[MUSIC] [MUSIC] With the development especially with the industrialization of water uses, interdependencies between different users became increasingly strong. And it was at that time, during the nineteenth century, that it became increasingly important to manage water on the watershed scale. Lets take two key examples. Flood management and protection against water finally recognised that the protection of a city downstream is increasingly dependent on protection and prevention measures upstream. At that point, we will start to try to coordinate water flow management from upstream to downstream. You can also take the example of hydro-electricity which develops from the late nineteenth century. Hydropower presents the same problem as navigation, or flood management. We must ensure that optimizing dams upstream does not prejudice the efficient operation of dams downstream. Optimization must be carried out across the entire watershed. With these two cases, we have clear examples where management at the watershed-scale, is more successful. It allows cities and populations to be protected from floods and allows more efficient electricity supplies via hydroelectric production. These interdependencies raise awareness of a key element. Watershed-based management may be more effective across fragmented territories. From this moment on, we become aware of the potential and also the dreams of geographers as captured in this quote by the French geographer Buache in 1766: who dreams of redrawing all the geography and territories, not by concern for political boundaries, but rather by natural boundaries formed by mountains and valleys. [BLANK_AUDIO] So, beyond geographers’ dreams, is a whole range of disciplines, including hydrologists, but also engineers, will try to impose the watershed as a new scale of water management. It all starts in the United States in the 1920s and up until the 1940s. We will see a similar story in France. In the same period, in the USA, with the development of large hydroelectric dams, including the Colorado River. The challenge will be coordination and for the federal states to work together. Take the example of the Colorado River. The river flows from from north to south. Through states such as Wyoming or Utah, which are full of water to arid states like Arizona and California in the south. Water transfers are necessary as is the shared use of this water, sometimes abundant in the North, sometimes abundant in the South. On this basis, the federal state of Washington will consider Colorado as a river of national interest. States are encouraged to coordinate to enable a more efficient management of this river. This happens even if it is before the courts as seen with several cases, several cases where the states are in opposition. Or alternatively by long-term agreements obtained by Washington which states are forced to sign. So what’s the challenge? It is to produce electricity and to manage the hydraulic power of the Colorado in the most optimal way possible. It is a fine example of how, ultimately, the economic potential of the river will be put ahead of institutional reconfiguration. the river will be put ahead of institutional reconfiguration. and the creation of basin agencies, attempts are made to have more efficient management mechanisms. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic in France and at the same period of time, the problems are actually quite similar. The management of the Rhone must be coordinated, for navigation, for the development of hydroelectric dams, for flood management. Again, the great engineers of major organs of the State are trying to loosen the grip of local power on rivers and streams. These engineers of bridges and mines will promote the creation of consolidated companies such as the Compagnie Nationale du Rhône, which will be dedicated to the complete management of the Rhone. With this creation, this reform, the state acquires the capacity for local action and will try to marginalize local authorities and hydraulic associations who had managed the river until this point. These hydraulic associations, these hydraulic communities are not able to coherently manage the river and the state will therefore request through a 1919 concession, that the river is managed by the CNR, the Compagnie Nationale du Rhone. What is interesting about the case of the CNR is that it does not only manage hydropower. It manages the river as a whole, navigation, maintenance of riverbanks, but also floods and obviously hydropower. The Compagnie Nationale du Rhône is possibly the earliest form of integrated management at the basin scale. In 1964, the state will also support the creation of water agencies for each of France’s major watersheds. These water agencies are the first major water authorities specialized on this issue, developed on a different basis from the one observed with the CNR. Water agencies, for the main part, have two main differences. On one hand, they are public actors who involve the users. We find the community spirit so dear to Elinor Ostrom is present in basin committees that will bring together all users at the basin scale. That is the first change. The second evolution with the creation of water agencies is that water starts to be considered not just as a problem or an economic potential, through flood management, or hydro-electricity which was a really dominant issue until this point. Water starts to be considered for what it is - a natural resource at risk of pollution, a resource that must be preserved because it supports the entire ecosystem chain. From this point, the water agencies tackle watershed management from an economic angle, but also from an ecological angle. So there is a dual revolution. On one hand, users are integrated with basin committees and diverse uses are integrated more than before with the Compagnie Nationale du Rhône. It is, in fact, on this basis that the French experience develops the European Water Framework Directive. The Framework Directive of the year 2000 puts watersheds on the relevant scale of water management. This directive is eventually used to structure the development of contemporary water policies in countries such as France, Germany and other members of the European Union. What does this directive state? Above all, a good ecological condition of the river basins must be reached. This means two things. Quality standards are established for the entire stream, the entire river and the entire watershed. It is still extremely ambitious. Ultimately the issues of pollution, here on the Rhone in Geneva will be addressed in the management of the Rhône further downstream, near Lyon or Arles, in France. There will be attempts to manage the quality of large watersheds and then, indirectly, a push is made to set up a series of institutions, devices, or even agencies, authorities in charge of the management of these watersheds, precisely to take into consideration these pollution problems. With the obligations set by the European Union, the tendency is towards major reforms in policy and water management. These reforms will concern the most centralized countries, such as France, and even England. In contrast, the most federal countries, federalists, such as Germany or the Netherlands, will have more difficulty in implementing basin management authorities. These countries remain with a fragmented management at the level of federal states, provinces or Länder, who will ultimately remain responsible for watershed management. Nevertheless, watersheds are becoming the norm, the paradigm on a European scale. But that’s not all. All major international agencies who promote a sustainability and sustainable water governance, will also attempt to promote the watershed as a reference scale. We have seen this increasingly in the United State but also in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, where rivers such as the Niger are now managed through transnational basin authorities. It is one of the major requirements of international water law calling for consistent management on the watershed scale. And so through this journey, which has led us from the United States, to global water governance, we can understand which processes are involved in the basin scale as a reference scale. A reference scale which has scientific foundations, originating from geographers, naturalists, biologists and engineers. It then takes on a political dimension with reform issues, institutional reforms but also reforms related to performance which view water as ecological as well as economical. We will see that watershed management. is far from easy. It raises key issues of application, practical capacity or more precisely of implementation. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC]
