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Abstract:
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"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 Brazils 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."
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