Good practice:

Provincial Water Board

The structural water deficit that Alicante suffers, user’s needs, cyclic droughts and global climate change effects require a transversal social agreement, based on technical data, as frame to manage water and its heritage.

The beneficiary of this agreement will be the whole civil society and the natural environment of the province. Key elements regarded are the maintenance of irrigation -specially the traditional irrigation system a heritage of tremendous value-, the recovery of overexploited aquifers and polluted rivers, savings and efficiency, economic sustainability and costs, resources management and innovation and research.

The covenant was signed by representatives of all the political parties present in the Provincial Council

The Provincial Water Board, a forum that gathers a broad group of stakeholders where water related are discussed is an example of how water policies and strategies should be done having social consensus in its heart. Obviously, in this forum also conflicts also arise, but are discussed using a common technical background provided by the universities and with will to achieve common grounds. One of its recent successful initiatives is the Provincial Water Agreement that outlines the basic frame for water management in the province. Although there are still doubts about the possibility of a consensual National Agreement and about to what extent the guidelines of the Provincial Agreement would be implemented in concrete actions.

• Involvement of stakeholders: disposition to negotiate and reach agreements.
• Human and material resources
• Support from the technical team of the Water Department
• Travel expenses
• Consultancy studies

• Provincial Water Agreement. The launch of this document of consensus in April 2018 that is serving a guideline for the Province in water management.
• The Water Board has prepared allegation documents for the public participation processes of the water management plans to the Hydrographic Basin Authorities.
• The activity of the Water Board led to create the Water Chair in the University that has produced a number of scientific and informative documents.

• Parties have to differentiate one from another, and this sometimes led to maintain slightly different speeches, even when the background ideas are the same.
• National strategies are not always coincident with Provincial strategies.
• Political parties have different speech at National level.

The model of the Provincial Water Board can be transferred to other locations and situations where important social consensus is required and when we are dealing with complex issues that include socio-economy, heritage, natural resources and environment, etc.

The current effort is to transfer it to the National level. In this period the Board will invite members of the National Ministry so that they would use a similar approach in the near future but for the water management strategies of the whole country.

The general frame for this practice is: creating boards of negotiation including a wide group of stakeholders that are supported by an unbiased background of data and knowledge produced by the university and other organism with skilled technical staff. This focus can be used for a wide range of challenges, especially those related to water that can be complex both technically and socioeconomically, and might create interesting synergies.