Result-oriented approaches to the management of drinking water catchments in agricultural landscapes

Alexander Wezel, Maria Zipfer, Christine Aubry, Fabienne Barataud and Alois Heißenhuber

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 2016, vol. 59, issue 2, 183-202

Abstract: Management of water quality in drinking water catchments is of ongoing, high importance as nitrate concentrations are often still very high. We analysed the Augsburg catchment in Germany, a unique example where a result-oriented approach has been implemented. We investigated the historical evolution of the water protection programme, the result-oriented payment contracts with farmers, and farmer satisfaction with the contracts, based on interviews with the water utility and farmers as well as an analysis of the literature. Today, the water protection programme has been successfully implemented, and a significant reduction of nitrate concentration was achieved due to the following factors: (1) investment of non-negligible amounts of money for high compensation and remuneration payments, (2) different contract options, (3) farmers' participation in the negotiation process for result-oriented payment contracts, (4) involvement of "outside" people and institutions in negotiation processes, (5) anticipation of starting a programme when nitrate levels were still far below legislative thresholds, and (6) a political and legislative framework allowing direct decisions by a water supplier.

Date: 2016
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09640568.2014.1000453 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jenpmg:v:59:y:2016:i:2:p:183-202

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CJEP20

DOI: 10.1080/09640568.2014.1000453

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management is currently edited by Dr Neil Powe, Dr Ken Willis and George Bill Page

More articles in Journal of Environmental Planning and Management from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().