Adaptive Water Management and Policy Learning in a Changing Climate: a Formal Comparative Analysis of Eight Water Management Regimes in Europe, Africa and Asia

Abstract

This article provides an evidence-based and policy-relevant contribution to understanding the phenomenon of policy learning and its structural constraints in the field of river basin management, in particular related to coping with current and future climatic hazards such as floods and droughts. This has been done by a formal comparative analysis of eight water management regimes, by using multi-value qualitative comparative analysis, focusing on the relationship between regime characteristics (as explanatory variables) and different levels of policy learning (as output value). This research has revealed the importance of the sociocognitive dimension, as an essential emerging property of complex adaptive governance systems. This socio-cognitive dimension depends on a specific set of structural conditions; in particular, better integrated cooperation structures in combination with advanced information management are the key factors leading towards higher levels of policy learning. Furthermore, this research highlights a number of significant positive correlations between different regime elements, thereby identifying a stabilizing mechanism in current management regimes, and this research also highlights the necessity of fine-tuning centralized control with bottom-up approaches.

Developing predictive insight into changing water systems: use-inspired hydrologic science for the Anthropocene

“…In recent years, comparative studies have also addressed the classification of vegetation biomes via water balance (Stephenson, 1990(Stephenson, , 2003, hydro-climatic controls on NDVI and transpiration (Thompson et al, 2011b;Voepel et al, 2011), controls on hydrologic regimes Olden et al, 2011;Sawicz et al, 2011), the relationship between available energy and soil development (Pelletier et al, 2013;Rasmussen, 2012;Rasmussen et al, 2011), the implications of different management regimes (Huntjens et al, 2011;Borowski et al, 2008) on water resources, and -in an initial sense -emergent patterns in human-hydrologic interactions (Srinivasan et al, 2012). Figure 5 illustrates three different relationships that emerge from 430 watersheds when considering patterns of hydro-climate (Budyko's curve), geomorphology (Abrahams curve) and vegetation cover (aridity -NDVI curve).…”

Policy learning and policy change: learning from research citations

“…Among the remaining nine articles, there are two articles (Dale 1999;Huntjens et al 2011) that cite BH four times. Dale cites the 1992 article in the literature review section and benefits from this work in clarifying eight mechanisms of policy transfer and influence (i.e.…”

Adaptive Management of Riverine Socio-ecological Systems

“…Adaptive governance is distinguished by its capacity to increase the importance of learning at the policy level and to bridge previously separate levels: formal/ informal groups and networks as well as scales of administration (polycentricity), in ways that embrace cross-scale interactions in ecosystems and society (Chaffin et al 2014). By encouraging social learning, e.g., learning that occurs in a group as a whole when collaboration involves developing shared understanding of meanings and practices, it is easier to resolve conflicts dealing with differences in perspective and community acceptance to implement and sustain innovative management approaches (Huntjens et al 2011). Learning can also be enhanced among those who devise and implement policy through policy learning, e.g., a discursive process that challenges assumptions and goals of policies and thereby develops cognitive frameworks to revise the goals, techniques, and policies .…”