Water governance occurs at multiple levels, from the local to the supra-national, which are often highly fragmented. The interconnected nature of water requires interactions among these multiple governance levels. Public participation may foster such interactions. Thus, many water management reforms involved decentralization and public participation worldwide over the last decades. Yet, it is not demonstrated how these reforms may improve water resources sustainability. Their analysis in the literature does not show concretely how interactions among multiple levels materialize and are influenced by participation. As such, the question addressed is how interactions among multiple levels of water governance manifest over time in a participatory intervention. Using a case study in the Rwenzori region in Uganda, this article compares the multi-level interactions before and during a participatory process. The latter has been purposely implemented to bridge gaps between local and provincial levels through a participatory planning process centred on the provincial level. Four types of flows were analyzed: information and knowledge, hydrosocial, financial and human. Our analysis shows that using artefacts like the role-playing game and planning matrix fostered bi-directional information and knowledge flows. Hydrosocial flows did not change in depth but the legitimacy of the two organizations implementing the participatory process was reinforced. Project financial flows were injected through a provincial academic institution, who is not a regular budget recipient. They were therefore superimposed on existing budgeting process. We conclude by providing suggestions for the engineering of participatory processes in order to foster more collaborative and effective multi-level water governance.

中文翻译：

---

公众参与对多层次水治理的影响，乌干达的经验教训

水治理发生在从地方到超国家的多个层面，这些层面往往高度分散。水的相互关联性需要这些多个治理层级之间的相互作用。公众参与可能会促进这种互动。因此，在过去的几十年里，世界范围内的许多水资源管理改革都涉及权力下放和公众参与。然而，这些改革如何提高水资源的可持续性并没有得到证明。他们在文献中的分析并没有具体显示多层次之间的相互作用是如何实现并受参与影响的。因此，要解决的问题是，在参与式干预中，不同层次的水治理之间的相互作用如何随着时间的推移而表现出来。使用乌干达鲁文佐里地区的案例研究，本文比较了参与过程之前和过程中的多层次互动。通过以省级为中心的参与式规划过程，有目的地实施后者以弥合地方和省级之间的差距。分析了四种类型的流量：信息和知识、水利社会、金融和人力。我们的分析表明，使用角色扮演游戏和规划矩阵等人工制品促进了双向信息和知识流动。水文社会流量在深度上没有变化，但实施参与性过程的两个组织的合法性得到了加强。项目资金流是通过省级学术机构注入的，该机构不是常规预算接受者。因此，它们被叠加在现有的预算编制过程中。