SusWater

SusWater focuses on water management in regulated rivers, and will examine different paths towards a more unified water management policy that will be accepted at both local, regional  and national levels, while meeting our international obligations.

Norway is committed to develop a comprehensive water management plan across local and regional government boundaries in accordance with the EU Water Framework Directive, at the same time as we encourage the development of renewable energy production in line with the EU Renewable Energy Directive. Furthermore, many hydropower licences may be revised in the coming years. The challenge lies in finding ways to satisfy these quite different sets of requirements taking into account various concerns and commitments.

SusWater will shed light on various aspects of water management in regulated rivers, and look at both the economic, social and environmental aspects. The project will examine different paths towards a more unified water management policy that will be accepted at both local, regional and national levels, while meeting our international obligations. One of the aims is to develop a decision-support tool to improve water management, a tool that will raise the level of acceptance of mutually agreed solutions.

The research team will attempt to answer a number of specific questions:

1. What are the regulatory challenges associated with strengthening of water governance in regulated rivers?
2. How much water is sufficient to meet given environmental objectives?
3. How can different benefits and costs be better measured and operationalised?
4. Can we formulate a framework for better integrated decision-making processes by means of multi-criteria analysis?
5. How can we achieve an improved and more dynamic water management in regulated rivers?
6. How to characterise hydrological and morphological changes in rivers due to hydropower?