Welcome everyone to this session
that will concern the management of water in tourism areas.
We're here in Switzerland in the middle of Swiss Alps in the Canton of Valais,
a Canton which is well-known for its numerous tourism resorts.
These different resorts are active all year long,
where visitors aim not only to ski during the winter,
but also to benefit from various activities during summer times.
They gather at the same times hotels, rental accommodation,
and secondary residency that are occupied only a few weeks during the whole year.
In consequence, tourism resorts encounter great fluctuation of its population,
including very important peaks of occupancy and therefore,
also great peaks of water consumption.
For example, the resorts as you can see behind me is the resort of Crans-Montana,
that groups together six municipalities
depending mainly for tourism for the local economy.
This case is very interesting,
as Crans-Montana is one of the greatest accommodation capacity in Switzerland.
And actually within two weeks,
the resort sees its population growing massively ranging from 6,000
permanent residents to 50,000 inhabitants during Christmas holidays.
At that time, the tourism resorts population exceed the population of Sion,
the capital city of the Canton of Valais.
Water resources are key for the functioning of tourism resorts.
Sure, water is essential to life.
But there are also numerous tourism activities that
depend from water such as swimming pools,
prediction of artificial snow,
or irrigation of golf courses for example.
In such condition, managing water represent
a very challenging task that implies fluctuation of needs,
difficulties to anticipate the changes,
and the necessity to react quickly.
This is especially tricky when considering the peaks of tourism occur during
winter and summer when there is less water available.
Finally, challenges also concern
the building of relevant infrastructures regarding the distribution,
or the potabilization, the distribution and the evacuation of used water.
Nowadays all this challenges are
reinforced by climate changes that imply on the one hand,
snow precipitation at a higher altitude and
therefore also the needs to produce more artificial snow,
and on the other hand,
this changes provided more extreme weather situation that
put at risk the whole supply of the tourism resorts.
Facing these different challenges,
water governance frameworks must define solutions in order to
ensure greater flexibility and reinforced adaptive capacities.
In this perspective, the case of Crans-Montana is particularly interesting.
First, as I already said,
the resort gather six municipalities.
These six municipalities encounter more or less water availability.
In fact, here, the more touristic municipalities are also the less water rich.
This situation implies the necessity to transfer the water,
to implement water transfers between the different municipalities,
between the municipalities situated at the periphery
of the trees and resorts which are water-rich municipalities,
with municipalities at the center of
the tourism resorts which are water-poor municipalities.
Second, the fact that one resort is divided among six municipalities implies
a great fragmentation and the need for reinforced collaboration among six water services.
Facing these different challenges related to the specificity
of tourism and to the particular institutional setting,
stakeholders implemented a governance system for
the water which is strongly relying on informal arrangements.
In fact, transfer of raw water between
the different municipalities and water services are often done,
thanks to the great collaboration between these water services.
And they are done without any payments or contracts.
By doing so, services reinforced the capacity to adapt the system,
and to react quickly to the evolution of demands.
It shows a great flexibility.
Interacting among water services not technical and or personal basis,
also ensure simplicity of the procedure which would be
much more complicated if involving policy makers for example.
If informal agreements have proven their efficiency regarding the supply of water,
one can't question robustness of such system.
What would happen if one main supplier would refuse to transfer
water or would decide to increase tourism activities on its territory?
In the case of Crans-Montana,
a simple solution has been found,
as sour of the six municipalities will proceed to a fusion by January 2017.
Nevertheless, it is interesting to notice that two municipalities,
playing a major role in the water supply of
the resorts decided not to take part to these agreements,
implying the necessity to renegotiate agreements regarding
the water transfer between the different entities or the tourism resort.
In conclusion, what lessons can be drawn from this case.
Firstly, tourism implies very specific modes of water consumption,
with peaks and great fluctuation of needs.
Therefore water supplies in Montana's tourist regions
represent a great challenge that asks for strong adaptive capacities,
and also innovative governance systems.
Then, this case shows that these difficulties tend to increase with new types of uses,
consuming water such as artificial snow for example,
due to less favorable snow conditions,
due to climate changes.
Finally, it shows the necessity to reflect on relevance and
tailor-made institutional arrangements in order to
reach both flexibility and robustness of the governance system.