New trends in water manegement, spatial planning and integration of sectorial policies

Abstract

Over the last few years the idea that water management has to be understood as an instrument for a concrete and explicit spatial planning has been enforced. This idea is supported by the increasing demand for integration between water management and sectoral policies, one of the key concepts of the Water Framework Directive currently in force. The practical implementation of this idea requires us to analyse the potentialities and limitations inherent in spatial planning, the new rural development policy, the changing normative context that strengthens integration principle and land use developments based on resource conservation criteria (new Spanish Laws on Heritage and Biodiversity, Water and Town and Local Planning). The article concludes by reasoning that the current stage of water planning (2007-2009) in all the European Union could act as a point of reference for a new model of decision-taking processes concerning policies with spatial effects.