Integrated Water Governance in Flanders

Malta confronts unique water governance challenges as a small, densely populated Mediterranean island with no permanent inland water sources, relying heavily on energy-intensive desalination and increasingly on treated wastewater for agriculture. This creates fundamental water-energy interdependence while rapid population growth and dense development intensify competition for limited land among food production, ecosystem preservation, and renewable energy infrastructure. This RETOUCH NEXUS policy brief examines how Malta can build on its successful water-energy coordination and the collaborative Water Table stakeholder platform to expand integration across the full Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems nexus, leveraging the nation’s small size and centralized governance as advantages rather than constraints in pioneering holistic resource management.

Build on water-energy coordination success: Malta has made significant progress with strong policy coordination between water and energy authorities. The challenge now is systematically expanding this integration to encompass food and ecosystem dimensions, creating truly holistic WEFE nexus governance rather than continued sectoral silos.

Scale the Water Table model across all nexus elements: This voluntary stakeholder platform demonstrates that effective multi-stakeholder dialogue is achievable. Broadening membership to ensure balanced representation from food, energy, and ecosystem sectors, while maintaining current responsiveness and participation levels, could unlock integrated governance that Malta’s resource constraints demand.

Water pricing must reflect full nexus value: Increasing economic cost recovery for groundwater abstraction using robust models that consider all four WEFE elements ensures pricing reflects environmental and opportunity costs across sectors, driving efficient use and generating revenue for sustainable management.

Mainstream WEFE into all policy development: Policymaking should systematically account for nexus impacts and linkages through assessment tools, with the River Basin Management Plan’s programme of measures comprehensively addressing energy, food, and ecosystem dimensions alongside water management requirements.

Small size enables rapid coordination: Malta’s centralized administrative system allows coordination through direct dialogue that would require complex multi-level negotiations in larger countries. This advantage, combined with existing stakeholder engagement success, positions Malta to pioneer integrated WEFE governance approaches despite extreme resource constraints.