Risk governance for sustainable management of water

For more than a decade, New Zealand has sought a successful model for collaborative governance that could be used at the catchment scale, to deliver integrated catchment management. The country now has an emerging crisis in governance of water, especially where expansion of dairying places pressure on both water quality and quantity, and creates demand for irrigation infrastructure. Corporate risk governance provides a useful starting model for risk governance of collaborative networks that operate within urban and rural catchments. Both corporate and catchment-scale risk governance, would, however, be more effective if based around a generic, axiom-based sustainability model. Benefits of this approach include improved accountability, a sharper focus on sustainability, a more robust platform for research and innovation, and the provision of a common language that can facilitate community-wide debate and collaboration.