Towards a drought policy in north-west European regions?

Abstract

This chapter proposes a comparative approach of the drought governance context in the six regions studied. In sum, the governance context for drought resilience policies and measures in most of the regions studied can be regarded to currently be 'intermediate'. The implementation of the governance assessment tool does not allow a clear picture of the drought and water scarcity governance context in those NW regions. The governance appears to be half capable of providing a favourable context in terms of the actors and decision levels involved in all of the regions, but does not provide a favourable context to develop and implement a coherent drought policy. The chapter also outlines the specificities of the regions for each of the cross cutting issues (i.e., nature, fresh water and agriculture). Three main issues can be pointed out in order to characterise the way the sectors needs are taken into account: A water governance in general which gives more weight to representatives of economic interests than to environmental ones; a hierarchy as regards water uses in case of water scarcity which favours water supplies and contrasted initiatives which try to better take into account drought in/for all sectors.