Analysing water governance in heterogeneous case studies—Experiences with a database approach

Many resource management problems arise from failures of governance. A better understanding of governance regimes is therefore essential for a sustainable management of natural resources. This paper presents an approach that aims to gain insights into water governance regimes by combining a shared language for comparative analyses of case studies from different social and environmental contexts with relational databases. The shared language utilised is the “Management and Transition Framework” (MTF), a conceptual framework that allows comprehensive analyses of water management. The MTF was turned into an operational tool through the usage of a relational database, which facilitates the storage of large amounts of data and provides the possibility for structured analyses. Explorative analyses were performed for two case studies in order to exemplify the potential of the approach for the examination of vertical integration in flood management.So far experiences let us conclude that the presented approach increases the comparability of heterogeneous case studies and facilitates systematic analyses. This is a prerequisite for the derivation of general insights into the effects of different types of governance regimes on the performance of water management. More cases need to be recorded in the future to ensure a sound statistical base for robust analyses.     

The governance of ecosystem services in river basins: An approach for structured data representation and analysis

River basins provide a wide range of ecosystem services important for human well-being. Ecosystem functions and their value to humans have been thoroughly studied. However, the role of governance characteristics for the sustainable management of ecosystem services has been largely ignored up to now. To close this gap, this article introduces the latest modifications to a database building on the Management and Transition Framework (MTF) that serve to study the relationship between water governance and management systems and their performance with regard to impacts on ecosystem services. This comprehensive approach facilitates structured data collection and representation in order to analyze single case studies or compare case studies regarding the governance and management of water resources and associated ecosystem services. It allows the user to investigate whether certain water governance characteristics, such as stakeholder involvement or vertical integration of governance levels, are associated with a change in the management of ecosystem services or a measurable change in their state. A simplified case from South Africa shows how the database modifications allow addressing links between governance and management processes on the one side and ecosystem services and the way they are handled on the other side. Applying the MTF database leads to evidence-based insights into best practices as well as failed management approaches and interventions. This in turn provides knowledge that can be transferred from science to practice supporting sustainable governance of ecosystem services.     

Multilevel water,biodiversity and climate adaptation governance: evaluating adaptive management in Lesotho

In many cases in which climate change affects natural resources, impacts are uncertain and adaptation to climate change often involves collective action problems at the local level, which are embedded in multilevel governance regimes. Adaptive management (AM) is an emerging approach to deal with such uncertainty and complexity by promoting multilevel institutions that are robust to change and able to learn. Much of the literature evaluating AM in multilevel governance regimes, however, focuses only on the adherence to certain structural features said to make AM successful, leaving aside the question whether AM actually produces desired outcomes. This paper evaluates AM in multilevel regimes also in terms of the outcomes they produce. To this end, we first apply the Management and Transition Framework (MTF) in order to describe three multilevel regimes in Lesotho. For each regime we then observe whether it adheres to the structure features of AM. Finally, we evaluate the extent to which the outcomes, natural resource management projects, are conducive to Ostrom's (1990) ‘design principles’ for sustainable common-pool resource management. We find that, though no ideal ‘adaptive regime’ is found in Lesotho, the results confirm the AM hypotheses that decentralised decision-making, open information sources, and plurality of user interests lead to improved outcomes. Conversely, elements of the climate regime are found not to be adaptive. Our findings also confirm the appropriateness of AM as a governance approach to climate adaptation.     

The institutions-adaptive capacity nexus: Insights from coastal resources co-management in Cambodia and Vietnam

Responding to the unprecedented social-environmental change facing humankind will require responsive and flexible governance institutions (i.e., systems of rules and social norms) that facilitate adaptive capacity of individuals, groups and organisations. This may explain the sustained interest in the institutional dimensions of adaptive capacity. However, a better understanding of how institutions may enable adaptive capacity is still evolving. The literature is yet to clearly articulate how institutions relate to attributes of adaptive capacity. This study contributes to address this knowledge gap; it employs an evaluative approach that underscores the relationship between types of institutions and attributes of adaptive capacity (i.e., variety, learning capacity, autonomy, leadership, resources and fair governance). Such approach is used to examine how institutions enable adaptive capacity in the context of coastal resources co-managemen in the Peam Krasaop Wildlife Sanctuary (Cambodia) and Tam Giang Lagoon (Vietnam). In this study, complexity emerges as a defining feature of adaptive capacity. It results from the relationship between institutions and adaptive capacity and the contextual factors in which such relationship takes place. Exercises aiming to assess adaptive capacity should consider the institutions-adaptive capacity nexus together with the embedding social, cultural and political context.     

Institutional networks and adaptive water governance in the Klamath River Basin,USA

Polycentric networks of formal organizations and informal stakeholder groups, as opposed to centralized institutional hierarchies, can be critically important for strengthening the capacity of governance systems to adapt to unexpected social and biophysical change. Adaptive governance is one type of environmental governance characterized by the emergence of networks that stimulate adaptive capacity through increases in social-learning, communication, trust, public participation and adaptive management. However, detecting and analyzing adaptive governance networks remains elusive, especially given contexts of highly contested resource governance such as large-scale negotiations over water use. Research methods such as social network analysis (SNA) are often infeasible as they necessitate collecting in-depth and politically sensitive personal data from a near-complete set of actors or organizations in a network. Here we present a method for resolving this problem by describing the results of an institutional SNA aimed at characterizing the changing governance network in the Klamath River Basin, USA during a period of contested negotiations over water. Through this research, we forward a method of institutional SNA useful when an individual or egocentric approach to SNA is problematic for political, logistical or financial reasons. We focus our analysis on publically available data signaling changes in formal relationships (statutory, regulatory, contractual) between organizations and stakeholder groups. We find that employing this type of SNA is useful for describing potential and actual transitions in governance that yield increases in adaptive capacity to respond to social and biophysical surprises such as increasing water scarcity and changes in water distribution.     

Stalled regime transition in the upper Tisza River Basin: the dynamics of linked action situations

In river basins transformation from traditions of reactive flood defense to more adaptive management regimes is difficult. How regime components reinforce each other to set its development path may induce inertia and path dependency. Transformation may require profound shifts in the institutions, technologies, and personnel as well as the ecological, economic and social processes they influence in setting the basin's trajectory. Regime change has become an issue in Hungary following repeated failures of conventional management policies to handle a series of floods on the Tisza river starting in 1997. Increasing public participation pushed water policy debate toward more experimentation with alternatives, but implementation appears stalled. In this paper we review hypotheses about what factors are bridges or barriers to transformation and then use the Management Transition Framework to examine how the interactions linking action situations, operational outcomes, knowledge and institutions influenced the river management policy debate in Hungary from 1997 to 2009. Specifically we examined which factors characteristic of conventional Control vs. progressive Adaptive management regimes influenced these interactions in ways that contributed to or hindered transformation. We found that governance and social learning issues predominated, with lesser roles played by factors related to integration of sectors and different levels in the science and policy of river management.     

Multi-level governance for large marine commons: Politics and polycentricity in Palau's protected area network

This paper brings together institutional theories of polycentricity and critical human geography theory on scalar politics to advance understanding of the form and function of nested, polycentric regimes for the governance of large-scale common pool resources. We focus on institutional changes associated with a national marine protected area network in Palau through which national government and NGOs gain influence in local decision-making processes. Influence is gained through an attempt to scale up common-pool resource governance to an ecologically-relevant spatial scale in an effort to protect coral reef resilience and biodiversity across Palau. An institutional approach informed by scalar politics brings into focus potential tradeoffs between organizing governance reform around ecologically versus institutionally relevant scales. Our analysis suggests that prioritization of ecologically-relevant scales in institutional reform resulted in more nested but less polycentric institutional arrangements governing the network. We conclude that less distributed decision-making in the overall nested governance system could threaten the sustainability and resilience of coral reefs in the long-term by constraining institutional innovation and diversity. Results demonstrate the potential for interdisciplinary dialog to advance the research frontier on multi-level governance for large common pool resources.     

Understanding socio-cultural dimensions of environmental decision-making: A knowledge governance approach

Sociological critiques of scientific research processes and their application have developed nuanced understandings of the social, cultural and political forces shaping relationships between science and decision-making. Simultaneously, environmental researchers have sought to construct more engaged, dynamic modes of conducting research to facilitate the application of science in decision-making and action. To date, however, there are relatively few theoretically-oriented approaches that have been able to draw productive connections between the sociological critique and the practical applications that can aid in navigating this complex and diverse milieu. In this article, we propose that the concept of “knowledge governance” can bring together targeted inquiry into the socio-political context in which environmental science is situated, alongside analysis of specific interventions that change knowledge-to-action relationships. Drawing together Jasanoff’s (2005) concept of civic epistemology with Cash et al.’s (2003) knowledge systems for sustainability approach, this knowledge governance inquiry framework offers an integrative lens through which to critically reflect on knowledge-based processes, and incorporate that deeper understanding into intervention efforts. We briefly illustrate its application with reference to a pilot project examining conservation decision-making in the Western Pacific island nation of Palau.     

Integrated regional modelling and scenario development to evaluate future water demand under global change conditions

Within climate change impact research, the consideration of socioeconomic processes remains a challenge. Socioeconomic systems must be equipped to react and adapt to global change. However, any reasonable development or assessment of sustainable adaptation strategies requires a comprehensive consideration of human-environment interactions. This requirement can be met through multi-agent simulation, as demonstrated in the interdisciplinary project GLOWA-Danube (GLObal change of the WAter Cycle; ). GLOWA-Danube has developed an integrated decision support tool for water and land use management in the Upper Danube catchment (parts of Germany and Austria, 77,000 km²). The scientific disciplines invoked in the project have implemented sixteen natural and social science models, which are embedded in the simulation framework DANUBIA. Within DANUBIA, a multi-agent simulation approach is used to represent relevant socioeconomic processes. The structure and results of three of these multi-agent models, WaterSupply, Household and Tourism, are presented in this paper. A main focus of the paper is on the development of global change scenarios (climate and society) and their application to the presented models. The results of different simulation runs demonstrate the potential of multi-agent models to represent feedbacks between different water users and the environment. Moreover, the interactive usage of the framework allows to define and vary scenario assumptions so as to assess the impact of potential interventions. It is shown that integrated modelling and scenario design not only provide valuable information, but also offer a platform for discussing complex human-environment-interactions with stakeholders.     

Water resource management and climate change adaptation: a holistic and multiple criteria perspective

Anthropogenic climate change is likely to significantly increase human exposure to droughts and floods. It will also alter seasonal patterns of water availability and affect water quality and the health of aquatic ecosystems with various implications for social and economic wellbeing. Policy development for water resource adaptation needs to allow for a holistic and transparent analysis of the probable consequences of policy options for the wide variety of water uses and users, and the existing ecosystem services associated with any stream basin. This paper puts forward an innovative methodological framework for planning development-compatible climate policies drawing on multi-criteria decision analysis and an implicit risk-management approach to the economics of climate change. Its objectives are to describe how the generic methodology could be tailored for analysis of long-range water planning and policy options in developing countries, and to describe the place of climate change considerations in water governance and planning processes. An experimental thought-exercise applying the methodology to water policy development in Yemen provides further insights on the complexity of water adaptation planning. It also highlights the value of conducting sensitivity analysis to explore the implications of multiple climate scenarios, and the importance of accounting for policy portfolios rather than individual policy options. Rather than constituting a tool that can generate clear measures of optimal solutions in the context of adaptation to uncertain climate futures, we find that this approach is best suited to supporting comprehensive and inclusive planning processes, where the focus is on finding socially acceptable paths forward.     

Policy integration for adaptive water governance: Learning from Scotland's experience

This paper contributes to on-going attempts at bringing together two influential ideas in water governance: Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) and adaptive governance. In particular, a tension remains between the call in IWRM for the use of formal institutions, such as river basin organisations, to secure public policy integration, and the assumptions in adaptive governance in favour of informal collaboration between essentially independent policy actors. To clarify this relationship, this article draws on theoretical research on public policy integration, and uses these insights in an empirical setting to identify mechanisms that can facilitate effective policy integration for adaptive water governance. The research is based on recent attempts in Scotland to implement IWRM ideas to improve flood management. Several governance mechanisms were adopted to facilitate the integration of flood, water and rural land use policies. Six Scottish policy regimes are analysed using documentary sources and interviews. Results challenge the idea that collaboration should primarily be built on either river basin organisations or informal mechanisms. We identify a mix of informal and statutory-based mechanisms which may secure political and technocratic commitment to policy integration.     

National laws and policies can enable or confound adaptive governance: Examples from South African national parks

There is growing appreciation that protected areas, like all social-ecological systems (SES), are inherently complex and face an unpredictable future under the influence of global environmental change. Adaptive management is the accepted approach for managing complex SES to ensure their resilience, but unless it is supported by a governance system that is itself adaptive it has little chance of success. Scholars have identified certain principles conducive to adaptive governance. Environmental legislation, an important component of the governance system, is often misaligned with these principles. In this paper we assess adaptive governance principles with regard to legislation governing South Africa’s national parks. This assessment indicates that, to enable adaptive governance and adaptive management, legislation should (1) be co-produced by policy-makers, policy implementers and users of protected area ecosystem services; (2) commit and empower management agencies to apply the principles of adaptive governance and adaptive management, particularly in the collaborative development of management plans; (3) commit agencies to review management plans and allow flexibility to adapt plans; (4) ensure that the temporal and spatial scales of the governance system match those of the SES being managed; (5) anticipate change and avoid assumptions of system stability and predictability; and (6) provide for flexible financing mechanisms, so that funds can be prioritised and timed to meet the unpredictable demands of complex systems.     

Governance across the land-sea interface: A systematic review

Governance across the land-sea interface is an emerging challenge. The propensity for, and intensity of social-ecological interactions across this interface (e.g., eutrophication, sedimentation) are being exacerbated by cross-system threats (e.g., climate change). We draw on a systematic review of 151 peer-reviewed papers on governance and land-sea connections to (1) outline the current state of the literature, (2) examine the predominance of different approaches to address land-sea interactions, (3) characterize how governance is conceptualized within these approaches, (4) investigate governance challenges, and (5) provide insights into effective governance. The review finds that the number of relevant papers published per year has generally been increasing, and most of these papers are found in interdisciplinary journals. Ecosystem-based management is the most predominant approach found in the literature as a means to address land-sea interactions. Papers referring to ecosystem-based management are more likely than those referring to alternative management approaches (e.g., integrated management) to highlight science-policy integration and the need to account for interactions between ecosystem components as elements of effective governance. The main governance challenges include determining boundaries, addressing cross-scale effects, and accessing knowledge. However, few empirical studies of governance across the land-sea interface have been completed. A richer conceptual framework of governance is required to improve our ability to navigate the rapid social and environmental change occurring across the land-sea interface.     

The relationship of social capital and fishers’ participation in multi-level governance arrangements

The need for effective multi-level governance arrangements is becoming increasingly urgent because of complex functional interdependencies between biophysical and socioeconomic systems. We argue that social capital plays an important role in such systems. To explore the relationship between social capital and participation in resource governance arenas, we analyzed various small-scale fisheries governance regimes from the Gulf of California, Mexico. The components of social capital that we measured include levels of fishers’ structural ties to relevant groups and levels of trust in different entities (i.e. cognitive component). We collected data using surveys and interviews with residents of small-scale fishing communities adjacent to marine protected areas. We analyzed the data using a logistic regression model and narrative analysis. The results of our quantitative analysis highlight the multidimensional nature of social capital and reveals complex relationships between different types of social capital and fisher participation in monitoring, rulemaking and MPA design. Furthermore our qualitative analysis suggests that participation in fisheries conservation and management is not fully potentialized due to the social and historical context of participatory spaces in Mexico.     

Adaptation or conflict? Responses to climate change in water management in Bangladesh

The potential of climate change to impact local conflict and cooperation over natural resources has received relatively little attention. Bangladesh floodplains are highly vulnerable to environmental stresses that are worsening with climate change, and community organisations have to respond to water insecurity − seasonally too little or too much. Two case studies based on action research in contrasting water and climate stressed floodplain environments in Bangladesh investigate local conflicts over water management that worsened when water regimes changed. By overcoming conflicts and improving adaptation for all local actors the cases reveal the importance of local knowledge, innovations in institutions, external facilitation, and incentives provided by disadvantaged groups who contribute towards costs in return for a share in decision making power and better adapted water management. The cases show how community organisations diversified their responsibilities and took up the challenge of water management to address local priorities and overcome conflicts. Without a more flexible and enabling approach, public investments in adaptation are likely to focus on strengthening existing water management infrastructure without understanding local social interactions and complexity. This may strengthen elite dominance and local conflicts if there is no comparable investment in developing robust and fair local institutions.     

How the DPSIR framework can be used for structuring problems and facilitating empirical research in coastal systems

As pressures on coastal zones mount, there is a growing need for frameworks that can be used to conceptualize complex sustainability challenges and help organize research that increases understand about interacting ecological and societal processes, predicts change, and supports the management, persistence, and resilience of coastal systems. The Driver–Pressure–State–Impact–Response (DPSIR) framework is one such approach that has been adopted in some coastal zones around the world. Although the application of the DPSIR framework has considerable potential to bridge the gap between scientific disciplines and link science to coastal policy and management, current applications of DPSIR in coastal environments have been limited and new innovations in the application of the DPSIR model are needed. We conducted a structured review of literature on the DPSIR framework as applied to the function, process and components of complex coastal systems. Our specific focus was on how the DPSIR framework has been used as a tool to organize sophisticated empirical scientific research, support transdisciplinary knowledge at a level appropriate for building understanding about coastal systems, and how adopting a DPSIR approach can help stakeholders to articulate and structure challenges in coastal systems and use the framework to support policy and management outcomes. The review revealed that DPSIR models of coastal systems have been largely used to support and develop conceptual understanding of coastal social–ecological systems and to identify drivers and pressures in the coastal realm. A limited number of studies have used DPSIR as a starting point for semi-quantitative or quantitative analyses, although our review highlights the continued need for, and potential of, transformative quantitative analyses and transdisciplinary applications of the DPSIR framework. The DPSIR models we reviewed were predominantly single sector, encompassing ecological or biophysical factors or focusing primarily on socio-cultural dimensions rather than full integration of both types of information. Only in eight of 24 shortlisted articles did researchers actively engage decision-makers or citizens in their research: given the potential opportunity for using DPSIR as a tool to successfully engage policy-makers and stakeholders, it appears that the DPSIR framework has been under-utilized in this regard.     

Drinking water quality governance: A comparative case study of Brazil,Ecuador, and Malawi

Human health is greatly affected by inadequate access to sufficient and safe drinking water, especially in low and middle-income countries. Drinking water governance improvements may be one way to better drinking water quality. Over the past decade, many projects and international organizations have been dedicated to water governance; however, water governance in the drinking water sector is understudied and how to improve water governance remains unclear. We analyze drinking water governance challenges in three countries – Brazil, Ecuador, and Malawi – as perceived by government, service providers, and civil society organizations. A mixed methods approach was used: a clustering model was used for country selection and qualitative semi-structured interviews were used with direct observation in data collection. The clustering model integrated political, economic, social and environmental variables that impact water sector performance, to group countries. Brazil, Ecuador and Malawi were selected with the model so as to represent the diversity of the clusters. This comparative case study is important because similar challenges are identified in the drinking water sectors of each country; while, the countries represent diverse socio-economic and political contexts, and the case selection process provides generalizability to our results. We find that access to safe water could be improved if certain water governance challenges were addressed: coordination and data sharing between ministries that deal with drinking water services; monitoring and enforcement of water quality laws; and sufficient technical capacity to improve administrative and technical management of water services at the local level. From an analysis of our field research, we also developed a conceptual framework that identifies policy levers that could be used to influence governance of drinking water quality on national and sub-national levels, and the relationships between these levers.     

From material flow analysis to material flow management Part II: the role of structural agent analysis

This paper presents a heuristic for supporting the transition from material flow analysis to material flow management. The heuristic combines material flow analysis with a newly developed method, structural agent analysis (SAA). The latter is based on Giddens structuration theory and provides a basis for understanding the social structures restricting or enabling strategies for managing material flows. We consider the specific advantages of SAA to be that it does the following: (i) it considers the interaction and dynamics of social structure and human agency and, thus, allows for including the role of structural factors such as culture in the analysis; (ii) it provides a cross-level approach allowing the study of interferences among agent groups; and (iii) it considers the different time scales of change of social structures constraining the implementation of options for improving material flows.