Nach der Europäischen Wasserrahmenrichtlinie sollen Ende 2015 die Oberflächengewässer und das Grundwasser einen »guten Zustand« aufweisen. Der Bericht informiert zum Stand der Maßnahmen und ihrer Umsetzung in Sachsen für die Bereiche Landwirtschaft und Wasserwirtschaft. Er verdeutlicht, dass die Maßnahmenprogramme nur dann erfolgreich umgesetzt werden können, wenn zur Erreichung der Bewirtschaftungsziele auch alle relevanten Qualitätskomponenten in ihrem Zusammenwirken betrachtet werden.

L’irrégularité des pluies, l’évaporation considérable de l’eau de surface et des points d’eau traditionnels, entrainent une insuffisance de l’eau au Burkina Faso notamment en milieu rural. Cela contraint l’État et les partenaires à la mise en place des points d’eau modernes. Elle ne tient pas compte des positions, des valeurs culturelles qui légitiment la gestion traditionnelle de l’eau. La nouvelle gestion de l’eau renvoie à une problématique du rapport à l’eau et relève d’une modification sociale. Cette modification provient des pratiques, de leur évolution par rapport au système social mais aussi des processus intervenant sur les pratiques elles-mêmes. Les individus font l’apprentissage de la nouvelle gestion de l’eau, se positionnent selon le contexte en fonction de leurs appartenances dans le rapport à l’eau, des modes de solidarités comme moyen d’action communautaire par rapport aux oppositions sociales. C’est dans cette perspective que la thèse analyse à partir de la gestion de l’eau, les tensions et les recompositions sociales dans cinq villages autour du bassin versant du Nakambé. / The erratic rainfall, evaporation of considerable surface water and traditional water sources, cause a shortage of water in Burkina Faso, particularly in rural areas. This forced the state and partners to the development of modern water. It does not take into account the positions, cultural values that legitimize the traditional management of water. The new water management refers to a problematic relationship with water and is a social change. This change results from practices, their evolution from the social system but also the processes involved in the practices themselves. People are learning about the new water management, positioning themselves as the context in terms of their membership in relation to water, modes of solidarity as a means of Community action in relation to social opposition. It is against this background of the thesis analyzes from the water management, tensions and social blending in five villages around the catchment Nakambé.

Offshore wind farm (OWF) construction in the UK is progressing rapidly alongside increasing spatial pressures on marine ecosystems and social and economic activities. A need for increased protection of habitats, species and ecological processes that support environmental and economic benefits is being met by designation of marine protected areas (MPAs). Mitigation and spatial planning solutions are required to enable protection of vital ecological habitats, features and processes and support sustainable economic development. A potential solution is to co-locate OWFs and MPAs. This study uses a multi-disciplinary approach to examine if evidence on the environmental effects of existing OWFs and associated effects on fishing activity (as an existing resource use) benefits MPA goals. Through a systematic review and meta-analyses of existing data, knowledge of OWF effects on species abundance and economic effects on fishing were identified as key evidence gaps. The ecological evidence need was approached through a case study of ecological effects of North Hoyle OWF, North Wales, UK, using existing pre and post-construction monitoring data, as well as primary baited remote underwater video data, collected 5 years later (8 years post-construction). Results suggested habitat and species recovered to a stable state that showed some community differences to pre-construction conditions. The presence of OWF monopiles is likely to have increased existing heterogeneity of substratum and increased opportunities for scavenging species. Species benefitting and disadvantaged by habitat provided within the OWF reflected meta-analyses trends. Extended baseline monitoring to provide confident identification of natural levels of variation in sediment and fauna was lacking. Analysis of fishing activity and landings before and after OWF construction in three UK case study regions approached effects on resource users. Fishing activity in the three case study areas showed broad scale similarity to national trends. Small-scale activity patterns indicated greater reductions in mobile (towed) fishing gear effort near to operating OWFs than in static gear activity (using pots or static nets). Semi-structured interviews conducted with fishermen in each region revealed loss of ground and disruption as negative effects from OWFs, in addition to existing pressures. Benefits including habitat creation and species augmentation, as well as reduction of cumulative lost ground, were identified by fishermen from co-location of MPAs and OWFs. Ecological effects of OWFs suggested benefits from habitat creation, species augmentation and potential for protection of sandbank habitats between monopiles. Mitigation requirements were identified to maximise these potential benefits to an MPA network.

Many smaller ports in Cornwall and Devon (CAD) are situated in environmentally sensitive habitats and generate benefits for stakeholders and local communities. Such ports are often embedded in tourist based economies. Increasing environmental legislation is placing a strain on the resources of smaller ports making compliance a threat to profitability and thus the future of some ports and local economies. Over-reliance on environmental management systems (EMS) across the ports industry has predominated over the importance of holistic sustainability. This project develops and disseminates a port sustainability management system (PSMS) in CAD, assisting ports to plan marine and maritime operations more sustainably, to facilitate mitigation of potential risks, to increase knowledge and awareness of port sustainability, and to promote the adoption of a proactive stance towards sustainable port management. A constructivist philosophy suited a multiple methods research design which included ethnographic content analysis (ECA), statistical verification of qualitative coding, nine scoping interviews, and eight semi-structured interviews during the main phase of data collection. The seven Harbour Masters (HMs) in this phase represented all port governance types found in the UK. Charmaz’s grounded theory (GT) methodology guided the collection and analysis of primary data between August 2012 and February 2013 to create new theory using an inductive constructivist approach. Validation by fifteen of the thirty local HMs during industry testing revealed numerous advantages and benefits of deploying PSMS which is estimated to generate £50,000 worth of benefits per port annually, and £3,865,005 for the 15 participating ports over 5 years. A new model of smaller port sustainability has emerged. PSMS has eleven pillars of sustainability which underpin the spectrum of port operations. Within this model, each pillar is equally important in contributing to the overall sustainability of a port, and neglect of one could jeopardise sustainability overall and potentially cause a chain reaction with other pillars.

The global water crisis has often been presented as a crisis of governance and attributed to various factors, including the slowness of institutional adjustments to rapid structural challenges such as demographic growth, resource degradation and economic difficulties (UNU-INWEH, 2012). Despite the rapid growth of cities around the world and a fast increase in the use of desalination for freshwater supply (WHO, 2011), the dynamics of institutional change in desalinated urban water governance have never been researched. This thesis investigates the drivers, barriers and counter-forces to a major institutional change - privatisation - in the desalinated water governance of the coastal cities of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. Through the cases of public private partnerships (PPPs) in Abu Dhabi and Doha and the failed attempt to implement similar PPPs in Kuwait City, this research investigates the diverse forces that have led to the implementation of this new institutional arrangement in order to question - both empirically and theoretically - the literature’s general assumption that privatisation reforms in urban water services in the South arise from structural issues, e.g. a water crisis, an economic crisis and/or a governance crisis. The three main schools of comparative studies are used systematically to test hypotheses about causal relationships between selected variables. The structural approach is applied to examine the influences of the redistributive rentier state, oil price fluctuations and regional energy integration over the privatisation process. Adopting a Post-colonial perspective, the political culture approach is used to examine critically the contemporary influences of traditional cultural features, key local institutions and foreign cultural influences over the fluctuating roles of both the State and the markets in the local urban water supply since the late 19^th century. Finally, the rational agency theory is used to examine the role in the recent privatisation process of key political figures from the ruling families. This research demonstrates that the privatisation process of desalination units in Abu Dhabi and Doha was not driven by structural factors during the 2000s, a period of high oil prices, but was initiated in the 1990s and driven the following decade by the agency of a reforming elite wanting to privatize the water sector as part of a broader dynamic of construction of a neoliberal post-rentier economy – i.e. an intermediary political economic paradigm that aims to mediate the transition from rentierism to a fully liberalized economy. The political culture approach shows that these privatisations were facilitated by a gradual shift from pure rentierism towards a post-rentier form of neoliberalism in the political philosophy of liberal water technocrats on the one hand, and towards a regional trend of ‘pious neoliberalism’ (Atia, 2011) among practicing Sunni Muslims. Nevertheless, the enduring rentier mentality has constituted a strong counter-force to privatisation dynamics. The PPPs were implemented in Abu Dhabi and Doha because the local ruling elites situated the political bargaining within the tribal institutional milieus that they mastered completely through the control of the rent and related benefits. In Kuwait however, negotiations between the ruling elites and the leading political forces, the tribes and the opposition, were situated in a parliamentary institutional milieu that the ruling elite could not control and where the opposition and tribal MPs have opposed all reforms of the rentier ruling bargain. These findings illustrate that institutional changes in desalinated water governance are not neutrally driven by uncontrollable structural forces, but are the product of political bargaining between and among various rational political actors and their coalitions. This thesis also shows that in non-democratic or semi-democratic settings, the choice of a specific institutional milieu by the authorities is critical to the successful bargaining of institutional reforms, since it determines whether some key actors - along with structural factors (e.g. rent) and cultural factors (e.g. tribal influence) - will support the process or will be able to act against it.

This research examines the collective action and financial dimensions of rural waterpoint sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa. Four interlinking papers empirically evaluate the nature and drivers of financial risks, and how they in turn impact the operational performance of community water supplies. The research is grounded in conceptual and theoretical frameworks pertaining to collective action and common-pool resource management, in particular Ostrom's social-ecological systems framework (Ostrom, 2007), Musgrave & Musgrave's economic good framework (Musgrave & Musgrave, 1973), and Marwell & Oliver's critical mass theory (Marwell & Oliver, 1993). The first paper analyses data extracted from national waterpoint inventories in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Uganda. The remaining three papers draw on primary data from rural Kenya comprising 229 years' worth of water committee financial records, a census of 571 waterpoints, and a survey of 3,361 households. These data were collected during extensive field work campaigns in Kwale, Kenya. Quantitative analyses were carried out by way of advanced statistical techniques, including logistic regression, linear mixed (repeated measure) models, and generalised estimating equations. Results suggest collection of user fees is a significant determinant of waterpoint sustainability, alongside other institutional, technical, geographical and environmental variables. However, monthly payment arrangements are beset by non-payment and late payment, particularly if rainfall levels are high, group size is large, households are far away, and water is aggressive and unpalatable. Although monthly contribution levels remain relatively stable above a collective payment rate of 60%, there is little evidence of self-sustaining growth beyond this point, and revenue collection is prone to collapse below this collective payment threshold. In comparison, pay-as-you-fetch fees are associated with increased revenue and improved operational performance, but result in a higher proportion of households opting for an unimproved water source. If the Sustainable Development Goal of universal access to safe water supplies is to be achieved in rural sub-Saharan Africa, strategies are needed to strengthen revenue collection systems and bolster payment incentives. External support and professionalised service delivery models present potential pathways to advance these goals. Policymakers may also need to introduce carefully designed subsidies, or promote self-supply approaches that realign lifecycle costs with users' willingness-to-pay.

Coastlines are particularly susceptible to the necessary trade-offs which occur between different ecosystem services. Should the areas be managed for biodiversity or for people? Where sandy beaches are found there is usually a management decision to be made between managing for recreation or for biodiversity. Many popular tourist beaches (particularly those with a Beach Award) are often groomed with mechanical equipment to remove any stranded seaweed and associated litter which can get entangled in the wrack. This is likely to be having a negative impact on coastal biodiversity, with wide ranging implications for the entire habitat, including the intertidal zone, sand dunes and shorebirds. Beached wrack should be allowed to naturally decompose providing a habitat for numerous species of macro-invertebrates. These macro-invertebrate communities not only include many endemic species found exclusively along the strandline but they also provide a very rich source of food for shorebirds. The re-mineralised nutrients resulting from the decomposed macrophytes should then become available to provide a rich source of nutrients to dune, strandline and marine ecosystems populations of the strandline. In previous studies grooming has been shown to have a negative impact on the invertebrates of the strandline and this study reveals that tidal range has an effect on the impacts of grooming with a higher tidal range having a more negative impact on the invertebrates. A study to observe the impacts of grooming on both adult plant and seed bank communities of the sand dunes found that grooming is having a negative impact on these populations. Grooming is predominantly driven by beach managers who aspire to gain Beach Awards in order to attract tourists to their beaches. Using non-market valuation in the form of a stated preference choice experiment and a travel cost model, it was observed that Beach Awards are not valued by beach goers but are instead influenced to visit a particular beach by good bathing water quality, high levels of biodiversity and low levels of litter. It was also shown that stranded seaweed on the beach does not deter visitors. Future management suggestions include attempting to reduce the confusion arising from the presence of multiple beach awards by either removing them altogether or by making their criteria more clear and direct with consistency in their design and designation. Bathing water quality should be completely removed from the Beach Award system and real-time information in the form of electronic signage and a publicly available App should replace it.

Marine Renewable Energy (MRE) is a promising source of energy for the future. However, it is still under development and many challenges need to be overcome to develop competitive solutions. While the design of the station keeping system of traditional offshore oil and gas structures is driven mainly by their low frequency motions, MRE devices are installed at nearshore locations and move dynamically. Because of these criteria, MRE mooring systems require novel mooring systems and associated standards. MRE mooring standards need to take into account the highly dynamic behaviour of these systems, which can lead to large mooring loads. The nature of these loads needs to be investigated to improve the confidence in mooring design and to improve cost-effectiveness. The aim of this thesis is to develop the understanding of peak mooring loads on highly dynamic mooring systems, in particular, the environmental conditions associated with the loads. In addition, preliminary research into the response of the mooring systems to environmental conditions is presented. Both field tests and tank tests have been conducted. Field tests give insight into the behaviour of a dynamic mooring system in real sea conditions. Measuring the mooring loads and the environmental conditions - wave, and current if available – for several months, a methodology has been developed to detect peak mooring loads and identify the associated environmental conditions in order to compare them with the environmental conditions recorded throughout the field tests. The principal finding is that peak mooring loads occur for sea states with large but not always the highest significant wave height HS. The understanding of the effect of tidal conditions on peak mooring loads requires further work. A tank test of a dynamic mooring system in moderate sea states has been conducted to observe the dynamic behaviour of the mooring system. Tank tests enable detailed observations of the dynamic behaviour of a system in a well controlled environment and allow the calibration of a numerical model. The model can be used to investigate separate physical parameters. The results from this thesis will assist in the development of specific standards for MRE mooring systems. These standards are essential for the evolution of the MRE industry.

Following the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) integrated catchment management plans must be prepared for all river basins, in order to achieve 'good ecological status' (GES) in all EU waters. This concept is a broader measure of water quality than the chemical and biological measures, which were previously dominant in EU water policy. The Directive also calls for a consideration of the economic costs and benefits of improvements to ecological status in catchment management plans, along with the introduction of full social cost pricing for water use. In this thesis, the primary focus is on the use of the Choice Experiment (CE) method. The CE method is reviewed and then used to estimate the value of improvements in a number of components of ecological status on two Irish waterways (the Boyne and the Suir). Apart from CE method another stated preference approach to environmental valuation is also considered; the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). This thesis determines what value the targeted population of the two catchments place on the nonmarket economic benefits of moves towards GES by employing both approaches and various model specifications, while the applicability of Benefit Transfer (BT) method is also assessed under different tests. In addition, the design of the questionnaire used in the survey stage of the research, offered the possibility of investigating issues related to the effect of cognitive ability and psychometric factors on choice. Respondents with discontinuous preferences are identified and analysis is conducted to investigate the implications of not accounting for these preferences. Finally, due to experiencing protesting behaviour by a proportion of the sampling population an attempt is made to investigate the parameters that contributed to this inclination.

Cette thèse s’attache à contribuer aux débats actuels quant aux possibles avantages des marchés de l’eau. De par les changements économiques et une croissante instabilité climatique, bon nombre de régions arides à travers le monde doivent reconsidérer leur stratégie de gestion de leurs ressources hydrologiques. Une préférence substantielle envers des mécanismes de réallocation plus flexible telle que les marchés de l’eau y est portée pour limiter le stress hydrique. Bien qu’efficients en théorie, ces instruments sont aussi très coûteux, autant dans leurs mises en place que dans leur maintenance, à cause principalement des possibles externalités que des transferts d’eau peuvent induire. Ces coûts de transaction limitent l’efficacité des marchés de l’eau en comparaison à une situation de concurrence pure et parfaite et peuvent être plus dommageables qu’une gestion centralisée. Ainsi, toutes analyses d’une décentralisation de la gestion des ressources en eau doivent prendre en compte ces coûts de transaction. A ce titre, le travail présenté ici étudie les causes sous-jacentes à ces coûts de transactions et adapte un outil déjà largement utilisé dans le cadre du commerce international : les équations de gravité. L’application de ce modèle aux marchés de l’eau en Californie permet de mettre en évidence et de mesurer l’importance de ces coûts de transactions dans le développement de tels instruments de gestion de l’eau. / This dissertation aims at contributing to the ongoing debate about the potential effectiveness of water markets. With the ongoing economic changes and the growing versatility of water resources due to climate changes, many arid regions around the world need to reconsider their strategy of managing their hydrological resources. Interests among policy makers are leaning toward flexible reallocation mechanisms such as water markets to cope with water shortages. While efficient in theory, such instruments are also very costly to establish and to maintain because of the potential externalities that transferring water may cause. These so-called transaction costs limit the effectiveness of water markets in comparison to the situation of perfect competition and can induce a more detrimental outcome than a centralized management. Therefore, any decentralized solutions to manage the scarce water resources must account for the transaction costs of running such alternatives. In that respect, this work focuses on studying the underlying causes of these transaction costs and adapts a tool widely used in the international trade economics: the gravity equations. Through that way, importance of these transaction costs for the development of effective water markets is reasserted. More importantly, a theoretical and empirical model is developed to measure the magnitude of the different frictions in reallocating water through decentralized managements in the case of California.