Over the past two decades, Europe has witnessed a concerning trend of escalating water scarcity and more frequent drought events, with projections indicating a continuation of this trend into the future. Europe must confront water stress risks and adapt its governance to build water resilience. In a series of three reports, Ecologic Institute, together with partners from the EU project GOVAQUA, examine three topics of critical importance for water resilience: 

• The design and implementation of water allocation regimes (i.e. how to share available water resources between users)
• The design and implementation of eflows policies and strategies (i.e. how to protect freshwater ecosystems and their resilience)
• The regulation of water value chains (i.e. how to adapt sectors to limited water resources)

The reports are based on a detailed review of legal and regulatory regimes in six European countries (France, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Romania, England in the UK), where innovative governance approaches for sustainable and equitable water use are to be developed and tested in the GOVAQUA project.

The intensification of drought frequencies and water scarcity has led to heightened competition for water resources, forcing difficult trade-offs between supplying sufficient clean water for human needs, supporting various economic sectors, and preserving water needs of the environment. This situation has prompted European water managers and policymakers to seek innovative governance approaches capable of addressing unsustainable water use and enhancing resilience to water scarcity and droughts.

The country review presented in the three reports indicates that European countries have reached varying degrees of complexity and formalisation in regard to institutions for water allocation, e-flows and value chain regulation. Although some countries such as Spain, France and England have more advanced legal frameworks, they face implementation challenges – in part due to opposition to transforming current patterns of water use but also due to inadequate institutional arrangements. In countries with less developed frameworks, the development of conducive legislation related to permitting regimes, planning and enforcement are key to making progress.

The reports provide in-depth descriptions of key implementation challenges and highlight good practices in relation to the level of institutional development, the scope of regulatory powers entrusted to public authorities, the role of stakeholder engagement and of wider social factors, compliance and enforcement arrangements and remaining scientific and technical barriers to water. Building on these national assessments, further work in the GOVAQUA project will review selected good practices regarding the implementation of water allocation, eflows and value chain regulation. This future work will feed into an inventory of governance innovations for a transition to sustainable and equitable water use in Europe.