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The juxtaposition of ancient, modernised and new irrigation projects explains the development of rural areas in parallel to their affect on ecological systems and the mobilisation of civil society. There is definitely a need for developing and promoting improved water governance in multi-functional irrigation systems, especially in view of increasing uncertainty in the availability of water resources as well as in terms of an integrated approach to the plurality of perspectives and interests related to rural development and environmental protection. The goals of this paper are to highlight: 1) the debate on irrigation management based on an analysis of its multifunctional role, 2) the need for territorial management of irrigation in order to promote the relationships between competing water uses, and 3) the stakeholder profile of different irrigation systems so that we can understand their motivations for promoting or not promoting governance in the decision-making process. Stakeholder analysis approach and the governance model approach are applied in combination with a new graphical tool to evaluate the confronted points of view between stakeholder's profiles, named Territorial Irrigation Management Approach (TIMA). The three irrigated systems presented in this paper (the Segarra-Garrigues in Spain, the Neste system in France, and the Muzza system in Italy) framed much of the concerns, speeches and overlapping demands related to irrigation multi-functionality. Their comparison has begun from contrasting the attitudes, demands, criticisms, affinities, and ultimately the discourses defended by the diversity of selected stakeholders. The obtained results show that if stakeholders do not feel adequately represented or engaged in the management of irrigation systems, decision-making processes tend to be controversial and the resulting proposals will generate strong opposition that minimizes the ability to react to the challenges ahead.
