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One of the most significant barriers to implementation of the project was the initial
attitudeof the stakeholders
: at first,
the local population was reluctant since it did not understand the ‘theory’. Indeed, the concept of ‘giving more space to the
river’ sounded very different from what had previously been carried out on the river and was hard to understand in real-life
terms. However, active public participation during the whole life cycle of the project tackled this obstacle and contributed
greatly to making the project a success. Decisions makers, staff and consultants adopted an
innovative approach
(taking
into account a long river reach within a catchment and ‘historical’ scale), involved stakeholders strongly and promoted
participation, which also facilitated the implementation.
Other cases studies show that the effective planning, design, construction and operation of measures such as floodplains or
natural bank stabilisation require the involvement of a
wide rangeof stakeholders
. This includes local planning authorities,
environmental regulators, private landowners and land managers, farmers and other bodies with responsibilities relating to
water management (e.g. irrigation bodies, drainage boards, etc). Involving stakeholders like farmers, fishermen and local citizens
(during the design phase, through consultation meetings and sessions) is one of the key success factors for this kind of project.
Restoration of floodplains can be a
no-regretmeasure,
but only insofar as it can be implemented without heavy investment
and taking into account local conditions. Overall, floodplain restoration may be expensive and relatively inflexible, since
it generally causes major land-use changes and requires a medium to long-term planning horizon. Very often, floodplain
restoration requires land acquisition and potentially results in loss of revenue from agricultural land, which is afforested or
used for flooding as part of the measure. However restoration of floodplains provides a wide range of benefits by restoring
the natural function of the floodplain: reducing runoff and flood risk, creating habitats and preserving biodiversity, filtering
pollutants and controlling erosion…
Other measures such as river bank stabilization require analysis of the local needs in order to select the best solution.
Some of the measures need maintenance to keep being efficient and prevent deterioration, to maintain the vegetation and
bank stabilisation systems.
I
mplementationchallenges
F
oradditional
information
Contact:
Ignacio Rodríguez Muñoz, Duero River Basin Authority (CHD),
Full case study factsheet:
L
essons learntfromothercase
studies
