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Infrastructures are key interfaces of urban resource use, connecting production to consumption, cities to their hinterland and energy to water and land use. They have, however, received scant attention in debates on nexus thinking in general, and the urban nexus in particular. Drawing on an emergent critical literature on the nexus in urban studies and science and technology studies, this article examines practices of (attempted) inter-sectoral infrastructure integration at the interface of urban wastewater treatment and regional energy provision in Germany. It analyses the nexus approaches and experiences of eight German cities / city-regions as so-called 'flexibility providers' in regional energy markets for electricity, gas and heating. It demonstrates how the practices of wastewater utilities operating in energy markets involve far more than technical adaptation, requiring in addition a major reordering of existing material, spatial and institutional configurations to both wastewater and energy systems. This is proving a deeply political process with important implications for our understanding of socio-technical transitions at the water-energy nexus. ; 基础设施是城市资源利用的关键连接口, 将生产连接至消费, 城市连接至内陆腹地, 能源连接至水和土地利用。然而, 在学界总体关于"关系"(nexus) 思维和具体关于城市关系的讨论中, 基础设施鲜受关注。本文借鉴城市研究和科技研究中新涌现出的关于"关系"的关键文献, 考察了德国城市污水处理与区域能源供应交接地带的部门间基础设施整合实践。我们选取了德国八个在电力、燃气和暖气供应的区域能源市场中以所谓"灵活供应商"身份出现的城市/城市地区, 分析了其"关系"进路和经历。分析表明, 在能源市场运行的污水处理设施, 其所做远远不止是技术调整适应, 另外还要对废水和能源系统的现有材料、空间和机构配置进行大幅重整。研究证明, 这是一个深远的政治进程, 对我们理解水能源关系中的社会技术转型具有重要意义。 ; Peer Reviewed

Infrastructures are key interfaces of urban resource use, connecting production to consumption, cities to their hinterland and energy to water and land use. They have, however, received scant attention in debates on nexus thinking in general, and the urban nexus in particular. Drawing on an emergent critical literature on the nexus in urban studies and science and technology studies, this article examines practices of (attempted) inter-sectoral infrastructure integration at the interface of urban wastewater treatment and regional energy provision in Germany. It analyses the nexus approaches and experiences of eight German cities / city-regions as so-called 'flexibility providers' in regional energy markets for electricity, gas and heating. It demonstrates how the practices of wastewater utilities operating in energy markets involve far more than technical adaptation, requiring in addition a major reordering of existing material, spatial and institutional configurations to both wastewater and energy systems. This is proving a deeply political process with important implications for our understanding of socio-technical transitions at the water-energy nexus. ; Peer Reviewed

Scholars of environmental governance are increasingly intrigued by issues of scale. Efforts to institutionalise river basin management represent a pertinent exemplar, as they aspire to strengthen hydrological vis-à-vis political-administrative scales of governance. The EU Wa-ter Framework Directive (WFD) is one of the most ambitious policy initiatives worldwide to reconfigure water management planning around the hydrological scale of river basins. Whilst it is widely assumed that the WFD is rescaling water governance in Europe, few em-pirical studies have been conducted to ascertain how far this is the case, what scalar strate-gies and practices are emerging and to what effect. The paper addresses these open issues with a study analysing the multi-scalar actions of water authorities, water management or-ganisations, local authorities and interest groups involved in implementing the WFD. It in-vestigates how stakeholders are acting scalar from the local to the European scale and back to further their interests in the course of WFD implementation, focussing on the Wupper sub-basin in Germany. Drawing for conceptual insight on the human geography debate on the politics of scale and processes of rescaling, we demonstrate how all relevant stakeholders are increasingly working across scales to advance their interests but in very different ways, with different degrees of deliberation and to different effect. A typology of multi-scalar action is developed to interpret this diversity. The paper draws conclusions on how multi-scalar action is altering not only power relations between the actors but also the scalar configurations themselves. ; Peer Reviewed

This article discusses the problem-solving capacity of river basin cooperatives in German water policy in historical and current cases. The article builds an institutional theory and refers to the most important Water Framework Directive (WDF) of the European Union in 2000 and works back to the emergence of the first agencies in Germany around 1900. The article shows that these agencies organized a sophisticated institutional compromise between different groups of water users such as mining companies and public authorities. The Prussian state set up a complex legal framework of representation and negotiation of conflicting interests, as the article shows with the cases of the Schwarze Elster and the Erft cooperative. The second part of the paper discusses the problem-solving capacity of these old institutional structures for today's problems such as environmental degradation and urban shrinkage. It states, by analyzing the cases of the Erft and the Rur cooperatives, that the complex mechanisms of financing and decision-making provide protection of water resources and broad agreement amongst the actors involved. The cooperatives are expanding their activities in the context of the WFD and can be regarded to be an appropriate instrument of water policy in the early 21st century.

"This article discusses the problem-solving capacity of river basin cooperatives in German water policy in historical and current cases. The article builds an institutional theory and refers to the most important Water Framework Directive (WDF) of the European Union in 2000 and works back to the emergence of the first agencies in Germany around 1900. The article shows that these agencies organized a sophisticated institutional compromise between different groups of water users such as mining companies and public authorities. The Prussian state set up a complex legal framework of representation and negotiation of conflicting interests, as the article shows with the cases of the Schwarze Elster and the Erft cooperative. The second part of the paper discusses the problem-solving capacity of these old institutional structures for today's problems such as environmental degradation and urban shrinkage. It states, by analyzing the cases of the Erft and the Rur cooperatives, that the complex mechanisms of financing and decision-making provide protection of water resources and broad agreement amongst the actors involved. The cooperatives are expanding their activities in the context of the WFD and can be regarded to be an appropriate instrument of water policy in the early 21st century." (author's abstract)

Diese Expertise ist als Beitrag zur neueren empirischen Forschung zu institutionellen Erwiderungen auf den globalen Wandel auf regionaler Ebene zu verstehen. Am Beispiel von Wasserinfrastruktursystemen in der Region Berlin-Brandenburg wird analysiert, wie diese sozio-technischen bzw. sozio-ökologischen Systeme von verschiedenen Phänomenen des globalen Wandels tangiert werden (können) und wie bisher von den verantwortlichen Stellen darauf reagiert wurde. Sowohl in fachlicher wie auch in methodischer Hinsicht betritt die Studie Neuland. Deshalb erhebt sie keinen Anspruch auf Vollständigkeit. Sie dient stattdessen der wissenschaftlichen Exploration und Perspektiverweiterung über Wasserinfrastruktursysteme im globalen Wandel, deren Funktionen und deren institutionelle Regelung.

In Zeiten leerer Kassen stehen viele Kommunen vor der Frage, wie sie Daseinsvorsorgeleistungen finanzieren sollen. Privatisierungen wurden in den vergangenen 20 Jahren als Weg aus der kommunalen Verschuldung gehandelt, zunehmend wird jedoch erkannt, dass dabei das Gemeinwohl gefährdet ist. So erweist sich der privatisierte (Gewährleistungs-)Staat nicht immer als durchsetzungsfähig gegenüber privaten Investoren, womit die gewünschte Leistung generell gefährdet ist. Dieses Buch wählt einen politikwissenschaftlichen Blick auf das Thema: Denn bei der existenziellen Daseinsvorsorgeaufgabe Wasserver- und Abwasserentsorgung lässt sich Gemeinwohlfähigkeit nicht allein daran ablesen, dass das kostbare Nass jederzeit aus der Leitung sprudelt. Vielmehr geht es auch um demokratische Verantwortlichkeit, um nachhaltige Finanzierung der Infrastruktur, um Wasserqualität oder um Wasserpreise in kommerzialisierten, gewinnorientierten Strukturen. Mit den 1999 teilprivatisierten Berliner Wasserbetrieben steht hier Europas größtes privatisiertes Wasserunternehmen im Fokus einer Analyse, aus der sich wertvolle allgemeine Erkenntnisse für die Organisation von Daseinsvorsorge gewinnen lassen.

Since the International Agency on Cancer Research's monograph found glyphosate to be a likely carcinogen, the regulatory focus on the chemical has centred on this determinative criterion for regulatory action. Yet, other pertinent factors, such as the effects of glyphosate on fresh and ground water and ensuing effects on biodiversity, have received less attention as legitimate rationales for regulating the chemical. This underrepresentation prevents a wider policy discussion on the environmental and human health effects of the chemical and fails to disrupt assumptions of path-dependently continuing on agriculture's chemical treadmill. To avoid ad hoc post hoc chemical regulation, we assess four areas of chemical regulatory oversight in Europe with regard to glyphosate affecting water: (1) the undue emphasis on in laboratorio versus in situ testing; (2) assessing single chemicals (isolated glyphosate) versus admixtures (glyphosate plus surfactants and adjuvants) that are used in practice; (3) the tendency to downplay harms to non-human life; and (4) the lack of policy coherence in the existing regulatory framework. Focusing on European Union regulation of pesticide and water policy affecting aquatic environments, we conclude that issues of measurement and priority have become highly politicised in both science and policy, requiring preventative, precautionary frameworks utilising plural forms of measurement.

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.