Global Water Governance and Climate Change: Identifying Innovative Arrangements for Adaptive Transformation

Maria Melo Zurita,Ryan Bullock,Ryan Plummer,Julia Baird,Dana Thomsen,Kevin Collins,Annemarieke De Bruin,Paul Munro,Giovanna Seddaiu,Neil Holbrook,Neil Powell,Timothy Smith,Pier Roggero,Anna Lyth

doi:10.3390/w10010029

Abstract

A convoluted network of different water governance systems exists around the world. Collectively, these systems provide insight into how to build sustainable regimes of water use and management. We argue that the challenge is not to make the system less convoluted, but rather to support positive and promising trends in governance, creating a vision for future environmental outcomes. In this paper, we analyse nine water case studies from around the world to help identify potential ‘innovative arrangements’ for addressing existing dilemmas. We argue that such arrangements can be used as a catalyst for crafting new global water governance futures. The nine case studies were selected for their diversity in terms of location, scale and water dilemma, and through an examination of their contexts, structures and processes we identify key themes to consider in the milieu of adaptive transformation. These themes include the importance of acknowledging socio-ecological entanglements, understanding the political dimensions of environmental dilemmas, the recognition of different constructions of the dillema, and the importance of democratized processes.

Highlights

The Anthropocene is predicted to compound the complexity of water issues around the world.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes that anthropogenic climate change is increasing the intensity and variability of rainfall events and elevating water temperatures on a global scale [1]
In response to the above, we argue that ‘innovative arrangements’ for water governance can be found in the practices around existing water dilemmas
We draw upon the CSPO framework developed by Bellamy et al to understand the historical institutional structures and processes that cause transformations [46]. This is an approach that has some parallels with the sustainable livelihoods framework (SLF) developed by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development [47,48], which has been used for analysing adaptive capacity in the context of climate change [49,50], but it is different in that it identifies change in governance systems more broadly, rather than just focusing on livelihood outcomes

Summary

Introduction

The Anthropocene is predicted to compound the complexity of water issues around the world.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes that anthropogenic climate change is increasing the intensity and variability of rainfall events and elevating water temperatures on a global scale [1]. As climate change impacts continue to affect access to, and the quality of, water, the need for innovative water governance structures becomes more pressing [10] This is relevant as current water management practices developed at local, regional and national scales may not adequately consider the impacts of climate change. This is compounded by potential limitations in relying on past hydrological experiences to secure waterscapes in the future [2,11,12]. Water governance has become an increasingly salient global environmental issue [13,14]

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Methods

Conclusion