The human face of water: Understanding the socioecological complexity in the integrated water resource management paradigm

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) has been worldwide accepted by academics and practitioners as the best water management approach. The IWRM approach recognizes the river basin as the appropriate management boundary and appeals to the multi-stakeholder participation as essential in the decision-making processes and public policy developments. This water management paradigm challenges conventional top-down forms of governance and water resources planning and recalls the need to better understand the interrelations within the hydrological systems. Although IWRM is nowadays widely accepted. Several contexts reflect significant limitations in terms of its implementation, this is mainly attributed to the wicked nature encountered in such socio-hydro-ecological systems. This Ph.D. thesis aims to contribute to the planning and decision-making process within the IWRM paradigm through a better understanding of theintrinsic social and environmental relations encountered in hydrological systems. The first chapter presents an introduction, following, the second chapter suggests the incorporation of social and spatial characteristics within the DPSIR framework, a framework widely employed in water resources management and planning practices. The third chapter presents the transdisciplinary learning communities as a potential approach to deal with the socio-ecological complexities usually present in river basins. At thesame time, this chapter suggests the inclusion of vulnerable social groups in the decision-making process to enhance environmental justice to the vulnerable social groups usually influenced by environmental impacts. Considering that the framing process is fundamental in the IWRM and the collaborative water governance, the fourth chapter explores the drivers behind the fragmentation and connection of frames in river basin committees. Finally, the last chapter present the general conclusions.