The science-policy-stakeholder interface in sustainable water management: Creating interactive participatory scenarios together with stakeholders

As has been noted in earlier chapters in this book, a major problem in the move to sustainable water management is the incorporation of scientific and other forms of information (such as local knowledge) within the science–policy interface and within the policy process itself. Despite the considerable amount of effort put into research on the factors influencing policy input, the results of this knowledge production are often not successfully incorporated within policy-making. The reasons for this are many (see, for example, Chapter 2) and (in cases) uncertain. Part of the problem seems to be in the initial formulation of problems; scientists are concerned with problem-solving procedures that fit into scientific disciplines or that can be judged by others in the scientific community (see Chapter 2). Policy-makers and managers, on the other hand, need answers to more immediate problems. The correlation between these two ways of looking at problems is often weak. At the same time, stakeholders can provide an important source of knowledge for water management, a knowledge that can both complement and further inform the knowledge provided by the scientific community. A possible solution to this is that scientists could make their methods and results more understandable and accessible to policy-makers, while policy-makers could also make clearer the type of information necessary for policy formulation and implementation. Into this two-way exchange we need to insert a third: the knowledge produced by local people and stakeholders. As will be seen later in Chapter 7, local knowledge is often a vital input into policy, 52especially in scientifically data-poor contexts, such as our examples from South-East Asia and India.