Governance for Drought Resilience

Abstract

This book is about governance for drought resilience. But that simple sentence alone might rouse several questions. Because what do we mean with drought, and how does that relate to water scarcity? And what do we mean with resilience, and why is resilience needed for tackling drought? And how does governance enter this equation? We argue that governance assessment—the study of restricting and facilitating characteristics of a governance setting—can greatly aid implementation of drought adaptation measures, thereby increasing drought resilience. In this chapter we will first discuss the occurrence of drought in (Northwest) Europe, and why governance matters for increasing drought resilience (Sect. 1.1). Second, we will shed more light on the notion of governance and how governance is dealt with by us (Sect. 1.2). Third, we will review existing governance assessment methods (Sect. 1.3). Fourth, we will use this knowledge on governance and governance assessment to introduce our key principles in governance assessment, and discuss how we have applied these in a real-life project setting (Sect. 1.4). Fifth, and last, this chapter ends with an outlook into the rest of the book, to guide the reader in reading (Sect. 1.5).