The Role of Cooperatives in the Water Sector: Governance and Performance of Community Owned Water Supplies in Europe and Beyond

Dear Colleagues,

Who should own and control public services operators is one of the most important and widely discussed questions in the public policy debate.

Today, changes in the economic, social and technological environments are likely to increase the relevance of alternative modes of management in the water industry such as non-profit and cooperative enterprises, aiming at protecting the social value of water and, at the same time, increasing the citizens’ involvement in decision-making and environmental protection.

Water cooperatives and other consumers owned water operators (such as water schemes, interessenzen, syndicate etc) have a long tradition in many European countries (Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy and UK), particularly in rural areas.

Two characteristics cause important differences between cooperatives and traditional organizations (public or private): the desire to provide their members with a good or service in line with a particular set of values; and the fact that they are owned and controlled by the people who use their products, supplies, or services.

The cooperative model could be an alternative to involve citizens in water management, avoiding the problems that features the state owned firms, and safeguarding the interests of consumers.

However, the literature still face the need of identifying and discussing in depth current relevant experiences of community owned water supplies in different European countries and beyond, in order to identify the relevance and potential cross-border diffusion of this management model.

This Special Issue aims at discussing governance, performance, managerial, regulatory, and technological issues emerging in the community owned water supplies management model in the European water industry and beyond. It also aims at providing policy makers and managers with significant alternatives in their decision making.

Prof. Dr. Andrea Guerrini
Prof. Dr. Giulia Romano
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Community owned water supplies
• Water cooperatives
• Water industry
• Alternative governance modes
• Corporate governance
• Regulation
• Water utility
• Management mode