摘要：This article addresses the question of how to design participation processes in watermanagement and other fields. Despite a lot of work on participation, and especially its evaluation, thisquestion has received little attention in the research literature. However, it is important, because previousresearch has made it clear that participation may yield important benefits for humans and the environmentbut that these benefits do not occur automatically. One precondition is sound design. The design ofparticipation processes has been addressed in detail in the so-called "craft" literature but more rarely in thescientific literature. This article helps close this gap by systematically analyzing and comparing five designguides to determine whether it is possible to combine them into a more robust guide. The article confirmsthat possibility and presents a preliminary outline for such a guide. Principles for participatory processorientation are presented, as well as numerous partially iterative steps. The adaptive process is laid out ina way intended to help designers determine the objectives of the participation process and the initial designcontext, and make preplanning choices that eventually lead to the selection of suitable participationmechanisms. There are also design tools that facilitate this work. We discuss how our findings are largelycompatible with previous research on participation, notably the work on criteria for "good" or "effective"participation processes. We also argue that our article advances research on an important remaining questionin the scientific literature on participation: What process should be chosen in which context
关键词：Design guides; participation; water management
