A Study On The Public Participation Of Integrated Water Resource Management In Glomma River

Nowadays the fresh water resource that can be used for human beings is very scarce on the earth. With the rapid development of industry and the increasing of population, the human demand for fresh water is also growing, but the actual amount of available fresh water is sharply reducing. Water resource problem has become a common factor that restricting the development of world economy and society. Authorities and water managers are devoting themselves to explore a new mode to upgrade their management abilities of water resource. For centuries, global water resource management generally experienced an evolution process from supply-based Management to demand-based management,from resourse management to capitalisation management, from regional management to watershed management, and final ly ome the integrated water resource management (IWRM), which is believed to be the optimal water management mode till now. Public Participation, as one of the basic principles of IWRM, is the key factor to guarantee public benefits, to realize sustainable development of water resource, to ensure the public-benefit orientation of water resource management, to improve the management efficiency of water authorities and relieve the conflicts between water authorities and the public. Glomma River is the longest river in Norway. It’s function involves almost every round of the local residents’live, showing high economic, social and cultural values in the history of Norway. The practice of IWRM in Glomma River started in 1960s and it had shown many favorable performances during the development of the half century after that. It is believed by the author that ordered and efficient public participation is the decisive factor for the successful practices of IWRM in Glomma River.Taking the general theory of public participation as the starting point, institutional arrangement, legal protection and information announcement level as well as the positive endeavors to facilitate public participation by water authorities for Glomma River are comprehensively analyzed in this research. It is suggested by discussing profile of public participation in the success of "The Mj(?)sa Campaign" that good public participation system design, sound arrangement of information announcement, public capacity building, construction of participative political culture and booming development of non-governmental organizations are key factors to facilitate the public participation in IWRM. China is the largest developing country in the world, the practical conditions of water resource are rather gloomy and the demand for improving the efficiency of water resource management is particularly pressing. However, due to the defects in various aspects, such as participation mechanism, participation channel, participation capacity, and the development of non-governmental organization, etc., the current conditions and outcomes of public participation in water resource management is far behind the ideal level. By referring to the practical experiment of Glomma River concerning public participation in IWRM, we can know that measures, including quickening and advancing the institutional construction, the capability construction and the channel construction in integrated water resource management are effective strategies to improve the participation level and the overall water management efficiency in China.