2017/12/20 by Loupsans, Delphine, Mettoux-Petchimoutou, Anne-Paule
#Abstractions #Acteurs #Action plans #Assessment #Captages #Diagnostic #Enjeux #Gouvernance #Governance #Human and social sciences #Issues #Plans d’action #Sciences humaines et sociales #Stakeholders #Strategy #Stratégie #Territoire #Territories
paper · doi:10.15454/1.5137809338492104e12
The sociological assessment of issues and stakeholders (DTSEA), in conjunction with technical assessments such as the technical assessment of agricultural pressures weighing on abstraction supply zones (ASZ), is an essential step in putting together a territorial project in the field of water and aquatic environments, whether for the revision of an SBMP, an action plan for an ASZ, a project to remove a weir to improve ecological continuity, etc. Through this combined approach (simultaneous or ex post), the DTSEA informs, in advance of the project itself, on the political, social, economic, cultural and historic aspects inherent in management projects addressing water and aquatic environments. This knowledge, which does not replace but rather complements the technical approach, is indispensable in precisely fitting the project to the local area and placing it in a context of integrated management. That is why the DTSEA, a more complete form of what is commonly called the social-economic assessment, is increasingly recommended by public authorities in order to incorporate local specificities of public policies, including environmental policies. The DTSEA (as well as the social-economic assessment) is a means of governance that is rarely and/or poorly used for management operations in the field of water and aquatic environments. Different factors have been identified and AFB, decided with a group of partners to design a procedure intended to remove some of the obstacles. First of all, the “social-economic” concept, often included in this type of assessment produced by the human and social sciences, is frequently interpreted by the end users in a very narrow sense, which considerably reduces the scope of the tool. This is for this reason that we prefer the term “sociological assessment of issues and stakeholders”, rather than “social-economic assessment”. Secondly, a social-economic assessment requires that the project managers and participants acquire a number of skills in the human and social sciences that are considered fairly difficult by many stakeholders. Therefore, we propose an approach that, while remaining scientifically based, can be easily applied by the professionals who have no skill in human and social sciences. The stakeholders in charge of implementing action plans admit that they are often unconfortable on how to proceed given the wide array of tools and they are not capable to choose a given procedure in a given project. This difficulty explains why DTSEA has been designed on the basis of an original approach. It is a set of basic methods with modular components which can be added depending on the circumstances. These modular components target a triple objective, i.e. to be adaptable to 1) different types of management operations in the water and aquatic-environment sector, 2) the various objectives set by the project manager and 3) the specificities of the local area. The DTSEA is a powerful decision-aid tool that underlines current and future possibilities, constraints and strategies. It provides in-depth information on an area and its stakeholders, thus making it possible to inventory and characterize the stakeholders, reveal obstacles and identify means of action. This article discusses the main principles underlying the approach and its implementation.