Water Resources Planning and Management in Advanced Economies: The Case Study of Western Skane, Sweden - A Background Report

This is a Working Paper intended to give background information on the Western Skane case study of water resource planning and management which is being pursued jointly by IIASA and Lund University. The paper is primarily intended to be read by a non-Swedish public. We have, however, also included some discussion of the most important analytical and policy-oriented problems of the Skane area, which means that some of the information is also of interest to a Swedish public. The presentation in this paper is based on currently available published information on the economic and administrative structure and environmental conditions related to water planning in the region. A preliminary version of the paper was distributed for review to planning agencies at the central and regional level of decision making. Our interpretation of their comments have been included in this final version. We have abstained from including discussions about modeling and other methodological issues at this stage. Such methodological issues will be presented in separate papers. It is also the intention to present a research plan based on this paper and other methodological research currently pursued at IIASA. The research plan is intended to cover a working period of approximately two years at IIASA and to be fitted into a four to five year research plan for the group working with these issues in Sweden