| Title | Participatory Research for Adaptive Water Management in a Transition Country - a case Study from Uzbekistan |
| Abstract | Participatory research has in recent years become a popular approach for problem-oriented scientific research that aims to tackle complex problems in a real management context. The EU project NeWater placed a strong emphasis on participatory research to analyze the water management regimes in its seven case studies, identify barriers and opportunities for a change of current practices towards adaptive water management and develop and apply suitable tools to support a transition. The Uzbek part of the Amudarya river basin was one of its case studies. However, given the current political and cultural context in Uzbekistan which allows little room for stakeholder participation the extent to which participation could be realized here was unclear. In this paper we present an evaluation of the participatory research carried out in the Amudarya case study with respect to (i) the choice and application of different participatory methods, and their adaptation to the given political, socio-economic and cultural environment, (ii) their usefulness for the improvement of system understanding and the development of strategies and measures to improve water management and monitoring, and (iii) their acceptance and suitability for enhancing policy-making processes in the Amudarya river basin context.
The main lessons learned from the comparison of the different participatory methods were: 1) the stakeholder process provided an opportunity for meetings and discussions among stakeholders from different organizational levels and thus promoted communication between different levels and organizations; 2) there is a danger of raising expectations that a research project cannot meet, e.g. of transferring local interests to higher levels, when initiating a participatory process in a context where most stakeholders are not generally involved in policymaking.
Our experience shows that in order to chose and adapt participatory methods to the Uzbek cultural and political setting, and most likely this applies to other post-Soviet transition countries as well, four aspects should be taken into account: the time required to prepare and apply the method, good information about the participants and the context in which the method will be applied, knowledge of the local language(s), and careful training of local moderators. While these are aspects that are relevant to any application of participatory methods, they become even more important in a political and socio-cultural setting such as found in Uzbekistan. The extent to which those issues are relevant for a given method depends on the method itself.
A four year research project can only provide a few illustrative examples of the usefulness of participation for system assessment in the river basin. However, the activities have built capacity with local scientists and practitioners for further application of those methods, which we consider a crucial aspect of the participatory research process. Overall, the application of the different participatory methods with their adaptation to the case region contributed to improved system understanding and - potentially - learning among both stakeholders and researchers, which is at the core of the adaptive management process |
| Source | Ecology and Society 15 |
| Keywords | Participatory methodsAmudarya river basinadaptive water managementresearch projectstakeholder participation |
| Journal | Ecology and Society |
| Editor | The Resilience Alliance, , |
| Year | 2010 |
| Type | Articolo in rivista |
| Authors | Hirsch D.(1), Abrami G.(2), Giordano R.(3), Liersch S.(4), Matin N.(5), Schlüter M.(6) |
| Text | 179726 2010 ISI Web of Science WOS 000283867400018 Participatory methods Amudarya river basin adaptive water management research project stakeholder participation Participatory Research for Adaptive Water Management in a Transition Country a case Study from Uzbekistan Hirsch D. 1 , Abrami G. 2 , Giordano R. 3 , Liersch S. 4 , Matin N. 5 , Schluter M. 6 1 Institute of Environmental Systems Research, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Osnabruck and United Nations University 2 Institute for Environment and Human Security, Cemagref 3 Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche Istituto di Ricerca sulle Acque 4 Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research UFZ, Umweltforschungszentrum Leipzig 5 5Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York 6 Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research UFZ Leipzig Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries Participatory research has in recent years become a popular approach for problem oriented scientific research that aims to tackle complex problems in a real management context. The EU project NeWater placed a strong emphasis on participatory research to analyze the water management regimes in its seven case studies, identify barriers and opportunities for a change of current practices towards adaptive water management and develop and apply suitable tools to support a transition. The Uzbek part of the Amudarya river basin was one of its case studies. However, given the current political and cultural context in Uzbekistan which allows little room for stakeholder participation the extent to which participation could be realized here was unclear. In this paper we present an evaluation of the participatory research carried out in the Amudarya case study with respect to i the choice and application of different participatory methods, and their adaptation to the given political, socio economic and cultural environment, ii their usefulness for the improvement of system understanding and the development of strategies and measures to improve water management and monitoring, and iii their acceptance and suitability for enhancing policy making processes in the Amudarya river basin context. The main lessons learned from the comparison of the different participatory methods were 1 the stakeholder process provided an opportunity for meetings and discussions among stakeholders from different organizational levels and thus promoted communication between different levels and organizations; 2 there is a danger of raising expectations that a research project cannot meet, e.g. of transferring local interests to higher levels, when initiating a participatory process in a context where most stakeholders are not generally involved in policymaking. Our experience shows that in order to chose and adapt participatory methods to the Uzbek cultural and political setting, and most likely this applies to other post Soviet transition countries as well, four aspects should be taken into account the time required to prepare and apply the method, good information about the participants and the context in which the method will be applied, knowledge of the local language s , and careful training of local moderators. While these are aspects that are relevant to any application of participatory methods, they become even more important in a political and socio cultural setting such as found in Uzbekistan. The extent to which those issues are relevant for a given method depends on the method itself. A four year research project can only provide a few illustrative examples of the usefulness of participation for system assessment in the river basin. However, the activities have built capacity with local scientists and practitioners for further application of those methods, which we consider a crucial aspect of the participatory research process. Overall, the application of the different participatory methods with their adaptation to the case region contributed to improved system understanding and potentially learning among both stakeholders and researchers, which is at the core of the adaptive management process 15 http //www.ecologyandsociety.org/issues/view.php sf=43 Participatory Research for Adaptive Water Management in a Transition Country a Case Study from Uzbekistan ES_2010_3549.pdf Articolo in rivista The Resilience Alliance 1708 3087 Ecology and Society Ecology and Society raffaele.giordano GIORDANO RAFFAELE TA.P04.005.008 Integrazione di metodologie per il monitoraggio e la modellizzazione per la gestione delle risorse idriche |
