Presentation: Cooperation in flood risk management in transboundary river Scheldt

During the monthly meeting of the Utrecht Centre for Water, Oceans and Sustainability Law, Cathy Suykens gave a presentation on cooperation with regard to flood risk management in the transboundary river Scheldt.

Since the year 2000, with the entry into force of the Water Framework Directive, EU Member States have certain cooperation requirements with respect to such transboundary waters, also referred to as International River Basin Districts (IRBDs). However, as has become apparent when scrutinising the specific cooperation requirements in IRBDs, coordination and cooperation pursuant to the EU legal framework in this context is mostly a matter of best effort and not of results.

Presentatie Suykens UCWOSL

This presentation zoomed in on the river Scheldt in order to analyse the extent to which flood risk management is actually being tackled with the different hydrological scales in mind, from the (sub-)sub-basin to the international district level. From the evaluation of national, regional and international echelons of governance, four bottlenecks hampering effective coordination across scales were discussed.

Download

You can download the presentation: Dealing with multiple layers of governance in IRBDs - Zooming in on the River Scheldt (pdf)

More information
Presentations UCWOSL