Water, Water, Everywhere? : How Different Stakeholders Perceive and Address the Water Shortage on Gotland, Sweden

Sammanfattning: “Vattenfrågan har alltid varit viktig på Gotland” (Bastani et al. 2015, p. 25)  - “Water questions have always been important on Gotland”. Contrary to the common perception that water shortage does not pose a problem to northern European countries, the case on Gotland provides the example that it is a real issue. Due to several factors, the Swedish island faces severe water shortages during the summer and is in urgent need to address this in the light of an expected growing number of people coming to Gotland. Since water is a topic affecting a wide range of stakeholders, the water issue is already in the focus of attention and occasionally passionately discussed on the island. The aim of this paper was to identify with the help of qualitative research how relevant stakeholder groups perceive and address the water shortage on Gotland. The identified stakeholder groups were from the administrative/political sectors, industrial/business sectors, the research sector as well as engaged citizens. During the research it became clear that the water shortage can be characterized as a wicked problem, which in its nature is impossible to solve but only manageable due to its complexity. Yet, the majority of stakeholders did not recognize the wicked problem as such which explains the multiplicity of existent strategies for how to deal with it. The different approaches lead to outcomes that seem to only address parts of the problem but fail to manage it in its entirety. The study suggests that institutional voids, meaning a lack of clear responsibilities regarding who should manage the problem and how seem to both arise from and contribute to the complexity of the problem. As result of this research, it seems crucial to firstly gain a comprehensive understanding of the situation and then work with multi stakeholder communication and cooperation against prevailing institutional voids in order to address the water shortage effectively.