Herman Havekes has been working since 1984 for the Association of Regional Water Authorities (RWAs), the umbrella organization of the 21 Dutch RWAs. In that position he welcomes every year a lot of international delegations to inform them about Dutch water governance, in particular the role Dutch regional Water Authorities play and how their tax income is regulated. He also gives presentations at international conferences.

Herman published a lot of books and articles in the field of (Dutch) water governance, like European and Dutch Water Law (2012) together with Marleen van Rijswick of Utrecht University and together with some colleagues Building Blocks for Good Water Governance(2016, second edition). In 2009 he completed his dissertation at Utrecht University on a research into the institutional changes of Dutch RWAs in the past fifty years. In 2015 he published with some colleagues a comprehensive book on the Regional Water Authorities Act.

Since end 2019 he is also professor by special appointment at Utrecht University in Public organization of (decentralized) water management. Herman is also chair of the Association for Water History and member of the editorial boards of the Magazines for Environmental Law, for water History and for Water Governance and of the Water Governance Initiative of OECD. Herman has international experience and carried out projects in South Africa, Turkey, Oman, Kosovo and the Netherlands Antilles.