| Measuring perspectives on future flood management on the Rhine: application and discussion of Q methodology (2008) | |||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||
| An overview of stakeholder perspectives promises to be useful in the agenda setting phase of water management policy processes. This paper compares different methods to measure perspectives, and identifies Q methodology as a structured method that allows for unbiased analysis. It is one of the first water management papers about Q methodology, and it presents a detailed discussion of the practical possibilities and limitations of the method, using future flood management in the Rhine basin as a case study. The application shows that there are three different stakeholder perspectives that are shared within groups of respondents: A) "Anticipation and institutions", B) "Space for flooding" and C) "Knowledge and engineering". The paper concludes that Q methodology can be used in practice to comprehensively elicit individual perspectives, to aggregate them in an objective way, and to identify major knowledge gaps and divergent goals. Because the method requires quite some skills and time from the analyst, and the sorting task may be difficult for the respondents, it is most appropriate for in-depth analysis. Additional research is required on how to use stakeholder perspectives in the development of mutual understanding and consensus in water management policy processes. | |||||||||
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