This report was prepared by the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE) led by Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Director, as part of the Programme of Work and Budget of the Regional Development Policy Committee.
The report was co-ordinated and drafted by a core team in CFE composed of Håkan Tropp (Head, Water Governance Programme), Delphine Clavreul (Counsellor), Natalia Altman (Junior Policy Analyst), Antonio Canamas Catala (Junior Policy Analyst), and Oriana Romano (Policy Analyst), under the supervision of Aziza Akhmouch, Head of the Cities, Urban Policies and Sustainable Development Division in CFE. Emeline Hassenforder also provided valuable contributions to an earlier version of the report as former OECD staff.
The OECD Secretariat is thankful to the experts, decision makers and practitioners (full list accessible in Annex B) who provided inputs and comments, contributed with case studies, peer-reviewed the checklist and/or hosted meetings. Draft versions of this report were discussed at several events, including the STAR-FLOOD Conference “Towards more resilient flood risk governance” (Brussels, 4-5 February 2016), the Dutch Water Governance Centre Sunset Symposium (Amersfoort, 10 March 2016) and the Adaptation Futures 2016 Conference (Rotterdam, 10-13 May 2016). Interim findings were also presented at the 7th and 11th meetings of the OECD Water Governance Initiative to test hypotheses and seek comments. Thanks are also extended to OECD colleagues Xavier Leflaive (Principal Administrator) and Lisa Danielson (Policy Analyst) in the Environment Directorate for their useful comments.
Valuable comments were received from stakeholders and members of the OECD Water Governance Initiative, who are warmly thanked: Peter Driessen, Marloes Bakker, Marleen van Rijswick and Dries Hegger (Utrecht University), Tom Raadgever (Delft University of Technology), Elwin Leusink (Sweco, Netherlands), Régis Thépot (Public River Basin Authority Seine Grands Lacs), Hannelore Mees (University of Antwerp), Mathieu Morel (Ministry for the Ecological and Solidary Transition, France), Jakub Lewandowski (Polish Academy of Sciences), Ellen van Lindert (Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, the Netherlands), Stefano Burchi (International Association for Water Law, or AIDA), Chris Seijger (Deltares), Karl Schwaiger, Gabriela Keusch, Clemens Neuhold and Ernst Überreiter (Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism, Austria), Igor Liska (International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River, or ICPDR), Ian Barker (Water Policy International), Jaroslava Markofová and Novák Vladimír (Slovak Republic), Tadashige Kawasaki (Network of Asian River Basin Associations, or NARBO) and Adrian Schmid-Breton (International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine, or ICPR). Special thanks are conveyed to Simla Yasemin Özkaya, Permanent Delegation of Turkey to OECD, Sheila Gordon, Department of Public Safety, Canada, and Natalie Weddell, Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development, Australia, for making valuable comments and suggestions.
The authors are particularly grateful to Caroline Wenger (Australian National University) for her thorough reading of and her comments on an earlier draft of the report, as well as for many practical suggestions and examples.
Special thanks are extended to Victoria Elliott for editing the report, Janine Treves in the Public Affairs and Communications Directorate for useful guidance on the structure of the report and to Pilar Philip and François Iglesias in CFE for preparing the report for publication.