Preparing public participation at the catchment level: comparison of three methodologies applied to the Hérault river basin.

Public participation in water resources management has increasingly been recommended to increase the effectiveness and the acceptability of proposed water management projects and plans. Different levels of public participation are possible depending on the governance context. This paper reports on the practical implementation of three different methodologies in the Hérault river catchment (France). The analysis of public view points, carried out using a quantitative opinion survey and focus groups, reveals important information needs which have to be fulfilled for any further consultation to be efficient. A complementary analysis of stakeholders' opinions, carried out through semi-structured interviews also highlights the need to construct a common knowledge base between stakeholders, expert and scientists. This is seen as a prerequisite to implementing more elaborated forms of participation.

Assessing the cost of groundwater pollution: the case of diffuse agricultural pollution in the Upper Rhine valley aquifer.

This paper presents an assessment of the costs of diffuse groundwater pollution by nitrates and pesticides for the industrial and the drinking water sectors in the Upper Rhine valley, France. Pollution costs which occurred between 1988 and 2002 are described and assessed using the avoidance cost method. Geo-statistical methods (kriging) are then used to construct three scenarios of nitrate concentration evolution. The economic consequences of each scenario are then assessed. The estimates obtained are compared with the results of a contingent valuation study carried out in the same study area ten years earlier.