Concept of technical support to science-policy interfacing with respect to the implementation of the European water framework directive

In the implementation of water policies, such as the European water framework directive (WFD), good interaction between policy development and implementation, and the science is of crucial importance. This requires new knowledge and insights to be taken into account in the policy design and development. It also requires the results of Research and Technology Development (RTD) projects, including ICT decision supporting instruments such as tools and models, to be transferred towards policy implementation. These science-policy interrelationships are, however, at this moment not as efficient as it should/could be. This is due to limited operational links with water managers in many water-related RTD projects, such that the needs of policy makers are not taken into account at a sufficient level. Due to this and other reasons, newly developed tools from the research community most often insufficiently transfer to operational use by water managers. Better research integration consequently is required at the various stages of policy developments (identification, design, implementation and review). Within the framework of the Harmoni-CA project for the European Commission, the development of a science-policy interfacing instrument is initiated in order to meet the above-mentioned science-policy gap problems [Quevauviller, Ph., Balabanis, P., Fragakis, C., Weydert, M., Oliver, M., Kaschl, A., Arnold, G., Kroll, A., Galbiati, L., Zaldivar, J.M., Bidoglio, G., 2005. Science-policy integration needs in support of the implementation of the EU water framework directive. Env. Sci. Policy 8 (3), 203-211; Arnold G.E., de Lange, W.J., Blind, M.W., 2005. The Conserted Action Harmoni-CA facilitating the dialogue and bridging the gap between research and WFD implementation. Env. Sci. Policy 8 (3), 213-218]. This paper describes a concept developed by the authors, on how the science-policy interfacing technically can be supported through the bi-directional linking of various types of information sources identified as potential means for enhancing the interfacing mechanism. The information sources identified are policy implementation tasks (at the policy side), and ICT tools, methodologies and guidances (as results of RTD projects). Experiences on the application of RTD results in policy implementation tasks are one of the glue elements between these information sources in combination with activity-related and contextual keywords. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.