**3. The contested search for efficiency and the multiple tensions under WFD**

As described above, the introduction of the WFD in Portugal has accelerated a process of institutional change initiated in the previous decades, particularly after the entry of the country into the European Union. Since the approval of the 2005 water legislation that translated Directive into national legislation, open events and regular media coverage have helped to broaden the debate about the new water regulatory regime. Nonetheless, underneath an apparent convergence of public opinion, there lays a stream of continuities and uncertainties not yet adequately considered. In several of our interviews it was mentioned that a major shortcoming is the insufficient opportunities available for the public to contribute during the regulatory transition. Historically, stakeholder engagement in water management and environmental issues has been very low in both Portugal and Spain, as much as between Portugal and Spain (Barreira, 2003). After the introduction of the WFD, the involvement of the public has remained restricted to consultations and formalist activities that offer little transparency and produce limited impact on decision-making (Veiga et al., 2008). In particular, the round of meetings organised in 2007-2008 by the government to discuss the new legislation ended up being something like a 'big imbroglio' because it has been limited to a small number of participants and merely ratified decisions made in advance by the government (interview with a NGO activist, 19 Nov 2008). Among the general members of the public, the criticism about the current water reforms has been related to a loose resistance against utility privatisation and in favour of vaguely defined 'water rights'. The superficial understandings of the conceptual underpinnings of the Directive permeate also the discourse of many environmental activists and academics that do not seem entirely aware of the politicised basis of the WFD regime.

Another significant evidence of continuity between past and present approaches is **the topdown assessment of environmental impacts and future scenarios**. A series of reports have been commissioned to estimate environmental pressures and impacts, as required to inform the implementation of the Directive, but by and large these assessments constitute little

Bringing Water Regulation into the 21st Century:

water use."

of our fieldwork).

The Implementation of the Water Framework Directive in the Iberian Peninsula 191

regarding the rationalisation of investments, to the extent that it allows a better use of existing infra-structures, reducing or even avoiding the need to increase water abstraction systems (…). The efficient use of water corresponds to the economic interest of the citizens, to the extent that makes possible a reduction in the costs of

The connection between efficiency, private gains and water management should come as no surprise, given that the minister has been himself one of the champions of the water reforms under the new paradigm of efficiency and economic rationality (cf. Correia, 2000). That is coherent with the tenets of environmental economics that underline the implementation of WFD, in particular the requirement to calculate the economic value of environmental impacts and the cost of mitigation measures. In practice, it has been translated into numerous applications of contingent valuation methodologies around Europe (e.g. Del Saz-Salazar et al., 2009) that unnecessarily reduce the complexity of socionatural water systems to the 'common ground' of money value. Although the chief water regulator in the Douro has expressed a more careful handling of the economic element of the new Directive (Brito et al., 2008), national policies constantly reinforce the idea that the main responsibility for improving water management lies in the hands of individual water users who should make their decisions in the light of a utilitarian economic thinking. The colonisation of the public debate by business expressions and the (material and symbolic) commodification of water is not an innocent occurrence, but reinforce the association of the WFD regime with government efforts in other policy areas (e.g. reduction of state enterprise and establishment of public-private partnerships). The emphasis on treating water as a commodity is illustrated in Figure 3 (poster of an event held at the time

Another step in the direction of exacerbating the economic dimension of WFD is the persistent claim that water is increasingly scarce and, as a result, should attract a monetary charge equivalent to its level of shortage. The corollary is that the scarcity of water can only be universally discerned by the stakeholders if the resource is quantified in monetary terms (i.e. the economic value). In other words, the access to water should be priced and charged, regardless of the existence of cultural and social expressions of value. The introduction of bulk water charges (Article 9 of the Directive) is the regulatory instrument that more concretely translates this ideological equivalence between water value and money value.9 Water charges have represented the main controversy related to the WFD in Portugal, particularly in the period between 2005 and 2008. After three years of debate, it was eventually decided that the charges should be calculated taking into account also the volume of effluent discharge, extraction of inert material, land use area, public water projects and the level of regional water scarcity. It is unfortunate that the regular clashes between stakeholders and public authorities ended up giving the impression to the general public that the regulatory regime under WFD is ultimately about monetary costs and tariffs, rather than about environmental conservation (cf. our interviews with local stakeholders).

9 In addition, the imposition of bulk water charges helps to enforce the new regulation: the income of the charges will serve to pay for at least 2/3 of the regional water administrations (ARH) and will feed into a national fund, which will serve to pay for environmental restoration measures. Note that several stakeholders complained during our interviews that the environmental benefits that may arise from the

revenues from the charges are doubtful and uncertain.

more than a compilation of generic data gathered from fragmented sources of information. The analyses tend to maintain the focus on pure hydrological modelling, paying scant attention to ecological conservation (Moura, 2007) or to traditional forms of water use practiced by local communities (Cristovão, 2006). The initial WFD report concluded that the Douro catchment has, among all the Portuguese rivers, the highest proportion (57.1%) of surface water bodies at risk of not achieving WFD targets (for the purpose of WFD, the river basin was classified according to 613 water bodies); there is an additional percentage of 23.4% of water bodies potentially at risk of not complying with the same objectives (INAG, 2005). The main sources of pressure seem to be pollution from agriculture and untreated sewage discharges, but it is not clear whether that proportion of impacted water bodies is reliable or the picture was exaggerated by the superficial nature of the assessment. The irony is that such assessments may affect negatively the resolution of water management problems: an overwhelmingly bad picture may have the perverse effect of diluting the focus away from the real problems and serve as justification for 'doing nothing' (i.e. under the assumption that the task is not feasible, the WFD regime allows an application for 'derogation' [exemption]).

At any rate, the narrow involvement of the public and the precarious scientific understanding of the socionatural complexity of the Douro catchment have not prevented the policy-makers from concentrating their attention on the aspects of WFD regulation that more directly correspond to the broader political and macroeconomic goals of the Portuguese government. Above all, a great deal of the ongoing regulatory effort has prioritised the achievement of higher levels of operational and economic efficiency, which represents the most emphasised aspect of the WFD regime in Portugal so far. The prevailing discourse claims that efficiency constitutes a 'win-win' game, insofar as the environmental pressure on aquatic systems can be reduced – in theory – by lowering the level of water demand and effluent discharge, which also represents economic savings to the water user (epitomised by Cunha et al., 2007).8 That is illustrated by the ideas advocated by Professor Correia - the Secretary of State for the Environment – for whom the WFD regime is essentially a matter of cost reduction and higher efficiency. Although also mentioned in government documents, other dimensions of the new regulatory context are systematically overlooked. For instance, in Jun 2008, at the opening session of the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities, the minister argued that:

"Water demand in Portugal is estimated at 7,5 billion m3/year, of which agriculture is the main user sector, making use of 87% of the total, whilst urban supply demands 8% and the industrial sector, 5%. However, not all the water abstracted is effectively utilised, given that an important proportion is associated to inefficient use and losses. (…) There are various reasons to take the efficient use of water as a strategic goal. First of all, there is a growing consciousness in society that water resources are limited and, thus, it is necessary to protect and conserve (…). [Another reason] is the economic interest at the national level, inasmuch as potential savings related to water correspond to significant figures, estimated at around 0.64% of national GDP (…) The efficient use of water is still important in

<sup>8</sup> This argument obviously ignores that increases in efficiency can be easily minimised by additional water demand that, in the end, magnify the level of environmental impact.

more than a compilation of generic data gathered from fragmented sources of information. The analyses tend to maintain the focus on pure hydrological modelling, paying scant attention to ecological conservation (Moura, 2007) or to traditional forms of water use practiced by local communities (Cristovão, 2006). The initial WFD report concluded that the Douro catchment has, among all the Portuguese rivers, the highest proportion (57.1%) of surface water bodies at risk of not achieving WFD targets (for the purpose of WFD, the river basin was classified according to 613 water bodies); there is an additional percentage of 23.4% of water bodies potentially at risk of not complying with the same objectives (INAG, 2005). The main sources of pressure seem to be pollution from agriculture and untreated sewage discharges, but it is not clear whether that proportion of impacted water bodies is reliable or the picture was exaggerated by the superficial nature of the assessment. The irony is that such assessments may affect negatively the resolution of water management problems: an overwhelmingly bad picture may have the perverse effect of diluting the focus away from the real problems and serve as justification for 'doing nothing' (i.e. under the assumption that the task is not feasible, the WFD regime allows an application for

At any rate, the narrow involvement of the public and the precarious scientific understanding of the socionatural complexity of the Douro catchment have not prevented the policy-makers from concentrating their attention on the aspects of WFD regulation that more directly correspond to the broader political and macroeconomic goals of the Portuguese government. Above all, a great deal of the ongoing regulatory effort has prioritised the achievement of higher levels of operational and economic efficiency, which represents the most emphasised aspect of the WFD regime in Portugal so far. The prevailing discourse claims that efficiency constitutes a 'win-win' game, insofar as the environmental pressure on aquatic systems can be reduced – in theory – by lowering the level of water demand and effluent discharge, which also represents economic savings to the water user (epitomised by Cunha et al., 2007).8 That is illustrated by the ideas advocated by Professor Correia - the Secretary of State for the Environment – for whom the WFD regime is essentially a matter of cost reduction and higher efficiency. Although also mentioned in government documents, other dimensions of the new regulatory context are systematically overlooked. For instance, in Jun 2008, at the opening session of the National Association of

"Water demand in Portugal is estimated at 7,5 billion m3/year, of which agriculture is the main user sector, making use of 87% of the total, whilst urban supply demands 8% and the industrial sector, 5%. However, not all the water abstracted is effectively utilised, given that an important proportion is associated to inefficient use and losses. (…) There are various reasons to take the efficient use of water as a strategic goal. First of all, there is a growing consciousness in society that water resources are limited and, thus, it is necessary to protect and conserve (…). [Another reason] is the economic interest at the national level, inasmuch as potential savings related to water correspond to significant figures, estimated at around 0.64% of national GDP (…) The efficient use of water is still important in

8 This argument obviously ignores that increases in efficiency can be easily minimised by additional

water demand that, in the end, magnify the level of environmental impact.

'derogation' [exemption]).

Portuguese Municipalities, the minister argued that:

regarding the rationalisation of investments, to the extent that it allows a better use of existing infra-structures, reducing or even avoiding the need to increase water abstraction systems (…). The efficient use of water corresponds to the economic interest of the citizens, to the extent that makes possible a reduction in the costs of water use."

The connection between efficiency, private gains and water management should come as no surprise, given that the minister has been himself one of the champions of the water reforms under the new paradigm of efficiency and economic rationality (cf. Correia, 2000). That is coherent with the tenets of environmental economics that underline the implementation of WFD, in particular the requirement to calculate the economic value of environmental impacts and the cost of mitigation measures. In practice, it has been translated into numerous applications of contingent valuation methodologies around Europe (e.g. Del Saz-Salazar et al., 2009) that unnecessarily reduce the complexity of socionatural water systems to the 'common ground' of money value. Although the chief water regulator in the Douro has expressed a more careful handling of the economic element of the new Directive (Brito et al., 2008), national policies constantly reinforce the idea that the main responsibility for improving water management lies in the hands of individual water users who should make their decisions in the light of a utilitarian economic thinking. The colonisation of the public debate by business expressions and the (material and symbolic) commodification of water is not an innocent occurrence, but reinforce the association of the WFD regime with government efforts in other policy areas (e.g. reduction of state enterprise and establishment of public-private partnerships). The emphasis on treating water as a commodity is illustrated in Figure 3 (poster of an event held at the time of our fieldwork).

Another step in the direction of exacerbating the economic dimension of WFD is the persistent claim that water is increasingly scarce and, as a result, should attract a monetary charge equivalent to its level of shortage. The corollary is that the scarcity of water can only be universally discerned by the stakeholders if the resource is quantified in monetary terms (i.e. the economic value). In other words, the access to water should be priced and charged, regardless of the existence of cultural and social expressions of value. The introduction of bulk water charges (Article 9 of the Directive) is the regulatory instrument that more concretely translates this ideological equivalence between water value and money value.9 Water charges have represented the main controversy related to the WFD in Portugal, particularly in the period between 2005 and 2008. After three years of debate, it was eventually decided that the charges should be calculated taking into account also the volume of effluent discharge, extraction of inert material, land use area, public water projects and the level of regional water scarcity. It is unfortunate that the regular clashes between stakeholders and public authorities ended up giving the impression to the general public that the regulatory regime under WFD is ultimately about monetary costs and tariffs, rather than about environmental conservation (cf. our interviews with local stakeholders).

 9 In addition, the imposition of bulk water charges helps to enforce the new regulation: the income of the charges will serve to pay for at least 2/3 of the regional water administrations (ARH) and will feed into a national fund, which will serve to pay for environmental restoration measures. Note that several stakeholders complained during our interviews that the environmental benefits that may arise from the revenues from the charges are doubtful and uncertain.

Bringing Water Regulation into the 21st Century:

'price'. In an interview on 21 Nov 2008, it was declared that:

recognised.

The Implementation of the Water Framework Directive in the Iberian Peninsula 193

Agriculture is probably the water user sector that best encapsulates the anxieties in relation to the new water charges and the WFD in general. Farmers are now expected to pay the second higher charges (€ 0.003/m3 plus the other charging factors), but their resistance to the new user charges are not simply proportional to the financial burden. On the contrary, other political and cultural factors also interfere in the disputes, although not normally

According to the last river basin plan (INAG, 2001), there are 200,000 hectares of irrigation in the Douro catchment, the great majority being small, intensive farming units located between Porto and Vila Real. These farmers have been described in official documents as responsible for the highest rate of water demand and the lowest rates of user efficiency, which imply that investments are needed for the development of backstage technical capabilities and adequate planning procedures (INAG, 2001). That is reaffirmed in the first WFD report (INAG, 2005), which estimates that the tariffs paid by agriculture prior to the new Directive (i.e. which was adopted in some public agriculture projects in the Douro) only used to recover 9% of the total costs of water supply (note that equivalent urban tariffs used to cover 82% of the same costs). It mans that the difference was paid in the form of government subsidies to the farming sector and that is now increasingly seen as unpopular and unacceptable by water regulators. In addition to lowering the subsidies, the water Directive introduced the universal payment for bulk water charges as a mechanism to 'steer the behaviour' of the water users (as declared by government representatives in a seminar organised by the Portuguese Farmers Confederation on 08 Jul 2008). It should come as no surprise, then, that the majority of farmers believe that the new environmental regulation is an extra-burden to a sector that is already under serious pressure due to declining governmental support (under the Common Agriculture Policy [CAP]) and the transfer of European funds to the Eastern side of the continent.10 In our interviews, both enterprise and small farmers were unanimous in criticising the charges and blaming the northern European countries, where irrigation is less critical, for imposing the new water regulation. Four months after the introduction of charges (on 01 Jul 2008), members of the agribusiness argued that water has a huge 'value' for the farmers, but it should not have a monetary

"I consider a distortion of competition the application of a new fee on water used by agriculture in the Mediterranean countries. Why? Well, if you live in Scotland, or in Brussels, you have much higher and more often precipitation, whilst in Portugal it rains less and for shorter periods of time. A farmer in Portugal has to invest in water storage and pipelines, pay for the irrigation equipment, energy and in ten years has to replace the equipment. The costs are very high and already restrain water use. In this context, comes the European Union and says 'we all need to pay for water in order to improve efficiency and environmental quality. (…) The farmers don't need to pay for water to use it more efficiently… You know, the farmer already has a deep relation with the water cycle. Now, the main risk is that this charge becomes [merely] a new tax that will not contribute to improve the

10 Farmers also criticise the delays and mismanagements in other areas of government intervention, such as the protest expressed by the Fruit Association of Armamar about the fact that the Temilobos dam (in the middle section of the Douro), which was planned to provide water for 1,200 hectares of irrigated apple groves, was still not operational in the end of 2008, two years after its completion.

Fig. 3. A Congress Flyer Where Water was Directly Depicted as a Commodity

Fig. 3. A Congress Flyer Where Water was Directly Depicted as a Commodity

Agriculture is probably the water user sector that best encapsulates the anxieties in relation to the new water charges and the WFD in general. Farmers are now expected to pay the second higher charges (€ 0.003/m3 plus the other charging factors), but their resistance to the new user charges are not simply proportional to the financial burden. On the contrary, other political and cultural factors also interfere in the disputes, although not normally recognised.

According to the last river basin plan (INAG, 2001), there are 200,000 hectares of irrigation in the Douro catchment, the great majority being small, intensive farming units located between Porto and Vila Real. These farmers have been described in official documents as responsible for the highest rate of water demand and the lowest rates of user efficiency, which imply that investments are needed for the development of backstage technical capabilities and adequate planning procedures (INAG, 2001). That is reaffirmed in the first WFD report (INAG, 2005), which estimates that the tariffs paid by agriculture prior to the new Directive (i.e. which was adopted in some public agriculture projects in the Douro) only used to recover 9% of the total costs of water supply (note that equivalent urban tariffs used to cover 82% of the same costs). It mans that the difference was paid in the form of government subsidies to the farming sector and that is now increasingly seen as unpopular and unacceptable by water regulators. In addition to lowering the subsidies, the water Directive introduced the universal payment for bulk water charges as a mechanism to 'steer the behaviour' of the water users (as declared by government representatives in a seminar organised by the Portuguese Farmers Confederation on 08 Jul 2008). It should come as no surprise, then, that the majority of farmers believe that the new environmental regulation is an extra-burden to a sector that is already under serious pressure due to declining governmental support (under the Common Agriculture Policy [CAP]) and the transfer of European funds to the Eastern side of the continent.10 In our interviews, both enterprise and small farmers were unanimous in criticising the charges and blaming the northern European countries, where irrigation is less critical, for imposing the new water regulation. Four months after the introduction of charges (on 01 Jul 2008), members of the agribusiness argued that water has a huge 'value' for the farmers, but it should not have a monetary 'price'. In an interview on 21 Nov 2008, it was declared that:

"I consider a distortion of competition the application of a new fee on water used by agriculture in the Mediterranean countries. Why? Well, if you live in Scotland, or in Brussels, you have much higher and more often precipitation, whilst in Portugal it rains less and for shorter periods of time. A farmer in Portugal has to invest in water storage and pipelines, pay for the irrigation equipment, energy and in ten years has to replace the equipment. The costs are very high and already restrain water use. In this context, comes the European Union and says 'we all need to pay for water in order to improve efficiency and environmental quality. (…) The farmers don't need to pay for water to use it more efficiently… You know, the farmer already has a deep relation with the water cycle. Now, the main risk is that this charge becomes [merely] a new tax that will not contribute to improve the

<sup>10</sup> Farmers also criticise the delays and mismanagements in other areas of government intervention, such as the protest expressed by the Fruit Association of Armamar about the fact that the Temilobos dam (in the middle section of the Douro), which was planned to provide water for 1,200 hectares of irrigated apple groves, was still not operational in the end of 2008, two years after its completion.

Bringing Water Regulation into the 21st Century:

efficiency-centred regulatory demands).

(Monteiro & Roseta-Palma, 2007).

The Implementation of the Water Framework Directive in the Iberian Peninsula 195

regulator, remains firmly in favour of replacing surface irrigation with spray irrigation equipment in order to save water. Contradictorily, there are also plans to build new water storage dams in the headwaters of several Douro tributaries to increase the irrigation area. Both the new dams and the volumetric charges have received some level of opposition from the 400 associations of irrigators in the Spanish Douro. In the case of the community of Bajo Carrión (visited during our research in the Douro), the directors had recently resigned and new elections were called exactly because of disagreement about the modernization targets required by the regulator (i.e. the majority of the members voted against the acceptance of

The underlying problem with policies that try to induce higher efficiency through charges and the sudden incorporation of external costs is that it ignores existing social and spatial inequalities, which can be aggravated if not properly considered, as mentioned by Tsakalotos (2004: 29), "…while the expansion of the market, and market-type arrangements, are often defended on the grounds of efficiency, they are also often implemented in a manner that goes well beyond the discourse of efficiency. (…) Such a strategy makes alternative conceptions much more difficult to conceptualize, let alone carry out". If the introduction of bulk water charges has represented a major controversy among small and large farmers, an analogous situation happened among companies responsible for public water supply and sanitation. Despite the fact that a full privatisation (i.e. divestiture) seems out of the political agenda – in large measure, because of fierce public opposition – the association between water and money remains present in the collective imaginary of the population (illustrated in a Portuguese newspaper cartoon in Figure 4). It has been widely stated in official documents, reports and guidance that public water services in Portugal were and continue to be thwarted by inefficiency and that the introduction of WFD should be associated with cost-recovery measures and higher water user charges.11 In particular, local water providers ('low' companies) are blamed for their backward thinking as a "hindrance to the development of water supply sector" (that is exactly the expression used in the cover page of the main magazine of water services in Portugal, Água & Ambiente, June 2005). Rather than being politically neutral, those claims for cost recovery have provoked tensions and uneasiness between the various water utilities that operate in the same geographical area (i.e. the 'high' and 'low' companies; see details above). For example, in 2008 the municipal company formed to serve the city of Porto (Águas do Porto) was able to reduce the purchase of water from the Águas do Douro & Paiva in 80,000 m3/day (out of a total of 280,000 m3 distributed daily), according to its chief-manger (interview on 14 Nov 2008). That corresponds to a net saving of € 216,000/month in terms of payment made to the regional company or around 12% of her income (in 2008). As a result, Águas do Douro & Paiva tried unsuccessfully to raise their tariffs by 8% in 2008, but the government allowed an

increase of 5.5% (note that the rate of inflation in the year 2008 was 2.7% in Portugal).

If a large company such as Águas do Porto was able to confront the regional water authority, other municipal entities are left in a much weaker position to negotiate costs and conditions with the regional water utilities. In our interviews with managers, engineers and politicians responsible for the water services in the cities and towns in the upper Douro, we

11 Nonetheless, as in the case of the low elasticity price-demand of agriculture mentioned above, the increase of user charges in the last few years has had limited influence on the level of water demand

environment. (…) I strongly believe that in situations of water scarcity the user should pay less, not more for water".

It is evident that such argument subverts the logic of environmental economics, which postulates that scarce resources should attract higher user charges. Farmers in the area also mentioned that there is limited room for improving efficiency (at least at low costs), since they are the first to want to save water and reduced operational costs with electricity and irrigation equipment (which they claim to have done already). That indicates how the economic value of water, instead of a straightforward figure, is in effect a highly contested and contestable concept. By their turn, representatives from the small farmers community complained that the charges were adopted in Portugal before the definition of environmental management targets, which ultimately serves to demonstrate that the new water policies are centred on the 'commercialisation' of water and not on the protection of nature. The following passage summarises the feeling among the small, family agriculture:

"[M]any times the farmers and the agriculture sector are sees as reckless users of water. These discussions fail to consider the reality of the Portuguese agriculture, as well as ignore the deep, even passionate, relationship of the farmer with water (…) [T]his law liberates the state from the responsibility to look after the conservation of water, given that it leaves it open to the market. About the social relevance of water, little or nothing is said. (…) [the consequences of the new charges] are inevitably the increase in production costs and, as a result, the elimination of those that don't have financial means to pay for it" ([National Agriculture Confederation [CNA], 2006).

In addition, sector representatives protested that the bulk water charges in Portugal are three times higher than equivalent figures in France and that it was adopted by the Portuguese government two years earlier than in Spain (i.e. 2008 in Portugal and 2010 in Spain). Nonetheless, in the Spanish side of the Douro the controversy about volumetric charges to agriculture has also dominated the public discussion about the impacts of the new water regulation. The sector is responsible for 93% of the water demand in Spain because of 563,105 hectares under irrigation, specially concentrated along the main river channel and in some of the larger tributaries (Gómez-Limón et al., 2008). The use of water in the river basin is claimed to be one of the least efficient in Spain, which has again become a strong justification for modernization and search for efficiency (Domingues et al., 2004; Gómez-Limón & Gómez-Ramos, 2007). As in Portugal, economic modelling based on multicriteria objectives suggests that water pricing could exert significant influence on the behaviour of farmers in terms of water use due to shifts to better equipment, less water demanding and rainfed crops (Gómez-Limón & Martínez, 2006), but because of the declining profitability of agriculture only low or very low volumetric charges can be arguably borne by farmers. It seems also that the impact of bulk charges would be mainly on incoming irrigators, because those already established will have major difficulties to adjust their practices and would probably abandon or reduce their activity, with consequent loss of jobs in the region (Gómez-Limón et al., 2008). On the top of that, because of the climatic conditions of Castilla y León, productivity is relatively low and, according to agronomic research in the University of Valladolid changes in irrigation equipment are unlikely to significantly improve economic and technical efficiency (personal communication from university researchers). Nonetheless, the official position of the CDH, the water

environment. (…) I strongly believe that in situations of water scarcity the user

It is evident that such argument subverts the logic of environmental economics, which postulates that scarce resources should attract higher user charges. Farmers in the area also mentioned that there is limited room for improving efficiency (at least at low costs), since they are the first to want to save water and reduced operational costs with electricity and irrigation equipment (which they claim to have done already). That indicates how the economic value of water, instead of a straightforward figure, is in effect a highly contested and contestable concept. By their turn, representatives from the small farmers community complained that the charges were adopted in Portugal before the definition of environmental management targets, which ultimately serves to demonstrate that the new water policies are centred on the 'commercialisation' of water and not on the protection of nature. The following passage summarises the feeling among the small, family agriculture: "[M]any times the farmers and the agriculture sector are sees as reckless users of water. These discussions fail to consider the reality of the Portuguese agriculture, as well as ignore the deep, even passionate, relationship of the farmer with water (…) [T]his law liberates the state from the responsibility to look after the conservation of water, given that it leaves it open to the market. About the social relevance of water, little or nothing is said. (…) [the consequences of the new charges] are inevitably the increase in production costs and, as a result, the elimination of those that don't have financial means to pay for it" ([National

In addition, sector representatives protested that the bulk water charges in Portugal are three times higher than equivalent figures in France and that it was adopted by the Portuguese government two years earlier than in Spain (i.e. 2008 in Portugal and 2010 in Spain). Nonetheless, in the Spanish side of the Douro the controversy about volumetric charges to agriculture has also dominated the public discussion about the impacts of the new water regulation. The sector is responsible for 93% of the water demand in Spain because of 563,105 hectares under irrigation, specially concentrated along the main river channel and in some of the larger tributaries (Gómez-Limón et al., 2008). The use of water in the river basin is claimed to be one of the least efficient in Spain, which has again become a strong justification for modernization and search for efficiency (Domingues et al., 2004; Gómez-Limón & Gómez-Ramos, 2007). As in Portugal, economic modelling based on multicriteria objectives suggests that water pricing could exert significant influence on the behaviour of farmers in terms of water use due to shifts to better equipment, less water demanding and rainfed crops (Gómez-Limón & Martínez, 2006), but because of the declining profitability of agriculture only low or very low volumetric charges can be arguably borne by farmers. It seems also that the impact of bulk charges would be mainly on incoming irrigators, because those already established will have major difficulties to adjust their practices and would probably abandon or reduce their activity, with consequent loss of jobs in the region (Gómez-Limón et al., 2008). On the top of that, because of the climatic conditions of Castilla y León, productivity is relatively low and, according to agronomic research in the University of Valladolid changes in irrigation equipment are unlikely to significantly improve economic and technical efficiency (personal communication from university researchers). Nonetheless, the official position of the CDH, the water

should pay less, not more for water".

Agriculture Confederation [CNA], 2006).

regulator, remains firmly in favour of replacing surface irrigation with spray irrigation equipment in order to save water. Contradictorily, there are also plans to build new water storage dams in the headwaters of several Douro tributaries to increase the irrigation area. Both the new dams and the volumetric charges have received some level of opposition from the 400 associations of irrigators in the Spanish Douro. In the case of the community of Bajo Carrión (visited during our research in the Douro), the directors had recently resigned and new elections were called exactly because of disagreement about the modernization targets required by the regulator (i.e. the majority of the members voted against the acceptance of efficiency-centred regulatory demands).

The underlying problem with policies that try to induce higher efficiency through charges and the sudden incorporation of external costs is that it ignores existing social and spatial inequalities, which can be aggravated if not properly considered, as mentioned by Tsakalotos (2004: 29), "…while the expansion of the market, and market-type arrangements, are often defended on the grounds of efficiency, they are also often implemented in a manner that goes well beyond the discourse of efficiency. (…) Such a strategy makes alternative conceptions much more difficult to conceptualize, let alone carry out". If the introduction of bulk water charges has represented a major controversy among small and large farmers, an analogous situation happened among companies responsible for public water supply and sanitation. Despite the fact that a full privatisation (i.e. divestiture) seems out of the political agenda – in large measure, because of fierce public opposition – the association between water and money remains present in the collective imaginary of the population (illustrated in a Portuguese newspaper cartoon in Figure 4). It has been widely stated in official documents, reports and guidance that public water services in Portugal were and continue to be thwarted by inefficiency and that the introduction of WFD should be associated with cost-recovery measures and higher water user charges.11 In particular, local water providers ('low' companies) are blamed for their backward thinking as a "hindrance to the development of water supply sector" (that is exactly the expression used in the cover page of the main magazine of water services in Portugal, Água & Ambiente, June 2005). Rather than being politically neutral, those claims for cost recovery have provoked tensions and uneasiness between the various water utilities that operate in the same geographical area (i.e. the 'high' and 'low' companies; see details above). For example, in 2008 the municipal company formed to serve the city of Porto (Águas do Porto) was able to reduce the purchase of water from the Águas do Douro & Paiva in 80,000 m3/day (out of a total of 280,000 m3 distributed daily), according to its chief-manger (interview on 14 Nov 2008). That corresponds to a net saving of € 216,000/month in terms of payment made to the regional company or around 12% of her income (in 2008). As a result, Águas do Douro & Paiva tried unsuccessfully to raise their tariffs by 8% in 2008, but the government allowed an increase of 5.5% (note that the rate of inflation in the year 2008 was 2.7% in Portugal).

If a large company such as Águas do Porto was able to confront the regional water authority, other municipal entities are left in a much weaker position to negotiate costs and conditions with the regional water utilities. In our interviews with managers, engineers and politicians responsible for the water services in the cities and towns in the upper Douro, we

<sup>11</sup> Nonetheless, as in the case of the low elasticity price-demand of agriculture mentioned above, the increase of user charges in the last few years has had limited influence on the level of water demand (Monteiro & Roseta-Palma, 2007).

Bringing Water Regulation into the 21st Century:

impact assessment (interview with NGO activist, 19 Nov 2008).

and nature.

The Implementation of the Water Framework Directive in the Iberian Peninsula 197

which suggests that the opposition expressed is not really about the financial levy *per se* but rather a deep antipathy toward the interference in long-established water use practices. It suggests that public opposition is not just about the charge, but it reacts against a vague sense of lost ownership and the disruption of established forms of relation between society

While the general population reacts – in spontaneous or organised ways – against additional charges in agriculture and urban water supply, other more coordinated protests intensify against the construction of large dams in the Douro (something that the WFD regime has been so far unable to prevent, because of political pressures). The new dams are part of the attempt to secure 60% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020, which has been strongly confirmed by the Prime Minister, as in a public event when he stated that "Portugal is the European country with more hydropower reserves to be exploited" (RTP News, 20 Nov 2008). As mentioned above, the Douro is the main powerhouse of Portugal and is again where six (out of ten) new large hydropower schemes will be built, according to the National Programme of Dams with High Hydroelectric Potential (INAG, 2007). If in the past the dams were erected across the main channel, the focus of the construction of hydropower dams is in the tributaries, such as in the Rivers Tua and Tâmega. The Citizenship Movement for the Development of the Tâmega has challenged the activities of the energy companies responsible for the new dams (the Portuguese EDP and the Spanish Iberdrola). It is still vividly present in the memory of the local residents the controversy about a dam planned in the River Côa in the 1990s and firmly resisted because of the impact on archaeological sites with rupestrian paintings. In the Tâmega, the campaign against the Fridão dam and to protect the town of Amarante started in 1995. Probably the largest mobilisation today is against a dam in the River Sabor, a large structure (123 metres high) that will flood 2,820 hectares and also impacts on archaeological sites (see Figure 5 regarding a protest event in Apr 2008). Despite the likely impact on important conservation reserves, the government gave the go-ahead for the project, which was then appealed to the European Commission. The anti-dam activists lost the appeal in 2007, but were planning to resort to the European Court of Justice on grounds of what they see as 'serious mistakes' of the environmental

Apart from environmental impacts, another source of criticism about dams in the Douro is the general feeling that the hydropower schemes build in the last decades have contributed little to improve the live of the communities of the Upper Douro. After the construction, the operation of the dams only generates a small number of jobs in the region and brings only marginal contribution to local communities (cf. our interviews with residents and city councillors). The fact that electricity is generated in the same area of the dams and then transferred to other parts of the country, reinforces a sense of dual citizenship between the coast and the inland. For long time now, the rural areas of the Upper Douro have been suffering from depopulation, loss of small-scale agriculture, abandonment of cultivable land, and lack of viable economic perspectives (see CCDR-N, 2007). The economic decline of the rural areas has been taking place for decades and recent development initiatives focused on diversification and market integration (most with European Union support) have not reversed that trend. On the contrary, it has resulted in a higher level of dependency, uncertainty and lower self-sufficiency (Moreno, 2003). The economic and cultural transformations taking place in the Douro have largely operated under the influence of foreign investments (Roca & Oliveira-Roca, 2007), but such policies have had little

Fig. 4. The Transformation of Water into Money in Portugal and under the Influence of the European Union (by Luís Afonso, "O Público", 22 Feb 2004)

detected a considerable level of resentment about the pressures exerted by the central government in favour of the regionalisation of the service. Some municipalities that passed to buy water from the regional companies are even contemplating a return to local water abstraction and treatment. It was constantly mentioned that the purchase of water from the regional company normally costs more than twice the local costs with abstraction and treatment. Part of this difference can be explained by the investments made by the larger company to comply with drinking water legislation, something that many local authorities fail to observe. Moreover, there is also a clear resentment with the fact that heavy public investments were made by the national government in the Porto metropolitan area in the past, but today's investments are expected to be borne by the local water companies via customer charges (i.e. the cost-recovery policy). More than the regional companies, local water operator face major political barriers to transfer higher charges to the population and that has led to growing protest and some cases of physical violence (as in the invasion of the Peso da Régua Council in 2002). It is therefore not unexpected that a similar criticism took place after the announcement of the WFD bulk water charges in 2008 (vis-à-vis newspaper articles published in the period). As in the agriculture sector, public reaction lacks proportionality with the additional financial burden (i.e. the impact of the WFD charges on each household is relatively low, estimate at around € 0.20 per month, which corresponds to 2.5-3.0% of the average tariff). Interestingly, the cost of the tariff is likely to be relatively low for the majority of urban water users, as much as it is for the farmers,

Fig. 4. The Transformation of Water into Money in Portugal and under the Influence of the

detected a considerable level of resentment about the pressures exerted by the central government in favour of the regionalisation of the service. Some municipalities that passed to buy water from the regional companies are even contemplating a return to local water abstraction and treatment. It was constantly mentioned that the purchase of water from the regional company normally costs more than twice the local costs with abstraction and treatment. Part of this difference can be explained by the investments made by the larger company to comply with drinking water legislation, something that many local authorities fail to observe. Moreover, there is also a clear resentment with the fact that heavy public investments were made by the national government in the Porto metropolitan area in the past, but today's investments are expected to be borne by the local water companies via customer charges (i.e. the cost-recovery policy). More than the regional companies, local water operator face major political barriers to transfer higher charges to the population and that has led to growing protest and some cases of physical violence (as in the invasion of the Peso da Régua Council in 2002). It is therefore not unexpected that a similar criticism took place after the announcement of the WFD bulk water charges in 2008 (vis-à-vis newspaper articles published in the period). As in the agriculture sector, public reaction lacks proportionality with the additional financial burden (i.e. the impact of the WFD charges on each household is relatively low, estimate at around € 0.20 per month, which corresponds to 2.5-3.0% of the average tariff). Interestingly, the cost of the tariff is likely to be relatively low for the majority of urban water users, as much as it is for the farmers,

European Union (by Luís Afonso, "O Público", 22 Feb 2004)

which suggests that the opposition expressed is not really about the financial levy *per se* but rather a deep antipathy toward the interference in long-established water use practices. It suggests that public opposition is not just about the charge, but it reacts against a vague sense of lost ownership and the disruption of established forms of relation between society and nature.

While the general population reacts – in spontaneous or organised ways – against additional charges in agriculture and urban water supply, other more coordinated protests intensify against the construction of large dams in the Douro (something that the WFD regime has been so far unable to prevent, because of political pressures). The new dams are part of the attempt to secure 60% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020, which has been strongly confirmed by the Prime Minister, as in a public event when he stated that "Portugal is the European country with more hydropower reserves to be exploited" (RTP News, 20 Nov 2008). As mentioned above, the Douro is the main powerhouse of Portugal and is again where six (out of ten) new large hydropower schemes will be built, according to the National Programme of Dams with High Hydroelectric Potential (INAG, 2007). If in the past the dams were erected across the main channel, the focus of the construction of hydropower dams is in the tributaries, such as in the Rivers Tua and Tâmega. The Citizenship Movement for the Development of the Tâmega has challenged the activities of the energy companies responsible for the new dams (the Portuguese EDP and the Spanish Iberdrola). It is still vividly present in the memory of the local residents the controversy about a dam planned in the River Côa in the 1990s and firmly resisted because of the impact on archaeological sites with rupestrian paintings. In the Tâmega, the campaign against the Fridão dam and to protect the town of Amarante started in 1995. Probably the largest mobilisation today is against a dam in the River Sabor, a large structure (123 metres high) that will flood 2,820 hectares and also impacts on archaeological sites (see Figure 5 regarding a protest event in Apr 2008). Despite the likely impact on important conservation reserves, the government gave the go-ahead for the project, which was then appealed to the European Commission. The anti-dam activists lost the appeal in 2007, but were planning to resort to the European Court of Justice on grounds of what they see as 'serious mistakes' of the environmental impact assessment (interview with NGO activist, 19 Nov 2008).

Apart from environmental impacts, another source of criticism about dams in the Douro is the general feeling that the hydropower schemes build in the last decades have contributed little to improve the live of the communities of the Upper Douro. After the construction, the operation of the dams only generates a small number of jobs in the region and brings only marginal contribution to local communities (cf. our interviews with residents and city councillors). The fact that electricity is generated in the same area of the dams and then transferred to other parts of the country, reinforces a sense of dual citizenship between the coast and the inland. For long time now, the rural areas of the Upper Douro have been suffering from depopulation, loss of small-scale agriculture, abandonment of cultivable land, and lack of viable economic perspectives (see CCDR-N, 2007). The economic decline of the rural areas has been taking place for decades and recent development initiatives focused on diversification and market integration (most with European Union support) have not reversed that trend. On the contrary, it has resulted in a higher level of dependency, uncertainty and lower self-sufficiency (Moreno, 2003). The economic and cultural transformations taking place in the Douro have largely operated under the influence of foreign investments (Roca & Oliveira-Roca, 2007), but such policies have had little

Bringing Water Regulation into the 21st Century:

of disputes and power affirmation.

regime.

The Implementation of the Water Framework Directive in the Iberian Peninsula 199

a hilly landscape, which also involved family and community work. Because of changes in agriculture production and concentration of landed property, such forms of water use are disappearing fast. That is an example of how changes in water management practices intensely encapsulate local and international dynamics, but unfortunately there has been almost no space to consider those issues that fall out of the mainstream ethos of the WFD

The implementation of the Water Framework Directive represents a decisive moment in the institutional history of water management in Europe, Portugal and the Douro. The WFD regime, including methodological improvements and more stringent targets, constitutes what can be called a 'metarregulation' with wide range impacts and lasting consequences. The higher level of concern for environmental impacts and the wasteful patterns of water use can be identified as positive steps in the direction of resolving lifelong problems. At face value, the detailed timetable of the new Directive seems to offer a robust mechanism for the assessment of ecological trends and the formulation of cost-effective solutions. However, the implementation of the Directive has served to consolidate an interpretation of problems that favours specific political and macroeconomic interests. The prevailing approaches systematically conceal that water reforms are an integral part of broader social transformations in the mechanisms of production and consumption of tradable goods and in the interpersonal relations. Likewise, mainstream procedures tend to ignore that the WFD regulation brings water management further into the sphere of money circulation and power political forces, which happens in important and contingent forms. Under a hegemonic approach informed by such technical and economic translation of problems, an array other important aspects of water management have received almost no attention, such as inter-catchment integration, the delegation of decision power and the balance of power behind the technological fix. WFD creates new opportunities to raise management issues (such as the increasing degradation of surface and ground water bodies) but there remains a tension between continuity and innovation that essentially reflect political clashes. The new Directive is implemented by invoking an apparent consensus about water issues, but under surface remains a series of intricate complexity of intersector and geographical inconsistencies. Making use of a universalising symbolism of 'common' challenges and 'shared' responsibilities, the implementation of the WFD never avoided being itself a locus

It can be accepted that the WFD conveys improvements in many areas, such as a holistic approach to catchment issues, the consideration of cumulative impacts and the cyclical (adaptive) response to environmental degradation pressures. Even so, serious controversies persist in relation to the priorities of state action, which operates in favour of certain interests at the expense of broader, and more legitimate, social expectations. It should be remembered that the state includes a range of government bodies, regulatory agencies, parliaments and courts, a large entity that extends from the local to the global with fluid boundaries and exposed to the disputes between groups, classes and geographical areas (Jessop, 2008). The complexity of the state apparatus is even greater in the contemporary world, where a multiplicity of goals and liabilities frequently create significant confusion

**4. Discussion: Spatial rigidity and monotonic categorisation** 

Fig. 5. Leaflet of the Mobilisation Against the Sabor Dam [i.e. the leaflet says 'In favour of the Sabor River' and invites the population for a protest in April 2008]

effectiveness in promoting the changes require by small and medium-size enterprises (Bateira & Ferreira, 2002). That context of perceived remoteness and misfortune is reflected in socio-economic and interpersonal relations, which includes **a disregard for traditional forms of collective water management**. We had the opportunity to visit a number of sites that where until the recent past (around 30 years ago) used to practice a community form of irrigation. These are areas of family agriculture where, in the past, each day of the week a different farmer used to divert water to his/her piece of land, with full transparency and accountability among the community regarding the amount of water used. That is the case in the rural communities of Vila Real, where the irrigation infrastructure had to be carved in

Fig. 5. Leaflet of the Mobilisation Against the Sabor Dam [i.e. the leaflet says 'In favour of

effectiveness in promoting the changes require by small and medium-size enterprises (Bateira & Ferreira, 2002). That context of perceived remoteness and misfortune is reflected in socio-economic and interpersonal relations, which includes **a disregard for traditional forms of collective water management**. We had the opportunity to visit a number of sites that where until the recent past (around 30 years ago) used to practice a community form of irrigation. These are areas of family agriculture where, in the past, each day of the week a different farmer used to divert water to his/her piece of land, with full transparency and accountability among the community regarding the amount of water used. That is the case in the rural communities of Vila Real, where the irrigation infrastructure had to be carved in

the Sabor River' and invites the population for a protest in April 2008]

a hilly landscape, which also involved family and community work. Because of changes in agriculture production and concentration of landed property, such forms of water use are disappearing fast. That is an example of how changes in water management practices intensely encapsulate local and international dynamics, but unfortunately there has been almost no space to consider those issues that fall out of the mainstream ethos of the WFD regime.
