Integrated and Adaptive Management of Water Resources: Tensions, Legacies, and the Next Best Thing

Abstract

Integrated water resources management (IWRM) and adaptive management (AM) are two institutional and management paradigms designed to address shortcomings within water systems governance; the limits of hierarchical water institutional arrangements in the case of IWRM and the challenge of making water management decisions under uncertainty in the case of AM. Recently, there has been a trend to merge these paradigms to address the growing complexity of stressors shaping water management such as globalization and climate change. However, because many of these joint approaches have received little empirical attention, questions remain about how they might work, or not, in practice.Here, we explore a few of these issues using empirical research carried out in Brazil. We focus on highlighting the potentially negative interactions, tensions, and trade-offs between different institutions/ mechanisms perceived as desirable as research and practice attempt to make water systems management simultaneously integrated and adaptive. Our examples pertain mainly to the use of techno-scientific knowledge in water management and governance in Brazil's IWRM model and how it relates to participation, democracy, deliberation, diversity, and adaptability. We show that a legacy of technical and hierarchical management has shaped the integration of management, and subsequently, the degree to which management might also be adaptive. Although integrated systems may be more legitimate and accountable than top-down command and control ones, the mechanisms of IWRM may be at odds with the flexible, experimental, and self-organizing nature of AM.

Water: Drought, Crisis and Governance in Australia and Brazil

“…As stated by Engle et al [32], IWRM is fundamentally about governance arrangements and there is no universal model for designing the institutional structure and links. This has resulted in different arrangements in each country.…”

“…According to the author, the dominance of a small number of technical people making decisions in a more centralized system can facilitate flexibility for a fast decision in stressed times, an important aspect of AM. On the other hand, the integration of a broader diversity of stakeholders with different perspectives under more decentralized models enhances legitimacy and brings more locally relevant knowledge to the decision process (important tenets of IWRM), but often at the expense of the flexibility maintained by a smaller, technical team [32].…”

“…The same occurs for other aspects of climate change, currently not in the society's knowledge spectrum in Brazil. With respect to the second factor, leadership for change and adaptation, some argue that the IWRM framework, once adopted, could create an inflexible structure, particularly due to over consulting of stakeholders [32], which can lead to decision paralysis. Given Brazil's water committees and water councils at state and federal levels, and the criticism of lengthy consultation and delayed decisions about the Murray-Darling Basin in Australia, this risk is real.…”

“…In this context, Engle et al [32] made a comparative analysis with IWRM and Adaptive Management (AM) in order to understand their roles on water management when facing problems that need fast and efficient decisions. According to the author, the dominance of a small number of technical people making decisions in a more centralized system can facilitate flexibility for a fast decision in stressed times, an important aspect of AM.…”

Critical multi-level governance issues of integrated modelling: An example of low-water management in the Adour-Garonne basin (France)

“…To design and implement water policy, demands for integrated and adaptive water resource management are progressively raised (Engle et al, 2011;Pahl-Wostl, 2007). Integrated modelling can simultaneously take into account most of the dimensions related to the issues of resource management (Jakeman et al, 2006).…”