Thematic paper 3: Urban-rural tensions - Groundwater Governance

Clearly, solutions are available to deal with important planning issues as they relate to groundwater. The overridingchallenge is to provide a framework for water governance in urban areas that can facilitate action on thesesolutions. For example (Foster et al., 2010a):In urban environs land-use classification and control are generally the domain of municipal or localgovernment, and the absence of mechanisms whereby water resource agencies can influence the processis a frequent governance weakness.In many developing countries, legislation to cope with undesirable land-use practices is often weaklyenforced or even non-existent and progress with implementing controls in the interest of groundwater arehighly dependent upon stakeholder awareness and participation.In Chapter 3 (the Thematic Diagnostic - below) we conduct a more detailed analysis of governance issues byreviewing water-related problems in cities where groundwater plays a major role. The findings of this analysis arecarried through to Chapter 4 where appropriate models of urban water governance are identified and discussed.19