Abstract
The notion that effective environmental governance depends in part on achieving a reasonable fit between institutional arrangements and the features of ecosystems and their interconnections with users has been central to much thinking about social-ecological systems for more than a decade. Based on expert consultations this study proposes a set of six dimensions of fit for water governance regimes and then empirically explores variation in measures of these in 28 case studies of national parts of river basins in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa drawing on a database compiled by the Twin2Go project. The six measures capture different but potentially important dimensions of fit: allocation, integration, conservation, basinization, participation, and adaptation. Based on combinations of responses to a standard questionnaire filled in by groups of experts in each basin we derived quantitative measures for each indicator. Substantial variation in these measures of fit was apparent among basins in developing and developed countries. Geographical location is not a barrier to high institutional fit; but within basins different measures of fit often diverge. This suggests it is difficult, but not impossible, to simultaneously achieve a high fit against multiple challenging conditions. Comparing multidimensional fit profiles give a sense of how well water governance regimes are equipped for dealing with a range of natural resource and use-related conditions and suggests areas for priority intervention. The findings of this study thus confirm and help explain previous work that has concluded that context is important for understanding the variable consequences of institutional reform on water governance practices as well as on social and environmental outcomes.
Highlights
The notion that effective environmental governance depends in part on achieving a reasonable fit between institutional arrangements on the one hand, and ecosystem and social processes on the other, has been central to much thinking about social-ecological systems (Ostrom 1990, 2010, Young et al 1999, Young 2002, Galaz et al 2008)
The notion that effective environmental governance depends in part on achieving a reasonable fit between institutional arrangements and the features of ecosystems and their interconnections with users has been central to much thinking about social-ecological systems for more than a decade
Based on expert consultations this study proposes a set of six dimensions of fit for water governance regimes and empirically explores variation in measures of these in 28 case studies of national parts of river basins in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa drawing on a database compiled by the Twin2Go project
Summary
The notion that effective environmental governance depends in part on achieving a reasonable fit between institutional arrangements on the one hand, and ecosystem and social processes on the other, has been central to much thinking about social-ecological systems (Ostrom 1990, 2010, Young et al 1999, Young 2002, Galaz et al 2008) Institutions, it is argued, should take into account the spatial and temporal scales of key ecosystem processes (Cash et al 2006, Folke et al 2007); their scope should reflect important social-ecological linkages, for example, those influencing resilience and adaptive capacities (Folke et al 2005, Lebel et al 2006). The third has been that fit can be meaningfully measured to assess gaps as well as to compare alternative institutional arrangements (Galaz et al 2008, Ekstrom and Young 2009)
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