Changing Winters and Adaptive Water Governance: A Case Study on the Kemi River Basin, Finland

Abstract

This paper studies adaptive water governance in the context of hydropower and flood-risk management. The Kemi River basin acts as an empirical setting to study the environmental change and the capacity of the management system to respond to it. Hydropower and reservoir development has been a source of a decade-long environmental conflict in the river basin. This study aims to find out how governance structures are adapting to the environmental change brought on by climate change. The study is based on case study research, and it combines long-term monitoring data, semi-structured interviews conducted in December 2020 and January 2021, and Finnish administrative court rulings. The results reveal that the water governance in the Kemi River basin is based on a technology driven aquatic regime, which has been a source of persistent environmental conflict between technology and nature. The flood-risk management is based on adaptive planning cycles and is implemented in a participatory manner, although it is strengthening the conflict in the area, as some stakeholders suggests reservoirs as a solution, which neglects the potential of integrative river basin management.