In the water community, we often assume that people who aren’t involved with water on a daily basis think it’s important – like we do. We assume that non-water people understand what a “watershed” is. And we tend to think that we in the water community have the tools that are needed to solve water problems. But is this really true?
Rob de Loë thinks assumptions like these are getting in the way of our ability to deal with many long-standing water problems. He’s seeing powerful new actors from sectors like energy and finance becoming involved in water governance, bringing with them quite different assumptions than the ones that water people hold. He and his team are rethinking the boundaries of water governance. They’re challenging basic assumptions like the notion that the watershed is a useful boundary for organizing governance, or that we understand who the critical decision makers actually are.
“Sometimes,” he says, “the most important decisions that affect water conditions inside a watershed are being made by people and organizations that are far removed from it – people who never come to water meetings or participate in water governance. My goal is to find practical ways to rethink how we organize water governance so we can make better progress on solving our water problems.”