El papel de la comunicación en la gestión de las situaciones de crisis desde las administraciones públicas

Within a crisis context public administrations play a key role when it comes to managing resources. During the drought period lived in Catalonia between the years 2007 and 2008, legal instruments where passed setting the grounds for the promotion of communicative campaigns directed toward the implication of consumers in the rational use of water, guaranteeing the domestic supply in order to cover vital needs. The article focuses on the analysis of the communicative activities promoted by local and regional administrations. The functioning, the effects and the resulting environmental impacts are analysed in terms of population’s behaviour changes as well as in quantitative terms of domestic water savings. Furthermore, it will be determined which are the key elements for an efficient institutional communication when aiming to promote a governance that encourages complicity with citizens, increases the efficiency of the activities promoted within the sustainability context and is used for legitimating public administrations’ intervention regarding private areas such as consumption, in favor of the promotion of sustainability and the rational use of scarce and finite natural resources.