ABSTRACT
In this chapter we examine contemporary European water management systems, including institutions, legislation, and policy. At the heart of the chapter is a comparison of the emerging EU-level water management system (since 2000 unified within the Water Framework Directive) with those of certain member states, in particular the UK. As we shall see, water management law and institutions have evolved a “Russian Doll” structure, such that national institutions are framed within EC Directives, which are themselves shaped by the emerging global level of water governance. Much of this chapter is devoted to the straightforward presentation of details about relevant laws, Directives, agencies and other institutions and “stakeholders” in water management, but it is hoped that these trends can be seen as part of an historical-geographical process that has its roots in the distant past. Indeed, although the attempt to create a pan-European water management framework is new, many of the stakeholders and even the key principles are not new at all. For example, the existence of privatised water companies is not a novel invention of the Thatcherite 1980s or even the laissez-faire 19th century, but goes back rather further into the misty past. Also, the idea that national interests are closely tied to control over water is also not new. Through a brief examination of water management prior to the post-war era we shall see that royal “patents” to private water companies were being granted as far back as the 17th century and commercial agreements concerning water supply go back at least as far as the 14th or 15th centuries. Regulation of Europe’s waters has therefore developed over many centuries in response to both growing and urbanising populations and changing ideas about the optimal mix between private and public sector involvement.
