Integrating Stakeholders’ Preferences into WaterResources Management Planning in the IncomatiRiver Basin

Jordi Gallego-Ayala & Dinis Juízo

Received: 20 February 2013 /Accepted: 18 December 2013 /Published online: 5 January 2014# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract Stakeholder participation is a key principle of the integrated water resourcesmanagement. It is a central issue in planning and decision making processes for the develop-ment of suitable water resources management strategies at the river basin level. This study testsa methodology for identifying stakeholders’ preferences regarding water resources manage-ment objectives, to incorporate them in the design of water resources management plans at theriver basin level. The empirical application of this study focused in Mozambique, on theIncomati river basin. This research applies the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method toevaluate stakeholders’ involvement and participation in the selection of water resourcesmanagement plans. This research revealed that there are heterogeneities in stakeholders’individual groups preferences regarding water resources management objectives and themanagement options of their satisfaction. Furthermore it revealed the potential utility of theAHP methodological framework in facilitating stakeholders’ participation and involvement inplanning and decision-making processes for the development of water resources managementplans. The application of this approach may improve water governance at the river basin levelthrough higher commitments of stakeholders to the proposed objectives.

Keywords AHP. IWRM .Mozambique . River basin . Stakeholders

1 Introduction

Stakeholder participation in natural resources management is a fundamental issue in theformulation and development of public policies (Schmoldt et al. 2001). In fact, over the yearsthere have been proposals of a framework to guide stakeholders’ involvement in decisionmaking process (Giordano et al. 2007). The main ideas and arguments behind the need to

Water Resour Manage (2014) 28:527–540DOI 10.1007/s11269-013-0500-3

J. Gallego-Ayala (*)Water Regulatory Council of Mozambique, Av. Amílcar Cabral no. 757, Maputo, Mozambiquee-mail: jordi.gallego.ayala@gmail.com

D. JuízoDepartment of Civil Engineering, Eduardo Mondlane University, Av. de Moçambique km 1.5, P.O Box 258,Maputo, Mozambique

involve stakeholders are: a) ownership of proposed policies, b) increased acceptance of thedecisions made, and c) information sharing and improved transparency in decision makingprocess (Mostert 2003; Herath and Prato 2006). It is for these reasons that stakeholders’participation is advocated in decision-making process and development of policy documentsand regulations in several fields of natural resources management (Blackstock et al. 2012);water resources management (WRM) is not an exception (Straton et al. 2011; Pahl-Wostl2008).

Integrated water resources management (IWRM) is a worldwide accepted paradigmadopted in WRM and development (UNESCO 2009). The Southern Africa DevelopmentCommunity (SADC) member states all adopted IWRM as their guiding framework in WRM(Chikozho 2008; Gallego-Ayala and Juizo, 2012). This policy framework is founded on theapproval of the Regional Water Policy and the Regional Water Strategy (RWS), in 2006 and2007 respectively, clearly highlighting stakeholder participation as key element. Chapter 10 ofthe RWS lays the principles for stimulating stakeholder participation and capacity develop-ment at all levels (national, river basin and local level); explicitly highlighting the need to “…promote effective mechanisms for stakeholder participation, capacitating and empowerment”.Hence, stakeholders’ involvement is central in the development of consensual WRM plans atthe river basin level in the SADC countries. The interactive participation of stakeholders alsoallows aligning and seeking consensus between different and conflicting objectives followedby different stakeholders groups along the river basin.

Despite the high recognition of the importance of stakeholders participation as a criticalissue in WRM, as well as being one of the most recurrent topics in IWRM related research(Gallego-Ayala 2013), there are no clear guides on how to select methodologies for identifyingand incorporating stakeholders’ preferences into the decision-making process (Herath andPrato 2006; Marttunen and Hämäläinen 2008). In recent years various researchers have applieddifferent methodologies to address this challenge. In this context, Multi-Criteria DecisionMaking (MCDM) techniques have gained a prominent attention within the WRM field(Hajkowicz and Collins 2007). The main characteristics and merits of MCDM techniquesare: a) improved transparency in the decision-making process, b) integration of the differentpoint of views of competing water users, and c) ability to deal with the multiple conflictingobjectives found in water resources management (Herath and Prato 2006; Messner 2006;Hajkowicz and Collins 2007). Therefore the MCDM techniques appear to be a logicalapproach to integrate stakeholders’ preferences into the WRM (Calizaya et al. 2010;Harmancioglu et al. 2013). It is also the case that the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)method is the most recurrent tool to identify stakeholders’ preferences in other naturalresources management fields that have applied the MCDM approach (Huang et al. 2011).

The objective of this research is to test a methodology for identifying stakeholders’ WRMobjectives and incorporate them into the selection of alternative WRM plans. To this end, amethodological framework based on the AHP technique will be used. The lower Incomatiriver basin, covering the Mozambican part of the basin has been selected as a case study for theanalysis.

2 The Incomati River Basin from the Mozambican Context

The Incomati river basin is a transboundary river shared between South Africa, Swaziland andMozambique. The water resources of this catchment are over committed to various usagesacross the three countries (Sengo et al. 2005; Slinger et al. 2010; Pollard and du Toit 2011).Recognizing the challenges of managing the scarce resources of the Incomati, the three

528 J. Gallego-Ayala, D. Juízo

countries entered into a water sharing agreement in 2000, the so-called IncoMaputo Interimagreement (van der Zaag and Carmo-Vaz 2003). This agreement was designed to help thecountries reach consensus on the best approach for water development and management in thebasin. Moreover, at country level the water management authorities are struggling to developthe river basin management plans in accordance with this agreement.

Despite the transboundary nature of this basin, the analysis in this paper focuses on theMozambican side of the basin—the lower Incomati covering 14,925 km2. The case study wasselected due to its interest in terms of potential water use conflicts and divergent preferencesamong stakeholders along a water scarce catchment. The climate of the basin is humid, with anaverage rainfall around 850 mm per annum, with recurrent droughts and floods (Carmo-Vazand Pereira 2000; van Ogtrop et al. 2005). Corumana is the only major dam built in the lowerIncomati, with a storage capacity of 720 Mm3; primary functions of this dam are water supplyto irrigated agriculture and flood regulation. The financial constraints experienced at the timeof its construction caused construction to stop before the projected six spill gates wereinstalled; thus operating below its projected capacity (1,230 Mm3). Corumana dam completion(installation of the spill gates) is currently underway; this will allow its volume at full supplylevel to be at projected 1,230 Mm3 (AustralCowi and Aurecon 2011).

The main water use in the basin is irrigated agriculture with maximum current potential ofaround 24,000 ha. With the installation of the spill gates, Corumana dam can sustain up to36,000 ha of irrigated land. The most important irrigated crop is sugar-cane occupyingapproximately 23,000 ha. Even within the current supply limitations, the Government ofMozambique has already approved a further expansion of about 10,000 ha. Furthermore, thesugar-cane industry also demands water for the sugar-cane milling and processing.Additionally the urban water supply Assets Holding and Investment Fund of Mozambique(FIPAG) is currently undertaking engineering studies for water transfer from Corumana dam toaugment the water supply to the Greater Maputo metropolitan area1.

Environmental water allocation is another topical issue in the Incomati river. The freshwater discharges of the river make provision for the ecological needs of the Espírito Santoestuary that in turn supports the livelihoods of local communities (Sengo et al. 2005; LeMarieet al. 2006); the fresh water reaching the estuary are vital for maintaining healthy mangrovesthat support the fisheries sector. However, high water abstractions in the river basin arejeopardizing these ecosystem functions (van der Zaag and Carmo Vaz 2003).

By reviewing the status-quo for different water uses in the lower Incomati, their short andmedium-term water demand projections and the water transfer to the Greater Maputo metro-politan area, it can be concluded that a real constraint in the socioeconomic development of theriver basin is looming. Thus, conflicts between different water uses in the basin could arise inthe absence of well-balanced WRM plan.

The Incomati river basin management unit (RBMU) is the responsible public institution forwater resources management in the lower Incomati. This RBMU was established in 1996. It isresponsible for promoting and facilitating stakeholder participation in water resources man-agement. In 1996 the RBMU lead the process in the creation of a River Basin Committee(RBC) that secures representation of user’s interest in the water management decision makingprocesses. This forum is the oldest RBC of its kind in Mozambique. It is therefore of crucialinterest for Mozambique to learn how stakeholder participation has evolved over time byexamining the case of this river basin.

1 The current water demand for the Greater Maputo metropolitan area is around 165,335 m3/day (1.8 millioninhabitants) and it is expected that, until 2035, this demand increases to 560,374 m3/day (3.56 millioninhabitants) (Sweco and associates 2009).

Integrating Stakeholders’ Preferences into Water Resources 529

3 Methodology

In this study we follow a four-step methodological framework: a) identification of stakeholdersgroups, b) selection and formulation of river basin management plans scenarios and therelevant criteria to compare them, c) application of the AHP technique to estimate the relativeimportance given to each stakeholder group, management objectives and the alternative WRMscenarios, and d) identification of the preferred water resources management plan.

3.1 Stakeholder Groups’ Identification

There are several methodologies for stakeholder identification (Bryson 2004; Grimble andWellard 1997). The stakeholder selection approach is a crucial step, given that the resulting listof identified stakeholders and groups can differ across methodologies; there is a risk ofexcluding key role players in the process (Reed et al. 2009). Moreover, the stakeholdersgroups identified will influence the preferred WRM plan (Harrison and Qureshi 2000).

To reduce the uncertainties involved, in this research we used a combination of stakeholders’analysis techniques, to identify key stakeholders groups of lower Incomati and thus avoid therisk of missing a specific stakeholder in the process. The pre-selection of the stakeholdersgroups was carried out through an extensive literature review, a snowball sampling and anexpert group meeting. The groups pre-identified were then discussed with the Incomati RBMUin an interactive way of consultation and consensus building leading to final selection of 6 keygroups to be included in the analysis. They cover the potential multiple points of view andinterests of the whole stakeholders’ spectrumwithin the river basin, namely: a) large andmediumscale irrigation farmers –group 1, b) the small scale irrigation farmers –group 2, c) localadministration –group 3, d) civil society (NGOs) –group 4, e) fishers –group 5 and f) hydro-power industry – group 6.

3.2 Identifying Criteria and Alternative River Basin Management Plans

There can be a number of different possible management objectives that, on one hand, satisfythe interest of individual stakeholders group and, on the other, might be in conflict with theobjectives of other groups. Therefore it is not a straight forward process to derive a set ofobjectives that would make it possible to evaluate alternative WRM plans in the lowerIncomati. In this context we carried out an in-depth review of the Water Policy (GoM 2007a),the National Water Resources Management Strategy (GoM 2007b) and other relevant docu-ments that focused on the Incomati river basin. This process resulted in the pre-identificationof 13 relevant WRM objectives for this case study. This set of objectives was then discussed,refined and validated through a round of meetings with officials of the Incomati RBMU. Finally7 key objectives were selected as a result of this harmonization process. These objectives weregrouped into three main goals: social, economic and environmental. Table 1 presents theselected criteria for this research.

As pointed out early, the Incomati river basin will likely face major changes in the WRM inthe coming years, due to the increasing water demand combined with the inclusion of GreaterMaputo metropolitan area as a priority water use and the increasing awareness about environ-mental flows to Espírito Santo estuary. In fact, in any WRM strategy it is a requirement thatone should avoid compromising socioeconomic development and environmental sustainabilityof the river basin. We developed three extreme qualitative alternative scenarios, each will haveto be supported by different water policy instruments, different levels of socioeconomicdevelopment as well as different actions for environmental protection of the river basin.

530 J. Gallego-Ayala, D. Juízo

The development of alternative scenarios follows the guidelines proposed by Börjeson et al.(2006). First the main drivers of change, in the medium-long term, were identified; by reviewingthe socioeconomic and environmental trends in the river basin. Thereafter, we developed anarrative story-line of each alternative scenario to describe their potential effects, in a way thatcould be easily understood by interviewees. The description is used as a guide and helpsovercome the potential barriers in explaining quantitative scenarios to stakeholders anddecision-makers of different educational and technical levels (Dong et al. 2013). The watermanagement alternatives scenarios were identified through relevant policy documents for waterresources management in the South of Mozambique (see JIBS 2000; ARA-SUL 2004) andscientific literature (see Sengo et al. 2005). The alternative scenarios are summarized as follows:

& Economic development scenario: this scenario seeks to maximize water use economicbenefits. Water uses are prioritized for socioeconomic development, focusing on theintensive development of irrigated agriculture. The irrigated area is expanded to themaximum design capacity of Corumana dam. This scenario also accepts environmenthealth deterioration resulting from the intensive consumptive use of water, with associatedreduction in flow reaching the estuary and its indirect impact in the fisheries industry.

& Environmental sustainability scenario: this scenario prioritizes water allocation for envi-ronmental functions in the basin, especially the integrity of the estuary. To achieve this, nofurther development of irrigation is allowed and new water saving technologies areadopted in existing irrigation schemes.

& Tradeoffs scenario: this alternative scenario seeks a balanced outcome in economicefficiency, social equity and environmental sustainability tripod. It assumes that there willbe equitable gains between uses allowing beneficial trade-offs between the consumptiveactivities and the environmental needs in the river basin. This management scenariorequires a strong management institution in place that is able to monitor and enforce toensure that the allocations are fully adhered to by users in line with the overall basin goalwhile at the same time effective measures are in place to deter pollution.

The boundary condition in all three scenarios is that none of the alternative managementscenarios developed is allowed to affect domestic water allocations. It should be noted that allscenarios in this study are hypothetical alternatives representing different extreme objectivesthat would be found in reality (see Table 2).

3.3 AHP: Weighting Stakeholders, Criteria and Alternatives

The AHP is a MCDM technique developed by Saaty (1980) accredited for transformingdecision making problems into a multi-level hierarchy form, wherein each criteria under

Table 1 Identified criteria forwater resources management in theIncomati river basin

Criteria Sub-criteria

Social criteria C1. Water for human consumption

C2. Minimizing the effects of droughtsand floods

Economic criteria C3. Water for agricultural production

C4. Fishery resources exploration

C5. Use of the river for the extraction of sand

Environmental criteria C6. Water for environment conservation

C7. Water quality protection

Integrating Stakeholders’ Preferences into Water Resources 531

analysis is assigned a relative importance using a pair-wise comparison system2, thisinformation is then used to build the so-called Saaty matrices. The eigenvector method isthen used in the Saaty matrices to derive the weights for the different criteria (Saaty 1980).The AHP is a flexible method used to deal with complex decision-making issues underconflicting objectives (Saaty and Vargas 2006), it can evaluate and compare a mix ofquantitative and qualitative objectives (Saaty 2001). Therefore, the AHP technique is asuitable MCDM tool to deal with the challenges faced in WRM planning characterized byconflicting objectives followed by different stakeholders groups. Despite the wide accep-tance of the AHP method in the research community (Huang et al. 2011), it is notexempted from critics. The main issues with it, concerns the potential of experience therank reversal phenomenon (Dyer 1990), which refers to the possibility that the final rankingof the alternatives may change both when adding or removing an alternative (Barzilai andGolany 1994). This erroneous result occurs, when the final priority ranking is obtainedthrough an additive function (Ishizaka and Labib 2011). Recent research shows the use ofmultiplicative aggregation functions (Barzilai and Golany 1994; Stam and Duarte-Silva2003; Ishizaka et al. 2011) will solve this problem.

The hierarchical structure in this case study is made up of five different levels: a) goal to beachieved by the decision, b) the groups of stakeholders identified in the river basin, c) thegeneral socioeconomic and environmental objectives (criteria), d) the specific socioeconomicand environmental objectives included within each generic objective (sub-criteria), and e) thealternative WRM plans.

Figure 1 depicts the hierarchical decomposition of the decision making problem for theselection of the WRM plan incorporating stakeholders’ preferences. Once the hierarchicalstructure has been established, the next step is to identify the relative importance of eachstakeholder group, criterion, sub-criterion and alternative by using a pair-wise comparisonmethodology. To this end we used four different levels of pair-wise comparison: a) amongstakeholders groups, b) among the three major objectives, c) among the different objectivescontained within each general objective and d) compare each alternative with respect to the 7objectives (sub-criteria) of water resources management (see Table 1).

2 For detailed information about the mathematical development of the AHP model, see Saaty (1980).

Table 2 Effects of the alternative water resources management plans for the Incomati river basin*

Indicators Currentscenario

Economicdevelopment

Environmentalsustainability

Tradeoffs

C1. Water for human consumption + +++ +++ +++

C2. Minimizing the effects of droughts and floods + – ++ +

C3. Water for agricultural production + +++ + ++

C4. Fishery resources exploration + ++ +++ ++

C5. Use of the river for the extraction of sand − ++ – +

C6. Water for environment conservation − – +++ ++

C7. Water quality protection − – +++ +

*A positive effect in a given indicator is designated with a +; a negative impact in a given indicator is designatedwith a -. The impact on each indicator range from one to three+(the best possible positive effect) or one tothree—(the worst possible negative effect)

532 J. Gallego-Ayala, D. Juízo

3.4 Elicitation of Management Options Ranking

This final step involves the determination of the global importance of each river basinmanagement plan under analysis, which then results in a rank of alternatives. The final rankingof the management options is the most valuable information for decision-makers for the designof the most suitable management alternative. In this case we used Kangas (1994a) approach, asexpressed in Eq. (1) that defines the mathematical formulation to obtain the global priority ofeach alternative:

GPi ¼Xj¼6

j¼1

RISGj

Xk¼7

k¼1

RIOkj RIMAikð Þ" #( )

ð1Þ

where GPi represents the global priority of the management option i, RISGj the relativeimportance of the stakeholder group j, RIOkj is the relative importance of objective k linkedto stakeholder group j and RIMAik represents the relative importance of the managementalternative i linked to objective k.

However, as discussed earlier the use of an additive function like Eq. (1) to aggregatestakeholders’ priorities may result in a rank-reversal problem. To overcome this problem andcross check the results we used a multiplicative function integrated in the global priorityfunction, as presented by Kangas et al. (2001):

GPi ¼Xj¼6

j¼1

RISGj ∏k¼7

K¼1RIMA

RIOkj

ik

� �� �ð2Þ

3.5 Data Acquisition

The input data needed to run the AHP model were obtained from primary sources using threedistinct questionnaires. The main features of each questionnaire are summarized in thefollowing paragraphs.

A questionnaire was designed to obtain the relative importance of each stakeholder group.The Incomati RBMU management was invited to derive the weights of the stakeholdersgroups. Alternatively as proposed by Kangas (1994a), all groups represented can be assumed

Goal

Stakeholders groups

Group 1 Group 2 Group 5 Group 6

Alternatives

Sub-criteria

Social objectives

C4C3C1

Group 3 Group 4

River basin management plan

Criteria

Management plan 1

C2 C6

Environmental objectivesEconomic objectives

C7C5

Management plan 2

Management plan 3

Fig. 1 AHP decision making model for water resources management plan selection

Integrating Stakeholders’ Preferences into Water Resources 533

to have equal weight. This assumption was also considered in this research as a means tocompare and check the influence that stakeholders relative importance could have in the finalresults. The questionnaire was administered to two senior civil servants working in decisionmaking positions in the Incomati RBMU in July 2012.

A second questionnaire was used to obtain the relative importance of the major WRMobjectives and each of its specific objectives. This questionnaire was applied to differentstakeholders groups represented in the river basin. The selection of stakeholder’s represen-tatives to participate in the survey and its sample size is a challenging task in this type ofstudies (see Harrison and Qureshi 2000). We addressed this challenge by administering thesurvey to the Incomati RBC members. The rationale is that the members of this committeeare elected to represent the interest of their own stakeholder groups in the decision makingprocess for WRM in the river basin. The assumption therefore, is that each of the IncomatiRBC members, represent the interest of their groups and that the sample surveyed isrepresentative of the different stakeholders groups along the river basin. The survey wascarried out in November 2012 at the RBC meeting held in Magude district. A total of 23questionnaires from the different stakeholders groups3 were obtained; respondents com-prised representatives of Xinavane and Maragra (large scale irrigation); Malengane associ-ation (small scale irrigation), public servants of the district services of economic activitiesfrom Magude, Manhiça, Macia, Marracuene and Moamba (local administration group),Electricity of Mozambique (hydropower industry group) among others.

A third questionnaire was developed to identify the relative importance of the waterresources management options with respect to each specific objective (sub-criterion) of themajor objectives (criteria). We used a panel of 21 experts to carry out those specific pair-wisecomparisons, bearing in mind the technical details and potential effects involving eachalternative (see Ananda and Heart 2003). The expert group was composed of officials comingfrom five Regional Water Administrations (RWA) (3 from RWA-South; 3 from RWA-Center;3 from RWA-center-north; 3 from RWA-Zambeze and 3 from RWA-North) and the NationalDirectorate of Water (6 representatives from the departments of water resources managementand international rives). Thus, for this step a meeting was held in September 2012 in Boanedistrict—Pequenos Libombos dam. We assumed that the expert group participating in themeeting acts as a single decision maker. The pair-wise comparisons were done in tworounds, to obtain a high degree of consistency for the Saaty matrices and to find aconsensus among the experts regarding the relative importance of each criterion underanalysis.

4 Results

4.1 Stakeholders Priorities

Table 3 displays the relative importance of stakeholders groups. The results reveal that themost influential group is the agricultural sector, which comprises the large and mediumscale irrigation farmers together with small scale irrigation farmers groups. These two sub-groups together account for 47.4 % of the global importance. This result correlates well withthese groups importance in terms of water use in the basin and their role as main source of watertariff revenue to the Incomati RBMU. The current water management allocation strategy in the

3 A total of 36 people participated in the Incomati RBC meeting: 8 officials from the Incomati RBMU and 28stakeholders. Five stakeholders refused to fill in the questionnaire citing lack of authority from their employers.

534 J. Gallego-Ayala, D. Juízo

Incomati river basin is highly skewed towards irrigated agriculture, especially to the large scaleirrigation schemes devoted to sugar-cane production.

Table 3 gives the summary of weights attributed by each stakeholder group to the differentWRM objectives. There are clear disparities between weights attributed to individual man-agement objectives across different stakeholder groups. These results confirm that there aredifferent and conflicting objectives followed by the diversity of stakeholder groups.Nonetheless, all six stakeholder groups consider objective C5 (use of the river for theextraction of sand) the one with lowest relative importance. The main reason behind this“rejection” can be attributed to the fact that they view this activity as a source of conflicts in theriver basin4.

For the large and medium scale irrigation farmers group, objective C3 (water for agricul-tural production) is the most important criteria to be considered in the decision making process.This is the only stakeholder group that assigns a higher priority to this objective. In contrast,the small scale irrigation farmers gave preference to the two environmental protection relatedobjectives C6 and C7 (water for environmental conservation and water quality protection)which summed up to the 51.1 % of the global priority. This result may at first seemcounterintuitive. However, given that small scale irrigation farmers, who are householdfarmers with small plots for subsistence agriculture, have their water intakes secured wheneverthere is water flowing in the river, it is to expect that they will prioritise allocations that favoursstream flow in the river at all times. In this context, they regard environmental water allocationfor instream services as water available for their activities. In line with the provision in nationalregulatory framework, the local administration group gave almost the same priority, toobjectives C1, C2 and C7. This clearly translates the traditional WRM concept of ensuringaccess to clean water (water quality) in enough quantity (water for human consumption) to thelocal communities. The civil society group gave the highest priority to water for environmentalconservation objective. This relates closely to the fact that NGOs working in the Incomati riverbasin are mainly active in environmental protection and environmental awareness actions. Thepriorities of this group in terms of weights assigned are almost similar to the given by the localadministration group. The fishermen group considered water for human consumption as themost important objective, followed by minimizing effects of droughts and floods and fisheryresources exploration objectives. Finally, the hydropower industry group gave the highestpriority to the water for domestic use.

4.2 Prioritizing Water Resources Management Plans

Before commenting on the prioritization results for the alternative river basin managementplans, it is important to analyze the results obtained in the pair-wise comparison exercise(Table 4). They reveal that the expert group assigned lowest weight values to objectivesgrouped under the Economic development management plan. Thus, potentially this alternativescenario seems not to be a preferred option to satisfy the objectives followed by the river basinmanagement plan. On the other hand, the expert group has considered the Tradeoffs manage-ment plan a better option to achieve the economic objectives for the WRM in the Incomatiriver basin. In contrast, Environmental sustainability management plan would the best option

4 During the last 3 years numerous conflicts have been reported in the Incomati river basin, involving privateentities dedicated to river sand mining for construction and the other stakeholder groups. The conflicts arose dueto the negative impacts emerging from the bad practices followed by sand miners in the river beds (blockage ofriver flow by temporary embankments constructed to enable the movement of machinery in the riverbed for sandextraction), causing shortage of water supply for irrigation or sometimes deviating the river away from existingwater intakes.

Integrating Stakeholders’ Preferences into Water Resources 535

Tab

le3

Relativeim

portance

ofeach

stakeholdergroupandweightsof

theobjectives

andcriteriafrom

thedifferentstakeholders’pointof

view

Stakeholdergroup

Relativeim

portance

ofthegroup

Criteriapriority

C1

C2

C3

C4

C5

C6

C7

Total

Large

andmedium

scaleirrigatio

nfarm

ers

23.72%

18.80%

11.56%

26.04%

5.11

%3.57

%19.13%

15.81%

100.00

%

Smallscaleirrigationfarm

ers

23.72%

11.33%

16.95%

12.64%

6.70

%1.26

%17.73%

33.40%

100.00

%

Localadministration

18.14%

20.33%

21.02%

15.46%

5.05

%4.40

%13.15%

20.60%

100.00

%

Civilsociety(N

GOs)

18.14%

20.40%

20.40%

3.34

%2.62

%0.58

%31.10%

21.56%

100.00

%

Fishers

6.67

%45.00%

15.00%

5.31

%13.43%

1.26

%10.00%

10.00%

100.00

%

Hydropower

industry

9.62

%55.74%

7.96

%4.96

%4.96

%0.55

%4.30

%21.52%

100.00

%

536 J. Gallego-Ayala, D. Juízo

if decision-makers want to maximize on the two environmental objectives and minimizeeffects of droughts and floods.

The local weight values of the socioeconomic and environmental objectives for eachalternative river basin management plan scenario are used in Eqs. (1) and (2) to rank thealternatives (see Table 5) in a way they integrate the stakeholder groups’ preferences.

In this study we find that the final ranking of alternatives is consistence irrespectively of theaggregation method (additive or multiplicative functions) and weighted schemes (un-equal orequal stakeholders group weights) used. Thus, there is no rank-reversal problem as suggestedearlier (Stam and Duarte-Silva, 2003; Ishizaka et al. 2011). Therefore, for this study we foundthe following ranking of management scenarios from the most preferred to least preferred:Environmental sustainability management plan, Tradeoffs management plan and finallyEconomic development management plan. Thus, when integrating the stakeholders’ prefer-ences for the selection of WRM plans, the Environmental sustainability management plan isthe one that gives better compromise solution between socioeconomic and environmentalobjectives.

5 Discussion and Conclusions

This paper showed, with a case study, the potential applicability of the AHP method tointegrate stakeholder groups’ preferences in the decision making process of water resourcesmanagement. The use of the AHP as a participatory tool can improve both stakeholders’participation in river basin committees at the same time it increases transparency in decision-making process. The results of this research highlight the disparity between the preference andthe objectives followed by different stakeholders’ groups. These results can be used by therelevant authorities to customize their interventions, knowing beforehand which are the differ-ent stakeholder priorities and in this way design more effective avenues of communication that

Table 4 Local priorities of water management options—expert group

Alternative ManagementPlan

Specific objective

C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7

Economic development 33.33 % 14.29 % 10.47 % 10.47 % 11.40 % 7.78 % 5.49 %

Environmental sustainability 33.33 % 71.43 % 25.83 % 25.83 % 40.54 % 48.69 % 65.54 %

Tradeoffs 33.33 % 14.29 % 63.70 % 63.70 % 48.06 % 43.53 % 28.97 %

Total 100.00 % 100.00 % 100.00 % 100.00 % 100.00 % 100.00 % 100.00 %

Table 5 Global priorities using different aggregation and weighting methods

Alternative Management Plan Additive function Multiplicative function

Stakeholdersgroup differentimportance

Stakeholdersgroup equalimportance

Stakeholdersgroup differentimportance

Stakeholdersgroup equalimportance

Economic development 0.148 0.162 0.120 0.131

Environmental sustainability 0.480 0.471 0.449 0.441

Tradeoffs 0.372 0.367 0.338 0.335

Integrating Stakeholders’ Preferences into Water Resources 537

suit different stakeholders’ groups. Thus, the relevant authorities can design a well-balancedmanagement plan based on a compromise solution.

The specific application of the methodology to the case study resulted in a higher ranking ofEnvironmental sustainability management plan option (improvement of river environmentalfunctions); an alternative that allows to maximize stakeholders preferences regarding watermanagement objectives. This result should be understood as a perception that water allocationshould ensure the environmental sustainability of the Incomati river basin on a long-term basis.However, this strategy does not exclude the development of socioeconomic activities in thebasin. In fact, what it is emphasized is that, irrespective of their own interest, the stakeholders stillgive high importance to river basin health. Nonetheless, the adoption of the management plansidentified in this research should be support by a complementary identification of key factors thatmight compromise their success i.e. the strengths, weaknesses, challenges and opportunities ofeach management alternative, which is bound to uncertainties in implementation. In this sense, itis recommended to carry out a SWOTanalysis or an A’WOTanalysis (Gallego-Ayala and Juizo2011) to generate additional information leading to final selection of any given WRM plan.

Finally, it is recommended that this research be extended to cover the rest of the Incomatiriver basin, in order to understand to what extent stakeholders’ preferences are homogeneousor heterogeneous across riparian countries. This could generate useful information in priori-tizing and developing joint river basin management plans between different countries. On onehand, this information could be useful in the on-going discussions to update the IncoMaputoagreement and inform the design of transboundary water resources management plans. On theother hand, this would help increase the needed engagement of stakeholders in the negotiationsbetween the three countries in the basin (van der Zaag and Carmo-Vaz 2003; Slinger et al.2010). The application of AHP across riparian states will potentially be faced with the inherentcomplexities of the transboundary river basin governance and the uncertainties and risksinvolved in the decision making process of international river agreements (Islam andSusskind 2013). Thus, the AHP model should take into consideration risks and uncertainties(Kangas 1994b; Millet and Wedley 2002). Nonetheless, it can be concluded that this approachcertainly would make the design of joint river basin management plans more transparent andincrease the acceptability of the final decision by all parties, thus avoiding potential futureconflicts.

Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their useful commentsand suggestions, which have improved the quality of the manuscript. This research was financed by the NationalResearch Fund of Mozambique (research project STAWAREM, FNI-85-INV). The authors wish to thank theavailability and support of the Incomati River Basin Management Unit.

Disclaimer The views expressed are purely those of the authors and may not, in any circumstances, be regardedas stating an official position of the Water Regulatory Council of Mozambique.

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