Case studies: Water

Water resource management at the landscape scale is vital for addressing environmental and hydrological challenges in European agriculture. Due to fragmented land ownership, management must extend beyond individual properties and align with hydrological systems, requiring collaborative governance involving farmers and other stakeholders. This study (Milestone 9) on motives and barriers of collective action to reduce the impact on water resources uses Elinor Ostrom’s design principles (DPs) as a diagnostic tool to assess institutional robustness in three cases: irrigation management in Spain and Hungary, and catchment-based nitrogen regulation in Denmark. The Spanish case shows strong alignment with DPs, featuring nested, user-driven organizations and legal recognition of collective rights. The Hungarian case shows strong top-down control, but lacks the capacity to implement complex and collective water management initiatives, as well as the necessary bottom-up cooperation, coordination and professional guidance. The Danish case diverges notably from DPs due to limited stakeholder involvement and user autonomy. These findings demonstrate how institutional context and governance design affect legitimacy and effectiveness in water management. While Ostrom’s principles offer a valuable institutional benchmark, they provide limited insight into behavioral factors influencing farmer participation. We propose that future research on Ostrom’s principles need to incorporate behavioral perspectives to better understand successes and failures of collective agri-environmental schemes for sustainable water resource use. Our follow-up work will move beyond institutional analysis to explore the behavioural levers and barriers in collective agri-environmental programs.

This report (Deliverable 2.2) builds on the initial conceptual and analytical framework of the VISIONARY project and aims to map out how the case studies selected in VISIONARY complement each other to address key objectives for the project. The report aims to briefly outline the theoretical foundations of our work and outline the approach taken in the case studies.

Find all key facts about VISIONARY at one glance.

This Analytical Framework will steer the empirical research of the VISIONARY project, with regards to policy interventions, to novel value chain initiatives and business models, and to leverage points in the agri-food systems. The Analytical Framework adopts a novel approach combining two substantially different approaches: quantitative, experimental and behavioural economics on the one hand, and qualitative, comprehensive systems thinking approaches on the other.

This Initial Conceptual Framework assembles VISIONARY’s theoretical and conceptual foundations, explaining the systemic character of the food system and its transitions towards sustainability, the role of food actors’ behavioural factors in conditioning such transition and the interaction between research and policy-making to accelerate. This initial framework sets the foundations for the ‘Empirically grounded Conceptual Framework’ to be released in the summer of 2025. After a preliminary review of the approaches revolving around food system transition towards sustainability and its behavioural dimension (in particular of farmers and consumers), the document focuses on two main domains: ‘behavioural food policies’ and ‘sustainable business models’. Finally, the document deepens into the transdisciplinary approach of the project, based upon the concept and implementation of Science-Policy Interfaces.