PIP: a Participatory and Integrated Planning procedure for decision making in water resource systems

There is a wide consensus that integrated planning and management (iwrm) plays a crucial role in the current context of water resources, as well as that any water related decisional process must be participated in order to reach transparent and readily acceptable decisions. At European level the iwrm paradigm has been adopted by the Water Framework Directive that came into force in December 2000. The directive sets out a detailed framework for the improved planning and management of water, including in particular the development of River Basin Management Plans (rbmp). Though the wfd political objectives are clear and well stated, as well as the general principles to be followed in the rbmp implementation, a gap exists between concept and practice, between what to reach through the plans and how to reach it, which even reflects in the lack of communication between scientists and policy-makers. This might be partially imputable to the poor attention devoted to the planning and managing issues in the early phase of the wfd implementation: of many projects (Harmoni-ca, CatchMod cluster and merit) promoted by the eu within the Five Program Framework (fp5)