Freshwater Policy

Addressing drivers and pressures is the key to making effective freshwater policy.This can be achieved through regulatory command-and-control mechanisms, subsidies, supporting investments and enabling actors, but there is also value in process-based innovative approaches such as experimentation, learning and voluntary reporting.{16.2.1, 16.2.4}Policy coherence and synergy are needed to address the water-food-energy-health-ecosystems nexus.Policy mixes are typically adopted to meet demands across multiple sectors and to manage implications outside the freshwater policy sphere.Intricate linkages among water quality and quantity, agriculture, human health, ecosystems and energy systems require that freshwater policy is developed with this nexus placed centre-stage.Achieving policy coherence and synergy are important benefits of this integrated thinking, as water policies influence policies in other sectors, especially agriculture and energy.{16.2.1, 16.2.2}Much freshwater policy is highly context dependent, yet a variety of freshwater policy types and governance approaches can diffuse to fit diverse local contexts.Governance approaches and policy types are diverse.The design, implementation and evaluation of these policies require that institutional structures, economic resources and other enabling factors are in place.{16.1, 16.2.3,16.2.5}There is scope for freshwater policy to better consider co-benefits to ecosystems and human health.Changes to water quality and quantity through interventions such as infrastructure investment and natural hazards requires consideration of direct threats to human health but capitalizing on potential co-benefits is not yet widely practised.{16.1, 16.2.2,16.3} Policy effectiveness draws attention to the role of citizens, the private sector and non-governmental bodies, in particular through participatory processes.Implementing integrated water resources management (IWRM) is a participatory process, based upon intersectoral coordination and greater engagement of non-governmental actors.Collaborative efforts are required to involve the private sector and non-governmental organizations, or local governments and citizens.Stakeholder engagement is a long-term process and requires investment in supporting stakeholder relationships.Institutions should be designed to enable inputs into decision-making from 16 Criterion Description ReferencesSuccess or failure A total of seven areas of concern have been delisted (three in Canada; four in the United States of America).There are others considered areas of recovery, where actions have been completed and these areas are expected to be delisted soon.(US EPA 2017) Independence of evaluationProgress is typically reported by the Parties and assessed by the International Joint Commission (IJC) on the basis of input from two major advisory boards (Great Lakes Water Quality Board and Science Advisory Board).The Water Quality Board provides policy advice and evaluation, and the Science Advisory Board provides scientific advice and evaluation.The IJC also publishes a triennial assessment report that reviews the progress of the Parties, summarizes public input on the Parties' progress report, and includes an assessment of the degree to which programmes are achieving the agreement's general and specific objectives.

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