The International Conference on Data, Information and Knowledge for Water Governance in the Networked Society is part of the activities of the SWAN Project (Sustainable Water Action: Building Research Links between EU and USA), a VII FP I+D INCOLAB Project EU-USA.

The main objective of the Conference is to analyze the current debates and innovations on the issues surrounding the collaborative generation, processing and dissemination of data, information and knowledge for the management of natural resources in general and water resources in particular.

This objective is justified by the confluence of profound transformations along three main axis: (1) changes in our understanding of the links between nature and society; (2) changes in the way we conceive the management and governance of natural resources, with increasing demands of transparency and public participation; and finally, (3) new information and communication technologies. The latter are enabling a revolution both in the potential to generate and manage exponentially growing amounts of information about our natural environment, as well as in the possibilities of disseminating this information in ever more creative and user-friendly ways through the internet and social media.

The Conference aims to focus, specifically on the concepts of poly-centricity and collaborative generation of information, quality control, sustainability of the information cycle, public participation, open data generation and reuse of information. These are the key drivers for water governance in the near future.

] CONFERENCE INTRODUCTION (pdf, vídeo)

Leandro del Moral. University of Seville

] SESSION 1_Monday9th_June_2014

Power, Communication And The Policy Process

This session will reflect on the current political, historical and socio-economic context that frames the changes occurring in the world of information and knowledge affecting decision processes in general and reshaping social relations of power in water use, management and governance.

  • Political and Technological Innovation. P2P Democracy and policy co-production (pdf, vídeo)Joan Subirats; Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain.
  • Interrogating Post-Democracy: Reclaiming egalitarian political spaces (pdf, vídeo)Erik Swyngedouw; Manchester University, United Kingdom

] SESSION 2_Monday9th_June_2014

Key Debates On Water Management Models/Paradigms

This session will focus on the debates about current and emerging paradigms of water resources management and reflect on the limitations and conflicts found in the practical applications of the IWRM paradigm.

  • From panaceas towards a diagnostic approach in water governance and management (pdf, vídeo)Claudia Pahl-Wostl; University of Osnabrück, Germany.
  • Water management models and the formation of policy bubbles (pdf, vídeo)François Molle; Institute for Research and Development (IRD, France) & International Institute for Water Management (IWMI, Egypt).
  • The river basin organization, reflections on politics and performance (pdf, vídeo)Dave Huitema;VU University-Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
  • Learning to swim in the troubled waters of impure public goods (pdf, vídeo)Bernard Barraque; International Center for Scientific Research on Environment (CNRS AU CIRED – HDR, France).

] Session 3_Tuesday10th_June2014

Polycentric Information For Water Governance: Generation, Quality Control And Sustainability

The third session will focus on new practices of collaborative and distributed generation of data prompted by the New Information and Communication Technologies in the era of the networked society.

  • Socially networked citizen science as a mechanism for supporting conservation and behavioral change (pdf, vídeo)Janice Dickinson; Cornell University, USA.
  • Processes of social participation in information: The experience of the Water Remunicipalization Tracker (pdf, vídeo)Satoko Kishimoto; Transnational Institute, Water Justice, The Netherlands.
  • Administrative and legal obligations concerning data and information (pdf, vídeo)Arturo Fernández-Palacios & Jose María Hurtado, Government of Andalusia, Spain.
  • Collaborative production and management of water information. How to make polycentric information available to managers, agencies and the public: Spanish experience. (pdf, vídeo)Javier Ruza, Water Directorate, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment of Spain.

] Session 4_Tuesday10th_June2014

Key Issues In Information Dissemination, Visualization, And Translation To Different Audiences

The fourth session will look at how knowledge is created in the last stage of the information cycle. Special attention will be given to the new tools for the generation and sharing of useful knowledge for decision making and water management.

  • Sustainable Development Indicators: dealing with complexity in governance. (pdf, vídeo)Mario Giampietro; Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) and Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain.
  • Tools for collaborative management of information (pdf, odp, vídeo)J. Félix Ontañón, Open Kratio, Seville, Spain
  • The National Drought Mitigation Center: Building a conduit to bring the science to citizens (pdf, vídeo)Brian Fuchs; Drought Mitigation Center, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, USA.
  • Participatory knowledge generation for decision making (pdf, vídeo)Hoshin Gupta & Aleix Serrat-Capdevila; University of Arizona, USA.

] CONFERENCE FINAL REMARKS (pdf, vídeo)

] Field Trip_Wednesday11th_June2014

Water landscapes in Andalusia. Nature, economy and society. The experience of Veta La Palma (Doñana Natural Park).