Local river water basin governance monitoring developments in Latvia: towards stakeholder's co-management

At the municipal level, environmental governance monitoring systems are essential for evidence-based decision-making, policy evaluation, and effective change management. In Latvia, these systems remain fragmented, unevenly integrated, and weakly linked to governance outcomes, despite institutional and legal developments, including the 2021 administrative-territorial reform focused on aggregation of smaller municipalities. This study assesses environmental governance monitoring systems in Latvia at municipal and river basin levels, with emphasis on water governance, and develops recommendations for improving municipal monitoring frameworks. It applies a multi-method approach: (1) analysis of national, regional, and municipal policy, planning, and monitoring documents; (2) a Dviete River Basin case study with environmental governance and communication audits; and (3) 21 semi-structured interviews with representatives of five stakeholder segments: state, municipalities, businesses, local communities, and mediator groups. Results show that environmental monitoring in Latvia is dominated by a top-down, sectoral, control-oriented approach, while bottom-up participation remains weak and poorly institutionalised, though it reveals local management and communication potential under limited governmental capacity. Monitoring systems exist, but implementation is inconsistent; indicators are often formal and weakly used in decision-making; and communication between governance levels and stakeholder groups is limited. The Dviete River Basin highlights key issues: outdated and incomplete datasets, weak integration of monitoring into municipal planning, inconsistencies between local and national evaluations, and lack of context-specific water governance indicators. Overall, findings stress the need for integrated, basin-sensitive, participatory monitoring systems linking data, indicators, communication, and governance, with stronger stakeholder engagement and citizen science for more effective water governance.