Sustainable Water Management

Course goals

After this course:

• The students understand the role of law in the complex and multidisciplinary challenge to achieve sustainable water management;
• The students learned how the protection of water as a natural resource, more especially the transition to sustainable water management based on an ecosystem based approach is addressed in EU policy and law;
• The students have profound knowledge of and insight into the development, characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of EU water law;
• The students have experienced how different EU law can be interpreted and applied in the Member States and understand the ensuing challenges in terms of compliance;
• The students can apply the gained knowledge in a case study, by evaluating a case study in the light of the 10 BB method, formulate recommendations based on the findings of the evaluation and write a scientific group paper on this;
• The students can present,  lead discussions and debates on issues related to the course’s themes; they can cooperate with fellow students, formulate and receive feedback from peers.

Content

Water is of key importance for societies and ecosystems. However, worldwide water quality and quantity are threatened as a result of population growth, overconsumption, agricultural expansion and industrialization. Climate change also impacts water resources. On the one hand flood risks are expected to rise, while on the other hand changing precipitation patterns may result in more water scarcity. In response to these challenges, governance and legal systems have been built. Both systems are interrelated and oftentimes overlap. The water governance concept refers to the means by which society as a whole determines and acts on goals and priorities related to the management of water. In this course we will focus on the legal system to achieve sustainable water management.

The concept of water law refers to the systems of principles, norms and rules related to water and aquatic ecosystems. These systems tend to be complex as over the years, an overwhelming amount of legislation, case law and customary law has been formed on multiple levels (international, European, national) of decision making. Water should be governed following hydrological scales and many river basins and marine areas are transboundary, which complicates the legal design, implementation and enforcement of EU water law. Law enables but also restricts steering possibilities of societal actors. Law can be applied as an instrument to govern water systems by establishing legal rights and duties. However, the legal powers of governments are not absolute as laws also protect the rights of citizens and governments have a duty of care to achieve water security for all. Think about the right to water, existing rights related to water use or situations in which expropriation is necessary and governments have a duty to compensate a citizen.

Learning by doing and student ownership are leading principles of the teaching philosophy of the course. This means that in the end students construct knowledge themselves, particularly by doing a group and an individual assignment. We offer guidance by providing (guest) lectures, readings, feedback on the choice of topics and on draft papers and room for critical discussion of literature, legislation, case law and practices in the field which are part of the group assignment.