The Link Between Polycentrism and Adaptive Capacity in River Basin Governance Systems: Insights from the River Rhine and the Zhujiang (Pearl River) Basin

Abstract

River basins are complex and adaptive social–ecological systems. This article discusses the implications of polycentric governance for more adaptive forms of river basin management. It considers the evolution of water quality management in the European Union (the Rhine) and China (the Zhujiang) to illustrate how the institutional dynamics of a polycentric governance system influence processes underpinning adaptive capacity. The article posits that the influence of a polycentric governance system on adaptive capacity depends on the internal power dynamics among the components of a system, their competitive versus collaborative patterns of interaction, and the emergence of functional operational linkages. The latter enable a system to perform critical functions, such as systematic exchange of data and information, during processes of experimentation, monitoring, and learning. In the European case, polycentrism and the variety of legal, economic, and political incentives—put in place at local, national, basin, and European scales—have been successful in promoting such operational linkages and hence have promoted adaptive capacity. In the Chinese case, where economic growth goals and strong political control mechanisms frame incentives for cooperation, a less diverse institutional environment is being complemented by expedient informal practices and locally devised collaboration mechanisms. Yet, given current obstacles to effective monitoring of the water environment and to greater access and exchange of water quality data and information at river basin scale, the current institutional capacity of this increasingly polycentric system remains insufficient to manage water quality issues in an adaptive manner.