Browsing by Author "Pahl-Wostl, Claudia"

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Adaptive Water Governance: Assessing the Institutional Prescriptions of Adaptive (Co-)Management from a Governance Perspective and Defining a Research Agenda
(2009) Huitema, Dave; Mostert, Erik; Egas, Wouter; Moellenkamp, Sabine; Pahl-Wostl, Claudia; Yalcin, Resul
"This article assesses the institutional prescriptions of adaptive (co-)management based on a literature review of the (water) governance literature. The adaptive (co-)management literature contains four institutional prescriptions: collaboration in a polycentric governance system, public participation, an experimental approach to resource management, and management at the bioregional scale. These prescriptions largely resonate with the theoretical and empirical insights embedded in the (water) governance literature. However, this literature also predicts various problems. In particular, attention is called to the complexities associated with participation and collaboration, the difficulty of experimenting in a real-world setting, and the politicized nature of discussion on governance at the bioregional scale. We conclude this article by outlining a common research agenda that invites the collaborative efforts of adaptive (co-)management and governance scholars."
Comparison of Frameworks for Analyzing Social-ecological Systems
(2013) Binder, Claudia R.; Hinkel, Jochen; Bots, Peter W. G.; Pahl-Wostl, Claudia
"In this paper we compare 10 established frameworks for analyzing social-ecological systems. We limited ourselves to frameworks that were explicitly designed to be used by a wider community of researchers and practitioners. Although all these frameworks seem to have emerged from the need for concepts that permit structured, interdisciplinary reasoning about complex problems in social-ecological systems, they differ significantly with respect to contextual and structural criteria, such as conceptualization of the ecological and social systems and their interrelation. It appears that three main criteria suffice to produce a classification of frameworks that may be used as a decision tree when choosing a framework for analysis. These criteria are (i) whether a framework conceptualizes the relationship between the social and ecological systems as being uni- or bidirectional; (ii) whether it takes an anthropocentric or an ecocentric perspective on the ecological system; and (iii) whether it is an action-oriented or an analysis-oriented framework."
Continuity and Change in Social-ecological Systems: The Role of Institutional Resilience
(2012) Herrfahrdt-Pähle, Elke; Pahl-Wostl, Claudia
"In recent years recurring political, economic, and environmental crises require questioning and re-evaluating dominant pathways of human development. However, political and economic frameworks seem to encompass deeply rooted resistance to fundamental changes (e.g., global financial crisis, climate change negotiations). In an effort to repair the system as fast as possible, those paradigms, mechanisms, and structures that led into the crisis are perpetuated. Instead of preserving conventional patterns and focusing on continuity, crises could be used as an opportunity for learning, adapting, and entering onto more sustainable pathways. However, there are different ways not only of arguing for sustainable pathways of development but also of conceptualizing continuity and change. By focusing on institutions, we illustrate the tension between the concepts of continuity and change, how they interact, and how they build or degrade institutional resilience. The analysis draws on empirical research in South Africa and Uzbekistan, which were locked in persistent regimes over decades. Faced with the challenge to transform, Uzbekistan chose a pathway of institutional continuity, while South Africa opted for comprehensive reforms and a high level of change. Based on these case studies, we illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of institutional continuity and change. Elements of institutional continuity during times of transformation include preserving key institutions, which define how the rules are made; maintaining social memory; providing transparency of reform processes and allowing them time to take effect. Elements of institutional change required during phases of consolidation include flexible legislation; regular reviews; and adaptation of legislation during and after implementation."
Editorial on Global Water Governance
(2013) Gupta, Joyeeta; Pahl-Wostl, Claudia
"In the aftermath of the Earth Summit 2012, it becomes critical to ask--Are our global governance institutions designed in a manner that they can promote converging policies at the national level to address a range of new, different, and fast emerging environmental, water, and social problems as a consequence of the increasing pace of industrialization, urbanization, and globalization? In particular, what types of problems should they be addressing and how can the institutional architecture be improved in order to enhance problem solving?"
Framing Approach to Cross-disciplinary Research Collaboration: Experiences from a Large-scale Research Project on Adaptive Water Management
(2007) Dewulf, Art; Francois, Greet; Pahl-Wostl, Claudia; Taillieu, Tharsi
"Although cross-disciplinary research collaboration is necessary to achieve a better understanding of how human and natural systems are dynamically linked, it often turns out to be very difficult in practice. We outline a framing approach to cross-disciplinary research that focuses on the different perspectives that researchers from different backgrounds use to make sense of the issues they want to research jointly. Based on interviews, participants evaluations, and our own observations during meetings, we analyze three aspects of frame diversity in a large-scale research project. First, we identify dimensions of difference in the way project members frame the central concept of adaptive water management. Second, we analyze the challenges provoked by the multiple framings of concepts. Third, we analyze how a number of interventions (interactive workshops, facilitation, group model building, and concrete case contexts) contribute to the connection and integration of different frames through a process of joint learning and knowledge construction."
The Global Policy Network Behind Integrated Water Resources Management: Is It an Effective Norm Diffusor?
(2014) Kramer, Annika; Pahl-Wostl, Claudia
"Integrated water resources management (IWRM) has been recognized by many actors as the appropriate approach to respond to challenges in water resources management in a sustainable way. The main players in developing and diffusing the IWRM concept have included expert groups, international organizations, and multistakeholder platforms, which cooperated in various activities promoting the IWRM concept, such as knowledge generation and sharing, capacity building, and monitoring. A loose network of these actors has actively shaped and engaged in a global discourse on sustainable water resources management and managed to authoritatively shape the IWRM concept. The processes behind the spread of the IWRM concept can thus be conceptualized as development and diffusion of norms through a global policy network. Although this process has changed the discourse on water resources management and established IWRM principles as a global set of norms, national policies and regulations reflect these norms only to a limited extent and new policies lack implementation. IWRM norms have been developed and spread by a network of nonstate actors, which might have contributed to its diverging influence in global discourse on the one hand and national policy implementation on the other. We present an analytical framework to assess effects of IWRM norm diffusion and network structures that support norm development and spread through global policy networks. We also provide an exploratory analysis of the main global policy network involved in development and diffusion of the IWRM concept, including its key actors, relationships across the network, and network outputs."
Global Water Governance in the Context of Global and Multilevel Governance: Its Need, Form, and Challenges
(2013) Gupta, Joyeeta; Pahl-Wostl, Claudia
"To complement this Special Feature on global water governance, we focused on a generic challenge at the global level, namely, the degree to which water issues need to be dealt with in a centralized, concentrated, and hierarchical manner. We examined water ecosystem services and their impact on human well-being, the role of policies, indirect and direct drivers in influencing these services, and the administrative level(s) at which the provision of services and potential trade-offs can be dealt with. We applied a politics of scale perspective to understand motivations for defining a problem at the global or local level and show that the multilevel approach to water governance is evolving and inevitable. We argue that a centralized overarching governance system for water is unlikely and possibly undesirable; however, there is a need for a high-level think tank and leadership to develop a cosmopolitan perspective to promote sustainable water development."
How Multilevel Societal Learning Processes Facilitate Transformative Change: A Comparative Case Study Analysis on Flood Management
(2013) Pahl-Wostl, Claudia; Becker, Gert; Knieper, Christian; Sendzimir, Jan
"Sustainable resources management requires a major transformation of existing resource governance and management systems. These have evolved over a long time under an unsustainable management paradigm, e.g., the transformation from the traditionally prevailing technocratic flood protection toward the holistic integrated flood management approach. We analyzed such transformative changes using three case studies in Europe with a long history of severe flooding: the Hungarian Tisza and the German and Dutch Rhine. A framework based on societal learning and on an evolutionary understanding of societal change was applied to identify drivers and barriers for change. Results confirmed the importance of informal learning and actor networks and their connection to formal policy processes. Enhancing a society’s capacity to adapt is a long-term process that evolves over decades, and in this case, was punctuated by disastrous flood events that promoted windows of opportunity for change."
The Importance of Social Learning in Restoring the Multifunctionality of Rivers and Floodplains
(2006) Pahl-Wostl, Claudia
"Those involved in floodplain restoration have to cope with historical conflicts between human and ecosystem needs. The topic is of high importance in Europe due to the European Water Framework Directive that requires restoration and/or maintenance of a 'good ecological status of aquatic ecosystems.' However, the seeming trade-off between flood protection and floodplain restoration may change due to a shift in the water management paradigm toward more integrated approaches, in contrast to the command and control approach of the past. This shift in paradigm is summarized in the guiding principle for water management in the Netherlands --Living with floods and give room to water--rather than 'Fighting against water.' The paper discusses the role of social learning in the transition toward the adaptive management of floodplains and rivers that is required to restore and maintain multifunctional riverine landscapes. In addition to the uncertainties resulting from our limited knowledge about the complex spatiotemporal dynamics of floodplains, we have to take into account the ambiguities that arise as a result of the different perceptions of stakeholders."
Informal Participatory Platforms for Adaptive Management. Insights into Niche-finding, Collaborative Design and Outcomes from a Participatory Process in the Rhine Basin
(2010) Moellenkamp, Sabine; Lamers, Machiel; Huesmann, Christian; Rotter, Sophie; Pahl-Wostl, Claudia; Speil, Karina; Pohl, Wiebke
"New regulatory water management requirements on an international level increasingly challenge the capacity of regional water managers to adapt. Stakeholder participation can contribute to dealing with these challenges because it facilitates the incorporation of various forms of knowledge and interests into policy-making and decision-making processes. Also, by providing space for informal multi-stakeholder platforms, management experiments can be established more easily in rigid regulatory settings, allowing for social learning to take place. Stakeholder participation is currently stipulated by several legal provisions, such as the Water Framework Directive, which plays an increasingly important role in European water management. Drawing on recent experiences in a participatory process in the German Dhuenn basin, a sub-basin of the river Rhine, we explored the interplay of informal and formal settings in a participatory process. To what degree can we allow for openness and catalyze social learning in participatory processes grounded in formal management structures? To what degree can results of informal processes have an impact on practice? We analyzed three major challenges related to this interplay: (1) the niche-finding process to establish a participatory platform; (2) the co-design process by water management practitioners, researchers and consultants; and (3) the tangible outputs and learning. We found that niches for the establishment of informal participatory platforms can occur even in a rigid and strongly structured administrative environment. Further, our case study shows that collaborative process design fosters dealing with uncertainties. We conclude that in an effective participatory process, a balance should be struck between informality and formal institutional structures to catalyze experimentation and learning and to ensure that process results have an impact on management decisions."
Institutional Fit and River Basin Governance: A New Approach Using Multiple Composite Measures
(2013) Lebel, Louis; Nikitina, Elena; Pahl-Wostl, Claudia; Knieper, Christian
"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."
Managing Change toward Adaptive Water Management through Social Learning
(2007) Pahl-Wostl, Claudia; Sendzimir, Jan; Jeffrey, Paul J.; Aerts, Jeroen; Berkamp, Ger; Cross, Katharine
"The management of water resources is currently undergoing a paradigm shift toward a more integrated and participatory management style. This paper highlights the need to fully take into account the complexity of the systems to be managed and to give more attention to uncertainties. Achieving this requires adaptive management approaches that can more generally be defined as systematic strategies for improving management policies and practices by learning from the outcomes of previous management actions. This paper describes how the principles of adaptive water management might improve the conceptual and methodological base for sustainable and integrated water management in an uncertain and complex world. Critical debate is structured around four questions: (1) What types of uncertainty need to be taken into account in water management? (2) How does adaptive management account for uncertainty? (3) What are the characteristics of adaptive management regimes? (4) What is the role of social learning in managing change? Major transformation processes are needed because, in many cases, the structural requirements, e.g., adaptive institutions and a flexible technical infrastructure, for adaptive management are not available. In conclusion, we itemize a number of research needs and summarize practical recommendations based on the current state of knowledge."
Mechanisms of Resilience in Common-pool Resource Management Systems: An Agent-based Model of Water Use in a River Basin
(2007) Schlüter, Maja; Pahl-Wostl, Claudia
"The concept of resilience is widely promoted as a promising notion to guide new approaches to ecosystem and resource management that try to enhance a system's capacity to cope with change. A variety of mechanisms of resilience specific for different systems have been proposed. In the context of resource management those include but are not limited to the diversity of response options and flexibility of the social system to adaptively respond to changes on an adequate scale. However, implementation of resilience-based management in specific real-world systems has often proven difficult because of a limited understanding of suitable interventions and their impact on the resilience of the coupled social-ecological system. We propose an agent-based modeling approach to explore system characteristics and mechanisms of resilience in a complex resource management system, based on a case study of water use in the Amudarya River, which is a semiarid river basin. Water resources in its delta are used to sustain irrigated agriculture as well as aquatic ecosystems that provide fish and other ecosystem services. The three subsystems of the social- ecological system, i.e., the social system, the irrigation system, and an aquatic ecosystem, are linked by resource flows and the allocation decision making of actors on different levels. Simulation experiments are carried out to compare the resilience of different institutional settings of water management to changes in the variability and uncertainty of water availability. The aim is to investigate the influence of (1) the organizational structure of water management, (2) information on water availability, and (3) the diversity of water uses on the resilience of the system to short and long-term water scarcity. In this paper, the model concept and first simulation results are presented. As a first illustration of the approach the performances of a centralized and a decentralized regime are compared under different scenarios of information on water availability. Under the given conditions of a regularly fluctuating inflow and compliance of agents with orders from a national authority, the centralized system performs better as long as irrigation is the only type of water use. Diversification of resource use, e.g., irrigation and fishing, increases the performance of the decentralized regime and the resilience of both. Systematic analysis of the performance of different system structures will help to identify properties and mechanisms of resilience. This understanding will be valuable for the identification, development, and evaluation of management interventions in specific river basins."
Missing Links in Global Water Governance: A Processes-Oriented Analysis
(2013) Pahl-Wostl, Claudia; Conca, Ken; Kramer, Annika; Maestu, Josefina; Schmidt, Falk
"Over the past decade, the policy and scholarly communities have increasingly recognized the need for governance of water-related issues at the global level. There has been major progress in the achievement of international goals related to the provision of basic water and some progress on sanitation services. However, the water challenge is much broader than securing supply. Doubts have been raised about the effectiveness of some of the existing governance processes, in the face of trends such as the unsustainable use of water resources, the increasing pressure imposed by climate change, or the implications of population growth for water use in food and energy production. Conflicts between different water uses and users are increasing, and the state of the aquatic environment is further declining. Inequity in access to basic water and sanitation services is still an issue. We argue that missing links in the trajectories of policy development are one major reason for the relative ineffectiveness of global water governance. To identify these critical links, a framework is used to examine how core governance processes are performed and linked. Special attention is given to the role of leadership, representativeness, legitimacy, and comprehensiveness, which we take to be critical characteristics of the processes that underpin effective trajectories of policy development and implementation. The relevance of the identified categories is illustrated with examples from three important policy arenas in global water governance: the effort to address access to water and sanitation, currently through the Millennium Development Goals; the controversy over large dams; and the links between climate change and water resources management. Exploratory analyses of successes and failures in each domain are used to identify implications and propose improvements for more effective and legitimate action."
Resources Management in Transition
(2009) Pahl-Wostl, Claudia; Sendzimir, Jan; Jeffrey, Paul J.
"This special feature showcases some of the key work efforts conducted under the umbrella of the NeWater project. One major goal of NeWater has been the development of a conceptual and methodological framework for the transition of prevailing water management regimes to adaptive ones. Based on this framework, specific approaches and tools have been further developed for practical applications in a number of case studies in Europe (Elbe, Guadiana, Rhine, and Tisza), in Central Asia (Amudarya), and in Africa (Nile and Orange). The emphasis of the work reported in this special feature is on the development of conceptual foundations and methodological innovations."
Social Learning and Water Resources Management
(2007) Pahl-Wostl, Claudia; Craps, Marc; Dewulf, Art; Mostert, Erik; Tabara, David; Taillieu, Tharsi
"Natural resources management in general, and water resources management in particular, are currently undergoing a major paradigm shift. Management practices have largely been developed and implemented by experts using technical means based on designing systems that can be predicted and controlled. In recent years, stakeholder involvement has gained increasing importance. Collaborative governance is considered to be more appropriate for integrated and adaptive management regimes needed to cope with the complexity of social-ecological systems. The paper presents a concept for social learning and collaborative governance developed in the European project HarmoniCOP (Harmonizing COllaborative Planning). The concept is rooted in the more interpretive strands of the social sciences emphasizing the context dependence of knowledge. The role of frames and boundary management in processes of learning at different levels and time scales is investigated. The foundation of social learning as investigated in the HarmoniCOP project is multiparty collaboration processes that are perceived to be the nuclei of learning processes. Such processes take place in networks or communities of practice and are influenced by the governance structure in which they are embedded. Requirements for social learning include institutional settings that guarantee some degree of stability and certainty without being rigid and inflexible. Our analyses, which are based on conceptual considerations and empirical insights, suggest that the development of such institutional settings involves continued processes of social learning. In these processes, stakeholders at different scales are connected in flexible networks that allow them to develop the capacity and trust they need to collaborate in a wide range of formal and informal relationships ranging from formal legal structures and contracts to informal, voluntary agreements."
Social Learning in European River-Basin Management: Barriers and Fostering Mechanisms from 10 River Basins
(2007) Mostert, Erik; Pahl-Wostl, Claudia; Rees, Yvonne; Searle, Brad; Tabara, David; Tippett, Joanne
"We present and analyze 10 case studies of participatory river-basin management that were conducted as part of the European HarmoniCOP project. The main theme was social learning, which emphasizes the importance of collaboration, organization, and learning. The case studies show that social learning in river-basin management is not an unrealistic ideal. Resistance to social learning was encountered, but many instances of social learning were found, and several positive results were identified. Moreover, 71 factors fostering or hindering social learning were identified; these could be grouped into eight themes: the role of stakeholder involvement, politics and institutions, opportunities for interaction, motivation and skills of leaders and facilitators, openness and transparency, representativeness, framing and reframing, and adequate resources. Promising topics for further research include the facilitation of the social learning processes, the role of power, and interactions in political and institutional contexts."
Spatial Misfit in Participatory River Basin Management: Effects on Social Learning, a Comparative Analysis of German and French Case Studies
(2008) Borowski, Ilke; Le Bourhis, Jean-Pierre; Pahl-Wostl, Claudia; Barraque, Bernhard
"With the introduction of river basin management, as prescribed by the European Water Framework Directive (WFD), participatory structures are frequently introduced at the hydrological scale without fully adapting them to the decision-making structure. This results in parallel structures and spatial misfits within the institutional settings of river basin governance systems. By analyzing French and German case studies, we show how social learning (SL) is impeded by such misfits. We also demonstrate that river basin-scale institutions or actors that link parallel structures are essential for promoting river basins as management entities, and for encouraging SL between actors at the river basin scale. In the multi-scale, multi-level settings of river basin governance, it is difficult to fully exclude spatial misfits. Thus, it is important to take our insights into account in the current transition of water management from the administrative to the hydrological scale to get the greatest benefit from SL processes."
Sustainability Learning in Natural Resource Use and Management
(2007) Pahl-Wostl, Claudia; Tabara, David
"We contribute to the normative discussion on sustainability learning and provide a theoretical integrative framework intended to underlie the main components and interrelations of what learning is required for social learning to become sustainability learning. We demonstrate how this framework has been operationalized in a participatory modeling interface to support processes of natural resource integrated assessment and management. The key modeling components of our view are: structure (S), energy and resources (E), information and knowledge (I), social-ecological change (C), and the size, thresholds, and connections of different social-ecological systems. Our approach attempts to overcome many of the cultural dualisms that exist in the way social and ecological systems are perceived and affect many of the most common definitions of sustainability. Our approach also emphasizes the issue of limits within a total social-ecological system and takes a multiscale, agent-based perspective. Sustainability learning is different from social learning insofar as not all of the outcomes of social learning processes necessarily improve what we consider as essential for the long-term sustainability of social-ecological systems, namely, the co-adaptive systemic capacity of agents to anticipate and deal with the unintended, undesired, and irreversible negative effects of development. Hence, the main difference of sustainability learning from social learning is the content of what is learned and the criteria used to assess such content; these are necessarily related to increasing the capacity of agents to manage, in an integrative and organic way, the total social-ecological system of which they form a part. The concept of sustainability learning and the SEIC social-ecological framework can be useful to assess and communicate the effectiveness of multiple agents to halt or reverse the destructive trends affecting the life-support systems upon which all humans depend."
Synapses in the Network: Learning in Governance Networks in the Context of Environmental Management
(2010) Newig, Jens; Günther, Dirk; Pahl-Wostl, Claudia
"In the face of apparent failures to govern complex environmental problems by the central state, new modes of governance have been proposed in recent years. Network governance is an emerging concept that has not yet been consolidated. In network governance, processes of (collective) learning become an essential feature. The key issue approached here is the mutual relations between network structure and learning, with the aim of improving environmental management. Up to now, there have been few attempts to apply social network analysis (SNA) to learning and governance issues. Moreover, little research exists that draws on structural characteristics of networks as a whole, as opposed to actor-related network measures. Given the ambiguities of the concepts at stake, we begin by explicating our understanding of both networks and learning. In doing so, we identify the pertinent challenge of individual as opposed to collective actors that make up a governance network. We introduce three learning-related functions that networks can perform to different degrees: information transmission, deliberation, and resilience. We address two main research questions: (1) What are the characteristics of networks that foster collective learning in each of the three dimensions? To this end, we consider SNA-based network measures such as network size, density, cohesion, centralization, or the occurrence of weak as opposed to strong ties. (2) How does collective learning alter network structures? We conclude by outlining a number of open issues for further research."
Toward a Relational Concept of Uncertainty: about Knowing Too Little, Knowing Too Differently, and Accepting Not to Know
(2008) Brugnach, Marcela; Dewulf, Art; Pahl-Wostl, Claudia; Taillieu, Tharsi
"Uncertainty of late has become an increasingly important and controversial topic in water resource management, and natural resources management in general. Diverse managing goals, changing environmental conditions, conflicting interests, and lack of predictability are some of the characteristics that decision makers have to face. This has resulted in the application and development of strategies such as adaptive management, which proposes flexibility and capability to adapt to unknown conditions as a way of dealing with uncertainties. However, this shift in ideas about managing has not always been accompanied by a general shift in the way uncertainties are understood and handled. To improve this situation, we believe it is necessary to recontextualize uncertainty in a broader way relative to its role, meaning, and relationship with participants in decision making because it is from this understanding that problems and solutions emerge. Under this view, solutions do not exclusively consist of eliminating or reducing uncertainty, but of reframing the problems as such so that they convey a different meaning. To this end, we propose a relational approach to uncertainty analysis. Here, we elaborate on this new conceptualization of uncertainty, and indicate some implications of this view for strategies for dealing with uncertainty in water management. We present an example as an illustration of these concepts."
UN-Water and its Role in Global Water Governance
(2013) Baumgartner, Thomas; Pahl-Wostl, Claudia
"UN-Water was established in 2003 to coordinate United Nations activities on water. There have been no scientific assessments about this coordination mechanism and, hence, we focus on the role of UN-Water in global water governance. We use an analytical framework to conceptualize relevant natural and social phenomena, actors, and institutions in the field of global water governance. This framework ultimately allows an assessment of UN-Water’s role in this field. Our work draws upon official UN-Water documents, a formal external review of UN-Water, and semistructured expert interviews to assess UN-Water’s influence on global water discourses, particularly on the discourses of water and climate change, and integrated water resources management. This helps to identify UN-Water’s specific functions in the field of global water governance. The mechanism acts as a bridge between the expert-centered background and the political foreground of global water governance. "