The potential of Digital Social Platforms in enhancing urban water governance: Report on the UWCS governance analyses of the Key Demonstration Cities - Political and sOcial awareness on Water EnviRonmental challenges

“Over half of the world’s population is living in cities and it is expected that by 2050 approximately 6.4 billion people will live in an urban area (IWA, n.d.). Urban, demographic and climate trends are increasingly exposing cities to risks of having too little, too much and too polluted water. With the spread of information and communication technologies urban water governance may undergo prominent changes, especially in terms of knowledge exchange and public engagement. Therefore, this report examines the potential of Digital Social Platforms (DSPs) to enhance urban water governance. DSPs are designed to facilitate new forms of knowledge sharing and communication as they can be used to gather and disseminate detailed place-based information, citizens and expert knowledge and facilitate dialogue between a variety of stakeholders.
This report is the main outcome of Task 4.5 UWCS governance in partner cities (M17-M48), as it includes a detailed analysis of water governance in the Key Demonstration Cities (KDCs), namely Leicester, Milton Keynes, Sabadell and Jerusalem. It follows the guidance document for the analysis of water governance in municipalities and regions (D4.7). Governance capacity is understood as ability of governmental and non- governmental actors to work together and jointly address common challenges. The purpose of this deliverable is to assess the potential of DSPs to enhance the governance capacity through a process of collaborative learning in the KDCs and beyond. To reach this objective, an analytical framework is used which consists of a three-step approach. The first step includes a baseline governance assessment following the water Governance Capacity Framework (GCF; D4.7). The GCF is a comprehensive analysis consisting of nine key enabling conditions that determine the governance capacity needed to address specific water challenges. The second step includes the in-depth case study of collaborative learning by scrutinising four of the nine conditions of the GCF: awareness, useful knowledge, continuous learning and stakeholder engagement process. As such, we focus on how collaborative learning takes place among various actors, and how socio- economic, political, cultural and technological settings influence the process and outcomes of information sharing and co-production for dealing with various urban water challenges. Lastly, the third step includes a reflection on the characteristics and the potential of the DSP to enhance collaborative learning and thereby improve the capacity to jointly govern water challenges in cities. The governance capacity analysis and the in-depth analysis of collaborative learning provide the required knowledge to assess the potential role of the DSP to strengthen the four specific governance capacity conditions.”

(Citaat: Witjes, M., Koop, S.H.A., Mukhtarov, F., Dieperink, C., Driessen, P, van Leeuwen, C.J. – The potential of Digital Social Platforms in enhancing urban water governance: Report on the UWCS governance analyses of the Key Demonstration Cities – POWER – Political and sOcial awareness on Water EnviRonmental challenges – Grant Agreement number 687809 – Report no. D4.8 (2019))