Transforming the Water Sector in Victoria: a comparison of two approaches to integrated water management reform

This paper describes two case studies that represent fundamentally different approaches to reform in the Victorian water sector. Both case studies have a deliberate transformative agenda to achieve an acceleration in the transition to Integrated Water Management (IWM). The Office of Living Victoria(OLV), adopted a centrally led, disruptive and top-down approach while the other, Integrated Water Management Framework for Victoria (IWMF), is more strongly stakeholder led, bottom-up and collaborative. Based on the research knowledge related to transformation, we have looked at how these case studies have addressed impediments and enabling conditions for accelerating transformation to IWM.