Adaptive Water Governance

Huitema, D., E. Mostert, W. Egas, S. Moellenkamp, C. Pahl-Wostl, and R. Yalcin. 2009.  Adaptive water governance: assessing the institutional prescriptions of adaptive (co-)management from a governance perspective and defining a research agenda. Ecology and Society 14(1): 26.

Huitema, et. al, included an analysis of literature reviewing watershed governance.  The review discussed the techniques used by professionals to create watershed management organizations which are becoming more and more prevalent in the industry of water systems.  This analysis explored the reviews published about different techniques for collaboration and governance..  The research centered on answering three main questions:

1. Do the institutional prescriptions of adaptive (co-)management resonate with the (water) governance literature?
2. Are these requirements feasible and effective —can they be adopted in practice, do they deliver environmental improvements, and why or why not?
3. What are the most salient questions for further research concerning these institutional requirements?

A clear issue that came up regarded the disparity between government boundaries and the associated watershed boundaries.  Watershed basin boundary lines often include multiple jurisdictions which may not agree or work together on existing issues already.  For example, one of the studies they reviewed (Conca et al. 2006:271–282) found that "many agreements do not include all states in a basin and that transboundary agreements are concentrated in basins with a tradition of cooperation."  Thus, they found very little evidence to support the "river-basin" approach for developing watershed management plans.

Fundamentally, the issue with new "watershed" focused plans, organizations and management is that the existing political structures already have established priorities and procedures.  These groups have a vested interest in their processes which provide security and comfort to those involved.  Adding another authority or requiring existing groups to agree to other priorities can create problems. 

The critical issues found for watershed management development include "collaboration in a polycentric governance system, public participation, an experimental approach to resource management, and management at the bioregional scale."  There is strong support of polycentric governance however, there is also high transactions costs and issues of true democratic processes beyond the existing political regimes.  Public participation has been shown to be very positive and supportive of the processes but not always feasible economically or politically.

The experimental approach has been shown to be sound in the literature, while usually only in small scale applications.  Thus, for watersheds this approach is not feasible, since these basins are usually so large.  The bioregional scale is appropriate and effective for water issues while the strong leadership necessary proves very challenging for these polycentric governance systems.  Huitema, et. al, defined a multitude of issues requiring further research were defined:

1. How to facilitate collaboration in polycentric governance settings, resolve or prevent coordination problems, foster trust, and keep transaction costs manageable, while ensuring democratic legitimacy?
2. How to organize practical public participation in polycentric settings, including participation in any experiments that may be undertaken or any other research, and how to organize a follow-up to the participation?
3. [How to establish] the effectiveness or the ineffectiveness of the different institutional prescriptions[?]
4. How to organize experiments in polycentric settings and promote an “experimental approach” to management that recognizes our limited understanding of socioecological systems and that maximizes learning from experience?
5. How to implement the bioregional approach for water management and cope with the multiplicity of relevant natural, social, and administrative boundaries?
6. How to manage transitions toward adaptive (co-)management and how to ensure that transitions are going in the right direction?
7. Moreover, we think that this theoretical work should not be undertaken as a stand-alone project, but in conjunction with empirical work on practical applications of adaptive management. This can improve the practical relevance of the theory and ensure that it does not remain only a theory.