Institutional Options for Swiss Water Management

Water resources management in Switzerland faces a multitude of challenges: pressure on water resources increases, different interests of society, economy and ecology have to be reconciled, the traditional small scale structures of the Swiss water subsectors encounter difficulties in handling cross-sectoral optimization, infrastructure maintenance requirements are increasing, the complexity of tasks in the densely populated Swiss midlands asks for high qualifications of service providers, and climate change may change demand and supply patterns.

The question is whether the present institutional set-up and organizational structures of the Swiss water resources management are conducive to a successful handling of these challenges.

On a mandate by the Swiss Federal Office for Environment, we developed three institutional strategy options to tackle these challenges and to introduce new forms of management. All three options base on the widely accepted premise that the development of the Swiss water management has to go towards a further regional and sectoral integration. The three options cover a broad spectrum of different degrees of state intervention. A political participatory process will be needed to determine the optimum between state intervention and achievement of objectives. The Swiss Federal Office for Environment will use our study as a basis for this process and invites for a discussion on the future organization of the Swiss water management.