Water Crises and Governance

Reinventing Collaborative Institutions in an Era of Uncertainty

Peter Leigh Taylor, David A. Sonnenfeld

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781351578493
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Biological Sciences

Water Crises and Governance critically examines the relationship between water crises and governance in the face of challenges to provide water for growing human demand and environmental needs. Water crises threaten the assumptions and accepted management practices of water users, managers and policymakers. In developed and developing world contexts from North America and Australasia, to Latin America, Africa and China, existing institutions and governance arrangements have unintentionally provoked water crises while shaping diverse, often innovative responses to management dilemmas. This volume brings together original field-based studies by social scientists investigating water crises and their implications for governance.

Contributors to this collection find that water crises degrade environments, place untenable burdens on stakeholders, and produce or exacerbate social conflict, undermining ecological and social conditions that sustain effective collaboration. At the same time, water crises can promote institutional change that "resets" governance, promoting unusual and creative responses appropriate for local contexts. The studies in this volume provide evidence that, while water crises pose serious threats to environments and societies, they also provide opportunities to learn from experience and recraft water governance with coherent visions of more ecologically and socially sustainable futures. This volume was originally published as a special issue of Society & Natural Resources.

ECOLOGICAL CRISES

Crises and Institutional Change: Emergence of Cross-Border Water Governance in Lake Eyre Basin, Australia

Jennifer Bellamy, Brian W. Head, and Helen Ross

ABSTRACT
Managing large river basins for sustainability is a contentious social–ecological arena challenging traditional scientific and rational planning approaches to water and related natural resources governance. “Crises” are inevitable but double-edged: creating threats and uncertainties, but also new opportunities to shape trajectories of change and avoid adverse consequences. A case study of the large remote cross-border Lake Eyre Basin (LEB), in arid central Australia, shows how over two decades a series of social–ecological and political–administrative “crises” emerged, posing significant environmental and social dilemmas for water governance, while also opening up opportunities for institutional change. This article examines the role of crises in the emergence and evolution of water governance in the LEB, how they were perceived, the challenges and opportunities posed, social and institutional responses, and governance capacity outcomes. Finally, it reflects on emergent crises as opportunities for more systemic and adaptive change in large river basins.

The continuing impact of human activities and climate change on scarce natural resources and vulnerable ecosystems has raised concerns about a global water crisis (Dietz, Ostrom, and Stern 2003; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] 2011; Homer-Dixon et al. 2015). Rather than simply a crisis of water scarcity, however, it is a “crisis of governance” centered on the dynamics of interlinked social and ecological systems (OECD 2011; Pahl-Wostl 2015). Bakker (2012, 616) explains, “As water flows it transgresses geopolitical boundaries, defies jurisdictions, pits upstream against downstream users, and creates competition between economic sectors, both for its use and for its disposal.” Considerable uncertainty exists about the long term multiscalar effects of crises (local to global), which raise the challenge that collective societal responses are urgently required across multiple levels of governance to avoid widespread effects that may not become apparent for decades (Wise et al. 2014). This article frames water governance as a complex, contested, and cross-scale problem that encompasses the broad system of governing across a range of political, social, economic, and administrative systems to develop and manage water and related natural resources at different levels of society (Edelenbos and Teisman 2013; Pahl-Wostl 2015). We apply this framing to understand the evolution of governance arrangements for a large river basin in remote arid Australia.

Water governance for sustainability (e.g., waterway health, ecosystem services, and human well-being) is a “wicked” policy problem involving inherently interlinked “social–ecological systems” that challenge traditional scientific and rational planning approaches to their governance (Bellamy 2007; Lubell 2015; Termeer et al. 2015). Social–ecological systems operate as complex wholes embedded within a broader multiscalar institutional landscape (Folke et al. 2005; Levin et al. 2013; Lubell 2015). Feedbacks are important determinants of system behavior, and, in turn, they depend on cross-scale interactions (Folke et al. 2005). Thus, social–ecological systems highlight the interdependence and coevolution of social systems and ecological systems in water governance (Bakker 2012; Levin et al. 2013; Homer-Dixon et al. 2015; Lubell 2015).

As complex systems transcending diverse but interconnected social, institutional, and knowledge boundaries, water governance systems are framed as patterns of interaction that typically evolve incrementally across multiple scales and forms of decision making and action; from local to global, short to long term, and formal and informal (Kallis, Kiparsky, and Norgaard 2009; Edelenbos and Teisman 2013; Homer-Dixon et al. 2015). These interaction patterns include multiple actors (individuals, groups, organizations, governments, etc.); multiple institutions (rules, norms, and beliefs shaping systems of decision making and action); multiple scales and levels (space and time; local to global); and multiple centers of decision making and action (Bellamy 2007; Gerlak and Heikkila 2007; Kallis, Kiparsky, and Norgaard 2009; Wallis and Ison 2011; Osterblom and Folke 2013). Thus, water governance systems refer broadly to the multiscalar mix of formal and informal institutions, actors, and decision-making systems that influence how power is exercised, decisions are made, actors are engaged or disengaged, and conflicts and interests are accommodated in any particular place or instance (Olsson et al. 2006; Edelenbos and Teisman 2013). Self-organization, collaboration, and adaptation are common emergent properties of water governance systems: novel properties of a whole system that arise from the interactions of its component parts (Levin et al. 2013; Homer-Dixon et al. 2015).

At times the dynamics of the pattern of interactions characterizing water governance systems may create water crises (Edelenbos and Teisman 2013): that is, unexpected or sudden shifts in system behavior engendering ecological, social, and institutional change (Seixas and Davy 2008; Pahl-Wostl 2015). We conceptualize water crises as problems of relational dynamics in the governance of coevolving human and ecological systems that can lead to cross-scale changes in social–ecological system behavior, requiring urgent and innovative institutional responses (Ingram 2011; Wallis and Ison 2011; Ison, Collins, and Wallis 2015). Simultaneous crises can interact to cause larger crises, and these can propagate to the global scale (Homer-Dixon et al. 2015).

Crises and Institutional Change

In the complex, evolving, contested, and uncertain domain of water governance systems, crises are inevitable, engendering ecological and sociopolitical change, which can simultaneously pose both challenges and opportunities (Edelenbos and Teisman 2013; Osterblom and Folke 2013). Crises in social–ecological systems are events (or a closely connected series of events) that are perceived as significant threats to core social values and structures and to life-sustaining systems (ecological, economic, political, or technological) that require urgent responses under conditions of significant uncertainty (Galaz et al. 2011; Homer-Dixon et al. 2015).

Crises may emerge abruptly for a number of reasons, including (a) sudden ecological collapse with adverse social–ecological system consequences (Olsson et al. 2006; Galaz et al. 2011), and (b) purposeful implementation of mandated policy reforms and regulation (Lane and McDonald 2002; Osterblom and Folke 2013). Alternatively, they may evolve incrementally, engendered by (a) changes in the social system, including social values, paradigm shifts, and evolving knowledge systems and technical understanding (Lane and McDonald 2002; Seixas and Davy 2008; Rubenstein et al. 2016); (b) the coincidental interaction of coevolving elements of a water governance system (Edelenbos and Teisman 2013; Homer-Dixon et al. 2015); or (c) delayed recognition of connected risks of underlying social and ecological systems behavior (Olsson et al. 2006; Westley et al. 2011).

On the one hand, crises may lead to broad dissatisfaction and tensions over the existing governance system and its likely impacts (Lane and McDonald 2002; Boin et al. 2009; Kallis, Kiparsky, and Norgaard 2009; Westley et al. 2011). On the other hand, a perception of an emergent crisis can have a profound impact on people’s understanding of the unfolding problem situation and what needs to be done (Olsson et al. 2006; Boin et al. 2009). Crisis situations may open up unanticipated opportunities for avoiding greater harm and thus enable more systemic and adaptive institutional change (Seixas and Davy 2008; Westley et al. 2011; Osterblom and Folke 2013). Moreover, crises challenge convention and thus may be useful precursors to systemic reform and change (Lane and McDonald 2002; Westley et al. 2011), and may engender collaboration and collective action responses (Prokopy et al. 2014; Pahl-Wostl 2015). At times of crisis, society is more likely to consider novel alternatives that foster innovation and learning (Olsson et al. 2006; Westley et al. 2011), and build governance capacities for catalyzing interaction, self-organization, and collective action that shape trajectories of change (Seixas and Davy 2008; Westley et al. 2011; Wise et al. 2014).

Water Governance: Challenges for Large River Basins

The institutions, organizations, and mechanisms for addressing wicked water governance problems may be weak, or lack the capacity to recognize or deal with emergent water crises or the ensuing challenges of the institutional systems in which they are embedded. Over the last two decades, integrative, collaborative, and adaptive governance frameworks and more flexible and engaged roles for science and society have been the cornerstone of dialogues on water governance in diverse contexts (Dietz, Ostrom, and Stern 2003; Gerlak and Heikkila 2007; Ingram 2011; Pahl-Wostl 2015; Head, Ross, and Bellamy 2016). These dialogues pose high expectations for their contribution toward (a) blurring boundaries and building bridges in contentious social–ecological systems situations; (b) interfacing science–policy–community in more interactive and knowledge-building ways; and (c) enabling evolving governance systems to adapt to ongoing change and uncertainty and avoid crises (Kallis, Kiparsky, and Norgaard 2009; Bellamy, Head, and Ross 2012; Ison, Collins, and Wallis 2015; Termeer et al. 2015). However, the implementation of integrative, collaborative, and adaptive approaches has been largely experimental, with major practical challenges experienced both in Australia (Bellamy 2007; Marshall and Stafford-Smith 2010; Wallis and Ison 2011; Curtis et al. 2014; Head, Ross, and Bellamy 2016; Eberhard et al., this issue) and internationally (Dietz, Ostrom, and Stern 2003; Ingram 2011; Pahl-Wostl 2015). Key challenges that constrain successful implementation include:

•Fragmentation of water governance systems across multiple levels and centers of formal and informal decision making and action (Bellamy 2007; Kallis, Kiparsky, and Norgaard 2009; Wallis and Ison 2011).

•Silo mentalities of planning strategies, compartmentalized and sectoralized decision-making processes, or single-issue policy mandates (Edelenbos and Teisman 2013).

•Poor understanding or framing of the complexity and uncertainty engendered by the inherent multiscalar character of water governance systems (Ingram 2011; Wise et al. 2014; Ison, Collins, and Wallis 2015; Head, Ross, and Bellamy 2016; Rubenstein et al. 2016).

•Diverse sectoral interests creating framing contests and tensions between the various actors seeking to exploit opportunities that emerge (Olsson et al. 2006; Boin, ‘t Hart, and McConnell 2009; Kallis, Kiparsky, and Norgaard 2009; Wise et al. 2014).

•Disconnection between mandated water-related policy reform processes and local and regional realities in practice, or between local and regional approaches (Bellamy, Head, and Ross 2012; Pahl-Wostl 2015; Rubenstein et al. 2016; Forster et al., this issue).

•Lack of political will and administrative short-termism, leading to systemic policy failure (Kallis, Kiparsky, and Norgaard 2009; Ingram 2011; Rubenstein et al. 2016).

Critical analysts have called for changes in thinking, practices, and institutional arrangements to establish more systemic and adaptive responses in water governance (Rubenstein et al. 2016), particularly in the case of large cross-border river-basin systems (Gerlak and Heikkila 2007; Marshall and Stafford Smith 2010) and at times of crisis (Pahl-Wostl 2015). Empirical research has largely focused on more “formal” or policy-mandated water governance systems and singular policy initiatives, to the neglect of “self-organized” and “informal” social innovations beyond the local scale. The interaction of formal and informal systems has rarely been examined systemically as a multilevel phenomenon over long time frames (Bellamy, Head, and Ross 2012). In particular, a critical gap exists in our understanding of the nature and dynamics of the evolution of large cross-boundary water governance systems over time; the emergence of “water crises” and their nature and role in shaping innovation and institutional change; and the interaction of self-organized and more “formal” or mandated-policy approaches for water governance.

This article addresses these gaps through an empirical study of the emergence and evolution of a cross-border multilevel water governance system for the large remote Lake Eyre Basin (LEB) in arid central Australia. The analytical focus is understanding the dynamics of institutional change and the emergence of governance capacities that shape patterns of interaction in water governance systems and, in turn, trajectories of change. Three core questions are addressed: What were the nature, role, and function of crises in the emergence of cross-border water governance in the LEB over the last two decades? What challenges emerged and what factors shaped responses to crises in dealing with the wicked nature of the water governance problems faced? What are the legacies for the LEB water governance system in responding to future crises?

Water Governance in Australia: A Brief Overview

The nature and evolution of the policy and institutional background for water and related natural resources governance in Australia is complex (Bellamy 2007; Marshall and Stafford-Smith 2010; Curtis et al. 2014). We summarize some aspects of particular relevance to this case study in the following.

Water governance in the Australian federation is multijurisdictional, involving three levels of government: the national government, six state and two territory governments, and numerous local governments. Constitutionally, water and related natural resources policy is the responsibility of the states and territories, which devolve some regulatory roles to local governments. The national government has traditionally been a minor player focusing on matters of national environmental significance and fulfilling international obligations. Since the 1990s, the national government has taken a more prominent strategic role in managing a growing set of international obligations on the environment, in enabling coordination through intergovernmental agreements with the states on standards and strategic goals, and in providing incentive-based funding for achieving performance outcomes in water and related natural resources policy (Curtis et al. 2014; Head 2014).

In this context, the fragmentation of responsibilities and capacities for water and related natural resources governance in Australia, across multiple actors and levels of decision making and action, has created contentious policy dilemmas and crises. Collaboration and cooperation have been relied upon for “harmonization” across Australian federal and state institutions; however, many challenges have emerged in practice (Bellamy 2007; Marshall and Stafford Smith 2010; Wallis and Ison 2011; Eberhard et al. this issue). For example, each level of government typically adopts its own water governance approach, and state and federal governme...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Crises and Institutional Change: Emergence of Cross-Border Water Governance in Lake Eyre Basin, Australia
• 2. Scales of Power in Water Governance in China: Examples From the Yangtze River Basin
• 3. Rescaling Knowledge and Governance and Enrolling the Future in New Zealand: A Co-Production Analysis of Canterbury’s Water Management Reforms to Regulate Diffuse Pollution
• 4. The Practice of Water Policy Governance Networks: An International Comparative Case Study Analysis
• 5. Building Capacities for Sustainable Water Governance at the Grassroots: “Organic Empowerment” and Its Policy Implications in Nicaragua
• 6. Water Crisis and Options for Effective Water Provision in Urban and Peri-Urban Areas in Cameroon
• 7. Women’s Crucial Role in Collective Operation and Maintenance of Drinking Water Infrastructure in Rural Uganda
• 8. When Policy Hits Practice: Structure, Agency, and Power in South African Water Governance
• 9. Standing Up for Inherent Rights: The Role of Indigenous-Led Activism in Protecting Sacred Waters and Ways of Life
• 10. Crises, Uncertainty and Water Governance for Sustainable Futures
• Index