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In this report, the results of a research project that examines municipal relations around the Gotha Canal are presented together with a discussion of the factors influencing political and administrative co-operation in general. The report begins with an analysis of the structural factors influencing regional co-operation in Europe and Sweden, and continues with an examination of the ways that actors in the Canal municipalities perceive these structural hinders. In order to achieve this the project has examined inter-municipal co-operation in parts of the Swedish counties of Västergötland and Östergötland. Two central aspects have been examined. The first is the political co-operation between the municipalities, and the second is the administrative co-operation. It should be noted that the municipalities' co-operation around the Gotha Canal cannot be seen as an isolated phenomenon, and that it must be seen in a wider context – that of a relatively recent and general trend towards regional co-operation in the area. In a report of this size it is not possible to describe all details of the different types of co-operation that now exist between the municipalities. Neither has it been the aim of this project to provide a detailed documentation of the various stages in the development of the cooperation around the Gotha Canal up to today. The ambition has been instead to attempt to uncover the factors that are conductive or detrimental to regional development and inter-municipal co-operation both in the specific case of the Canal, and in general. It should also be remembered that regional development in Sweden is an area that is in a process of rapid transition and that in some ways it has only just begun. New developments are taking place all the time, and it is impossible to predict how and where these developments will lead. The study was based primarily on semi-structured interviews with fifteen senior council politicians and civil servants in the municipalities of Mariestad, Töreboda, Karlsborg, Motala, Linköping, Norrköping and Söderköping, as well as with officials in the county of Östergötland. These were analysed together with municipal and county documents. Each interview lasted approximately 40 to 50 minutes. Five of the interviewees were woman and 10 were men and they are referred to in this report only as interviewees. The interviews were recorded and then transcribed into computer files. The transcribed interviews were qualitatively analysed and key concepts and issues identified. These concepts and issues, and the discourses around them, form the central empirical material on which this paper is based. The analysis of the 15 interviews conducted in the course of this project was supplemented by analyses of 41 other interviews with municipal politicians and administrators conducted in previous research projects. It is hoped that this report will be of use to two main groups; first, municipal politicians and civil servants; secondly, members of the business community. The isolation of these two groups from each other has become less marked during the last decade, and attitudes of the groups to each other have changed considerably. There is now a significant need for them to gain a better understanding of the conditions that determine each others spheres of activity, and it is hoped that this report will be able to contribute something to that understanding.

Recent studies have shown that concern for the environment is widespread and persistent in many countries, both rich and poor. However, the origins and scope of this concern can differ between different individuals, groups and societies, depending on whether the concern stems from perceived global degradation, or from personally experienced unsatisfactory local living conditions. Regional newspapers have been credited with an important role in the dissemination of environmental concern, especially at the local level. In this study, the types of environmental issues reported in the press, and the results of a survey of citizen concern with specific environmental problems, are examined. The results show that the alleged agenda-setting role of the regional newspapers in environmental issues is not pronounced, and demonstrate that personal experience of local environmental problems, interpersonal communication and levels of trust for news sources, may have more substantial effects on the public's perceptions of local environmental risks than information communicated through the press. The idea of territory, and the obtrusiveness of environmental problems, are then used to explain the weak role of the regional press in influencing public saliency of environmental problems.

This article compares environmental beliefs and attitudes in Estonia, Latvia, and Sweden. It is based on interviews in Tartu, Estonia, and Riga, Latvia, and on an extract from a postal survey in the county of Östergötland, Sweden. Four scales were used in the study: the new environmental paradigm (NEP) scale, a scale to measure support for science and technology, a scale to measure postmaterial values, and a scale to measure concern for local environmental problems. The expected correlations between support for the NEP, distrust of science and technology, postmaterial values, and concern for environmental conditions were only partially supported by the results of the Swedish study, and, in the case of the Baltic samples, not at all. A fourth explanatory factor—that environmental concern can be based either on direct personal experience of the environment, or on symbolic general representations of reported global problems-is used to explain these discrepancies.

Contents; List of Figures and Tables; List of Contributors; Preface; List of Acronyms and Abbreviations; Chapter 1 Introduction: The SciencePolicyStakeholder Interface (SPSI); Chapter 2 Putting the 'Integration' in the SciencePolicyStakeholder Interface; Chapter 3 The SciencePolicyStakeholder Interface and Stakeholder Participation; Chapter 4 The SciencePolicyStakeholder Interface in Sustainable Water Management: Creating Interactive Participatory Scenarios together with Stakeholders; Chapter 5 The SciencePolicyStakeholder Interface in Water Pollution Assessment.

Cover -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- About the editors -- Contributors -- 1. Introduction: identifying and solving problems in an integrated approach -- 1.1 Introduction to recent changes in European water policy -- 1.2 Transboundary water management: a particularly problematic issue -- 1.3 Water management in the new EU border regions -- 1.4 The problems facing transboundary cooperation in northeast Europe -- 1.5 Geo-politics in the Baltic States -- 1.6 Transboundary cooperation in the Baltic States -- 1.7 Environmental problems in the Baltic States -- 1.8 The need (and challenges) of using an integrated approach in water management -- 1.9 Integration! Integration? -- 1.10 Scientific and disciplinary differences -- 1.11 The MANTRA-East approach -- 1.12 Scenarios as a methodology for an integrated approach to water management -- References -- 2. The physical environment: Lake Peipsi and its drainage basin -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 Geographical features of the Lake Peipsi and its drainage basin -- 2.3 Point and non-point source pollution in the Lake Peipsi basin -- 2.4 River nutrient loads in the drainage basin -- 2.5 Water quality of the lake -- 2.6 Concluding discussion -- References -- 3. The administrative and political environment -- 3.1 Introduction -- 3.2 The Baltic States -- 3.3 Environmental management in Russia during the early 2000s -- 3.4 Environmental management in Estonia in the early 2000s -- 3.5 Background of the CAP -- 3.6 Problems and co-operation -- References -- 4. Qualitative scenarios -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 Scenarios for the Russian-Estonian border -- 4.3 Discussion of the concepts and frameworks behind the scenarios -- References -- 5. Quantitative scenarios and modelling -- 5.1 Use of models in the scenarios for Lake Peipsi -- 5.2 Riverine and source emission modelling.

The European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires EU member states to produce and implement river basin management plans, which are to be designed and updated via participatory processes that inform, consult with, and actively involve all interested stakeholders. The assumption of the European Commission is that stakeholder participation, and institutional adaptation and procedural innovation to facilitate it, are essential to the effectiveness of river basin planning and, ultimately, the environmental impact of the Directive. We analyzed oficial documents and the WFD literature to compare implementation of the Directive in EU membre states in the initial WFD planning phase (2000-2009). Examining the development of participatory approaches to river basin management planning, we consider the extent of transformation in EU water governance over the period. Employing a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach, we map the implementation "trajectories" of 13 member states, and then provide a detailed examination of shifts in river basin planning and participation in four member states (Germany, Sweden, Poland and France) to illustrate the diversity of institutional approaches observed. We identify a general tendency towards increased, yet circumscribed, stakeholder participation in river basin management in the member states examined, alongside clear continuities in terms of their respective pre-WFD institutional and procedural arrangements. Overall, the WFD has driven a highly uneven shift to river basin-level planning among the member states, and instigated a range of efforts to institutionalize stakeholder involvement-often through the establishment of advisory groups to bring organized stakeholders into the planning process.