An integrated water management

An often heard critique on water governance in Flanders, is its fragmentation and the seeming inability to create more coordination between the various actors involved.

In the 1990s, integrated water policy was a very mobilizing concept, contributing to the start-up of coordination platforms at the sub-basin and sub-sub basin scale. The PhD of Ann Crabbé described, analyzed and assessed the institutionalization of integrated water policy in Flanders.

  • Crabbé, A. (2008), Integraal waterbeleid in Vlaanderen: van fluïde naar solide. Doctoraal proefschrift voorgelegd tot het behalen van de graad van doctor in de politieke en sociale wetenschappen. Antwerpen: Universiteit Antwerpen, faculteit Politieke en Sociale Wetenschappen, 278 p.

In the realm of this PhD research, comparative articles were written on institutional dynamics of the lack thereof in the Netherlands and Flanders.

Since 2013, a new trendy discourse entered the water governance arrangement: a discourse on multi-layer water safety. This concept describes the relevance of diversifying, coordinating and aligning various strategies for flood risk management. In an article, we describe and reflect upon the discursive-institutional interactions influencing the establishment of the multi-layer water safety concept in the Netherlands and Flanders.

  • Kaufmann, M., Mees, H., Liefferink, D., Crabbé, A. A game of give and take – the introduction of multi-layered safety in the Netherlands and Flanders. Submitted to Land Use Policy on 20-08-2015.