Water Law and Organisation

How safe should a flood defences be? How clean should surface and groundwater be? Who is entitled to use scarce water? Who is responsible for flood risk management, water supply and water quality? Who should pay for water management? And what can someone do if they think the rules are not followed? These are just some of the questions that will be addressed in the course water law and organisation.

In this course you will write a legal advice concerning a specific water management issue (e.g. diffuse pollution, major river works or drought management in a specific country or region). The central question to be addressed is whether the relevant law can and should be changed to manage this issue better. In the process, you will learn about the most important water laws, how they are made (and changed), how they are interpreted and applied, how they can affect the water management practice and how engineers could cope with this. Depending on the topic of the advice, it may be written either in English or in Dutch.