Increasing irrigation efficiency has been high on the political agenda in Spain for many years.
However the overarching aim to reduce agricultural water consumption has not been met so far.
To explore this phenomenon Nora Schütze investigates processes of coordination between the
water and agricultural sector in three Spanish river basins in the context of the EU Water
Framework Directive implementation. From the perspective of polycentric governance she
identifies multiple mechanisms which illustrate how and why actors interact in certain ways
and thus shows why environmental aims of the Water Framework Directive remain unachieved.
