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The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the challenges for public participation in river basin management and planning and to develop a set of guidelines for a successful public consultation.

The current paper describes and analyses the requirements and expectations regarding public participation in river basin planning and identifies some obstacles and recommendations for the process.

The research carried out identified a wide range of challenges for the practical implementation of the public involvement in river basin planning as stated in the Water Framework Directive. The involvement of the public is critical for a successful implementation of the Water Framework Directive. Hence, public participation is greatly emphasised in the Directive. Article 14 of the Water Framework Directive requires that Member States encourage involvement of all stakeholders into the implementation process, especially into the River Basin Management Planning.

The paper may assist river basin managers to design, perform and evaluate the public consultation of river basin management plans.

The paper analyses the obstacles for the public consultation as part of the Water Framework Directive implementation. Based on the analysis the paper defines a range of guidelines and recommendations for the practical consultation design. This work is original, as no such analysis has been carried out before.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive. It seeks first to determine whether its provisions align with modern thinking on integrated river basin management and second to assess the degree to which it has the potential to achieve legislative and inter‐agency integration throughout the Union.

This is a desktop study. The paper draws upon theories and definitions of integrated river basin management and internal integration in existing literature and then proceeds to examine the provisions of the Water Framework Directive in the light of the models identified.

The framework for river basin management in the Water Framework Directive does not fully match the modern approach to integrated river basin management. The directive is limited by its primary focus upon the single medium of water, and its consequent failure to fully address wider land use planning issues. It, therefore, also fails to achieve integration between all relevant legislative instruments. It provides a framework for stakeholder involvement that could potentially serve the goal of inter‐agency integration. However, due to the high level of discretion in the hands of member states, there is likely to be a substantial divergence of practice across the EU.

In assessing the Water Framework Directive against modern notions of river basin management and the directive's stated integrative aspirations, the paper informs implementation and practice in member states.

The purpose of the paper is to present a scenario‐based approach to river basin planning, and demonstrate how land‐use planning can be utilised as a strong measure in meeting the climate change challenges with new precipitation patterns during the current century.

The current research takes a scenario‐based approach to river basin planning. A modelling framework is defined to assess the effects of active spatial planning to mitigate the negative consequences of climate change in river basin management. In total, three models are included in the framework: a land‐use model, a runoff model, and a flooding screening model.

The research has demonstrated the advantages of using models and scenarios to assess the effects of climate change in river basin management, and how active spatial planning – in the current example afforestation – can mitigate negative consequences of climate change.

The current research demonstrates how to combine models from different fields into one integrated model for impact assessment.

The developed methodology will assist river basin managers to assess the effects of river basin management plans.

The consequences of climate change are mainstream topics discussed by most citizens and results from the models can facilitate a qualified debate.

The paper analyses the feasibility of using active spatial planning to mitigate the negative consequences of climate change, such as flooding along rivers. This work is original, as no such analysis has been carried out before.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the prospects of integrated planning and management of the environment in the context of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and river basin planning.

The paper analyses the legal framework of the WFD and other related water and environmental legislation as well as the provisions for integrative practice in the WFD. Moreover it analyses the potential for integration with issues that are not provided for in the WFD, such as land use. The procedural elements of the WFD and other EU legislation are analysed for identifying common elements within a modern consensus and efficiency based planning mode.

Three aspects of the integrated management framework for water and other environmental resources are highlighted. The first concerns the need for interaction between spatial land use planning and the integrated river basin management plans of the WFD, in order to ensure that land‐use plans do not contradict water goals and that water planning also takes into account broader landscape related aspects. This demands the establishment of platforms for institutional interplay. The second is the need to integrate water goals into sectoral policies. This may be ensured by activating the impact assessment procedures for projects, plans and programmes which may have an impact on water resources and quality. The third concerns elements and procedures which are common to several pieces of legislations (e.g. management plans, monitoring, public participation), and which could benefit from the establishment of common databases, spatial information systems, and methods of communication.

The paper aims to identify key issues related to integration of the WFD with other environmental EU legislation, the associated challenges posed to water management and other environmental management institutions and procedures, and the information systems and methods which may facilitate the integration.

Given that the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) calls for the management of water resources at the river basin level, the German water sector, which has historically been dominated by the federal states and has been organized along administrative borders, is now challenged to be reorganized. The article introduces the German water sector, reviews past experiences with river basin management such as North Rhine–Westphalia's water associations, the river basin organizations of the former German Democratic Republic, and international river commissions, and addresses current challenges in connection with the implementation of WFD.

The objective of this paper is to describe an easily understandable integrated modelling framework for analysing the combined effects of changes in land‐use and climate on the leaching of phosphorus using regional IPCC‐based land‐use and climate scenarios. In addition, the paper reflects on the added value of a geospatial data‐based modelling approach from a river basin management perspective.

Regional land‐use scenarios were simulated for the whole official river basin planning unit of the Oulujoki‐Iijoki River Basin District using a land‐use simulation model. The nutrient leaching modelling on phosphorus was carried out in another raster‐based freeware for a smaller sub‐basin, Temmesjoki river basin.

Regional land use scenarios could be simulated taking into account the local conditions, such as the vicinity to water, and development options in agriculture on regional scale. The magnitude and leaching pattern of phosphorus in the future is related to the overall share of agricultural land on drainage basin level. The authors’ results also indicate that the local spatial structure of built‐up and agricultural areas may play a central role in nutrient leaching assessment. If the spatial structure is of importance, this may have further implications for the environmental planners working with river basin management.

This research takes a step further in bringing the global scenario framework to the local and practical level for various practical purposes in river basin management. The research provides an approach to spatially identify the possible impact of changes in land‐use and in climatic conditions on nutrient leaching.

In strategic planning and management of environmental resources, traditional multicriteria analysis is usually adopted for evaluating alternative development scenarios against a set of criteria. However, the modeling of the problem is often inadequate for representing the complexity which characterizes the decision. To overcome this problem, this paper aims to suggest the application of an advanced version of the analytic hierarchy process: the analytic network process (ANP).

The ANP is the first mathematical approach that makes it possible to systematically deal with all kinds of dependencies and feedback among elements. It requires the identification of a network of clusters and nodes, as well as pair‐wise comparison to establish relations within the network elements. The number of comparisons is dependent on the number of interrelations among the elements.

The method is applied to the Strategic Management Plan of the River Po Basin in Italy. The result obtained is a surprising ranking which places major weight on the cultural heritage and landscape rather than on traditional environmental categories, such as land and water. This result reflects the recent River Po Basin Authority strategy to institute an integrated and coordinated policy action in the field.

The proposed approach has improved the integration of the strategic evaluation in the decision‐making process within the management of territorial development policies, thanks to a better representation of the interrelations among issues within the decision model.

The purpose of the paper is to research local sustainable development strategic planning processes and practices in the Drina River Basin (geographical area delineated by the river Drina and shared among Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia).

Research methodology included the analysis of the existing country-based strategic documents and processes, as well as the local strategic documents and processes of implementation in 21 municipalities in the Drina River Basin, including interviews with the representatives of central and local governments and civil sector and a questionnaire-based assessment of the situation and needs in municipalities.

The paper argues that local sustainable development planning, although still lacking the proper methodological approach and facing insufficiencies in institutional and implementation capacities is becoming more appreciated by local authorities in the region.

The findings should help better understand the interactions between local government institutions and civil society in the Drina River Basin municipalities in achieving local sustainable development, as well as the conditions enabling improved communication networks and capacity building.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a statistical-based model to forecast future domestic water demand in the context of climate change, population growth and technological development in Yellow River.

The model is developed through the analysis of the effects of climate variables and population on domestic water use in eight sub-basins of the Yellow River. The model is then used to forecast water demand under different environment change scenarios.

The model projected an increase in domestic water demand in the Yellow River basin in the range of 67.85 × 10⁸ to 62.20 × 10⁸ m³ in year 2020 and between 73.32 × 10⁸ and 89.27 × 10⁸ m³ in year 2030. The general circulation model Beijing Normal University-Earth System Model (BNU-ESM) predicted the highest increase in water demand in both 2020 and 2030, while Centre National de Recherches Meteorologiques Climate Model v.5 (CNRM-CM5) and Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate- Earth System (MIROC-ESM) projected the lowest increase in demand in 2020 and 2030, respectively. The fastest growth in water demand is found in the region where water demand is already very high, which may cause serious water shortage and conflicts among water users.

The simple regression-based domestic water demand model proposed in the study can be used for rapid evaluation of possible changes in domestic water demand due to environmental changes to aid in adaptation and mitigation planning.

The purpose of this paper is to review the crucial elements of integrated river basin management (IRBM) and their legal frameworks which have to be considered in a comprehensive management approach. A wide range of decision support systems (DSS) have been developed for IRBM‐related fields during the last few decades. However, most of the developed systems are either not used in practice or are used by people other than those they were designed for. The paper also discusses whether DSS are useful for IRBM and presents the requirements which have to be considered in the development of IRBM‐DSS.

Beside literature research, a variety of requirement elicitation techniques such as interviews, buzz groups, questionnaire and prototype evaluation were employed. Feedback from roughly 200 experts representing different work fields and river basins in Central and Western Europe was collected.

Different legal frameworks of IRBM fields were analysed with a view to determining whether they can be applied in a comprehensive approach. Broad elicitations affirm that DSS can assist in various phases of planning and management processes. Some general requirements of DSS for IRBM can be identified which should be considered in DSS development. DSS can be described as socio‐technical instruments and “communication vehicles” because of their multiple roles in participation processes.

The paper illustrates different elicitation techniques used to specify what users require of DSS. Furthermore, it describes some essential requirements for DSS development such as the main added value, key functionalities and factors for successful implementation.

The described results are based on my own studies and elicitations which have been conducted in the course of the past two years.