and understanding of the process of evaluation of river basin projects in the EU; development and testing of a number of practical evaluation tools and the proposal of an integrated methodology for the evaluation of river basin projects in the EU. The project aims to operationalise the principles of integrated assessment and the post-normal scientific paradigm into the solution of a "policy gap" of outmost EU importance. Project's objectives will be achieved through a two-tiered research model. Tier 1 will run from the 1st -30th month of the project and will be executed through Work-Packages (WPs) 1 and 2. In WP 1 the lessons from the experience of five EU countries in river basin project evaluation will be analysed and in WP2 those findings will be horizontally and theoretically compared. Tier 1 will culminate in "Integrated Theory" of the project evaluation process in an EU river basin context. Tier 2 will be executed through WP3 and will run from the 12th - 30th month of the project. It will consist of the testing and development of evaluation methodological tools in "field cases" of ex-ante integrated project evaluation, culminating into "Integrated Methodology". The tools aim to operationalise a conceptual triangular model of an integrated evaluation process consisting of information, assessment and process. Each tool will focus on one of these three tasks/vertices including: a scenario process methodology for the interactive handling of uncertain information; a stakeholder-mediated modelling technique; a national "umbrella" methodology for project cost-benefit evaluation; an innovative contingent valuation survey for assessing the economic dimensions of projects; a multi-criteria, multi-stakeholder assessment technique based on institutional analysis and the use of the NAIADE model. The lessons from the testing of the tools will help to build up an integrated methodology for river basin project evaluation in an EU context. WP4 (30-36th month) will synthesise the results of the project into a final set of guidelines for river basin authorities and EU agencies. The guidelines will be built in conformity with the evaluation-related tasks of these end-users and will consist of a new integrated process prescription; criteria for assessing quality of the process and tools for operationalisation. The final deliverables will be available for direct use by all EU river basin authorities in their authorisation activities and for EU institutions with respect to their project financing and water policy capacities. |
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Last updated on Oct-2004 |
Contract EVK1-CT-2000-00074 Energy Environment and Sustainable Development RTD Programme | ||||||||||||||||
