Governance of Aquatic Systems: What Attributes and Practices Promote Resilience?

Abstract

Aquatic environments embody the characteristics of complex social-ecological systems and as pressures on them intensify so does concern about their resilience. Resilience research has advanced the conceptual understanding of how aquatic systems function and underscored the need for an adaptive approach to management. More recently, a growing emphasis has been placed on resilience concepts in relation to water governance and thereby the broader social, political, and economic contexts in which aquatic systems are embedded. Using a two round online Delphi survey of global experts and water governance, this study identifies governance attributes that support specified and general resilience in aquatic systems, and describes practices or activities that enhance governance ability to respond to shocks and disturbances. The results of the Delphi study offer a prioritized list of attributes of governance for aquatic system governance resilience, including being adaptive, polycentric, inclusive and maintaining strong leadership. Similar to the attributes described in the existing literature on resilience and water governance, those identified through the Delphi remain somewhat abstract. This research highlights the need for future studies exploring how these concepts can be applied in practice and the extent to which they can be traded off.

The Emergence of Water Resilience: An Introduction

“…While governance has taken centre stage in the context of water and coincided with increasing interest in resilience, it is only recently that an attempt was made to gain consensus about the key attributes for governing aquatic ecosystems to ensure resilience. Plummer et al (2014) conducted a two round Delphi of global experts on water governance and resilience with the objectives of gaining consensus on "1) governance attributes that indicate specified resilience; 2) governance attributes that denote general resilience; and, 3) practices or activities that enhance governance ability to respond to shocks and disturbances" to consolidate the state of thinking about governance of aquatic systems and resilience (p. 3). Attributes and activities for which agreement was established are summarized below, with references to specified resilience (SR), general resilience (GR) and practices and activities.…”

“…Attributes and activities for which agreement was established are summarized below, with references to specified resilience (SR), general resilience (GR) and practices and activities. Practices and activities that enhance governance resilience • Forums for participation • Improved transparency of decision-making • Planning processes that are participatory and deliberative Rodina's (2019) systematic mapping review complements the Delphi study by Plummer et al (2014) and provides a synopsis of the features or characteristics of resilient water systems from the literature. She initially identified the system characteristics by categories (systems in general, social systems, built/natural systems) and then explores in greater details the institutional, governance and practical dimensions.…”

“…While the Delphi study by Plummer et al (2014) and review by Rodina (2019) sought to bring together a consolidated position on the subject, they also provided a glimpse into just how intertwined the area of scholarship is with other concepts and future directions in water management -a trend that is clearly continuing (see Akamani, 2016;Cosens & Gunderson, 2018;Schoeman et al, 2014). Plummer et al (2014) identified approaches to management, governance and resilience that illustrate some of the points of coalescence and/or cross-fertilization among resilience and water scholars in this regard.…”

“…Adaptive management is one of the first approaches advocated as a way to bring ideas of governance and resilience together (Plummer et al, 2014). As initially conceived (e.g., Lee, 1993;Walters, 1997;Walters & Holling, 1990), adaptive management is oriented to 'learning by doing' through iterations of assessing opportunities, designing policies as experiments, implementing actions, and adjusting course in light of monitoring and evaluation.…”

“…Adaptive governance "is an outgrowth of the theoretical search for modes of managing uncertainty and complexity" and championed in response to the need for: …new approaches to environmental governance capable of confronting landscape-scale problems in a manner both flexible enough to address highly contextualized SESs and dynamic and responsive enough to adjust to complex, unpredictable feedbacks between social and ecological system components. (Chaffin et al, 2014, online) Plummer et al (2014) elaborate upon this challenge and identify varied terms (e.g., adaptive co-management, collaborative management, resilience management) used to capture particular aspects of governance and resilience. Folke (2003) anchored this suite of approaches by sketching out the social dimension of freshwater management, social features for resilience, and multi-level governance of catchments.…”