The role of open governance to linking new approaches to water governance

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Sistan and Baluchestan. Zahedan. Iran

10.22059/jnrg.2025.404316.1060

Abstract

In recent years, the water crisis has emerged as one of the fundamental challenges in the governance of natural resources and sustainable development, attracting widespread attention from scholars, policymakers, and international institutions. At the same time, new approaches to water governance have been proposed through various theories and recommendations by international communities, each emphasizing aspects such as participation, efficiency, and sustainability to enhance water governance. The present study aims to explore the role of open governance in the era of information and communication technology in fostering the integration and synergy of these approaches. The research employs a systematic review method. Following a pilot search in Google Scholar and the determination of the research path, an initial search yielded 33 articles out of 759 retrieved from the Web of Science and ScienceDirect databases. Subsequently, a forward search in the Emerald and Springer databases identified 15 additional articles, and a backward search identified 6 more, resulting in a total of 54 articles selected for final analysis. The findings indicate that adopting open governance in the context of information and communication technology within the water sector not only possesses the capacity to address a substantial portion of the solutions and concepts derived from emerging approaches to water governance and to serve as an integrating mechanism that links these approaches, but also, by leveraging the broad nature of concepts such as transparency, accountability, open participation, and open collaboration, opens new horizons for the realization of these solutions.

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