Land use scenario development and stakeholder involvement as tools for watershed management within the Havel River Basin

Abstract The implementation of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) will address land use issues in river catchments in order to reduce diffuse pollution and work towards the aim of achieving good ecological status, or good ecological potential in surface water bodies. The WFD also requires the active involvement of all interested parties in developing the best approach to achieve its objectives. The paper demonstrates how scenario analysis can be applied to investigate the impacts of land use changes and how stakeholder interviews can be used to evaluate the results of the scenarios. The study was carried out in the Havel Basin in the northeast of Germany. ‘Landscape-ecological spatial units’ were derived from similar characteristics of soil and groundwater conditions, ground relief and inundation to enable spatial allocation of potential land use and link different scales when describing possible changes in land use. As a first step, in three sub-catchments of the Havel River (distinguished by different physical characteristics) detailed surveys were carried out to investigate the various interests of the stakeholders. The interviews were used to identify the key problems of each area with respect to water quality and quantity and facilitated stakeholder engagement with the catchment planning issues in the Havel River Basin. The information from the stakeholder interviews was used to determine the initial conditions for the land use scenarios which were developed to demonstrate possible changes to land use for achieving better water quality. The land use scenarios also were required as an input into the hydrological modelling of their effects on water quality and to calculate their socio-economic effects. In a second survey, the results of the scenarios and the hydrological modelling were presented to the stakeholders. The consultation process identified the priorities of the stakeholders which could then be taken into account when developing management options.