GOVAQUA: Innovations in governance for a transition to sustainable and equitable water use in Europe

GOVAQUA identifies, evaluates, develops and validates innovative governance approaches to support and accelerate a transition towards sustainable and equitable water use in Europe. Such a transition is urgently needed to reconcile water uses with environmental needs and to achieve the objectives of the EU WFD, the Green Deal and the UN SDGs. Adopting an inter- and trans-disciplinary methodology that combines case studies and living labs, the GOVAQUA team will systematically assess and compare existing water governance systems in Europe, focusing on water use and its impacts in agriculture, industry, energy production and water services.

The objectives of the project are to :

• Conduct comprehensive case study comparisons to assess the contribution of different types of governance innovations to water transition and to prescribe the conditions for water transition in various contexts.
• Provide tools and platforms for knowledge generation and exchange on multiple levels of governance and good practices applicable to different Member State contexts.
• Advance water governance assessments by co-developing and applying a comprehensive assessment tool in collaboration with stakeholders in 6 Living Labs.
• Improve understanding of the linkages and dependencies within and between sectors that need to be reconciled to achieve sustainable and equitable water use.
• Create comparative and actionable knowledge on innovative participatory and collaborative approaches in three thematic clusters, namely multi-stakeholder collaboration, citizen empowerment and involvement, and private enterprise engagement.

• Leading the "Knowledge, Communication and Dissemination" work package