Natural Flood Management implementation is a wicked problem that involves difficult trade-offs, decisions by multiple stakeholders, and actions at multiple spatial scales. Governance of Natural Flood Management implementation is multi-level, with stakeholders connected through vertical, horizontal, and diagonal arrangements. We investigate the extent of multi-level governance of Natural Flood Management in two case studies in Scotland, United Kingdom to understand how decisions are currently made and how decisionmaking processes could be improved. We find that in vertical governance, national-level priorities dominate and constrain Local Authority and community decision-making. In horizontal governance, while there are many mechanisms for collaboration between Local Authorities such as the Local Flood Risk Management Plans, collaboration is in fact limited by funding and workload constraints. In diagonal governance, there are many ways to influence outcomes outside of traditional vertical and horizontal connections, especially through communities, Non-Governmental Organisations, and consulting firms. Improving cooperation and power-sharing across scales can lead to improved Natural Flood Management implementation and stronger resilience to flooding.
Climate change has become one of the biggest environmental challenges the world is currently facing. Recent IPCC projections indicate that climate change impacts will increase as current incremental-based adaptation management approaches are insufficient to deal with climate-induced systemic shocks and climate uncertainties. Despite the use of advanced climate impact assessment models, some uncertainty about the nature, scale and dynamics of these impacts on water systems remain persistent. Due to this uncertainty and the complexity of these systems, a shift to transformative water management, building on transformative adaptation, is needed to accommodate disruptive futures and transformative change. We cannot rely solely on predictive forward-looking approaches that generate likely futures, which argues in favor of the complementary use of normative approaches. Backcasting is such an approach that produces desirable futures, before looking back from these futures to the present in order to develop adaptation pathways that could lead to such desirable futures. Backcasting can provide directionality to transformative change, which can guide actions and small incremental, gradual steps towards transformative change, enabling to explore a diversity of possible adaptation pathways and pathway switching, but more effort is needed to further advance backcasting for transformative water management. Based on recent insights on both transformative adaptation and the use of backcasting for climate adaptation, this paper proposes nine principles for advancing backcasting for transformative water management.
This study investigates the practical merits and limitations of adaptive governance, an approach aimed at guiding the intricacies of climate adaptation in complex socio-technical ecological systems. Despite its recognition as a key strategy, questions persist regarding the potential of adaptive governance as a vehicle for meaningful adaptive change. To address this gap, this paper investigates the governance context of the water-adaptation process to drought and salinity in The Netherlands, with a focus on coastal agriculture in the northern Netherlands. Using an interpretative science approach, the study delves into the experiences and subjectivities of stakeholders engaged in adaptation initiatives combating water-related challenges through semi-structured and conversational interviews. The study presents an exploration of central adaptive governance elements (polycentricity; knowledge and learning; leadership; flexibility and variety; and communication) in theory and relates these to the reality of involved actors. The findings reveal how the aspired polycentric and flexible nature of adaptive governance negatively affects the other elements in practice by affecting collaboration and motivation for adaptation, and observes that (perceived) central leadership is much less influential than expected. The findings contribute to our understanding of the governance of lasting adaptivity, highlighting that the adaptive governance paradigm, although it remains useful, must be re-evaluated for contemporary use. Opportunities for the field are discussed.
Worldwide, deltas are important food-producing areas with increasingly densely populated cities. These water-rich areas are also vulnerable to natural, development and climate change-induced disasters such as floods, droughts, cyclones, sea-level rise and water pollution. Sustaining livelihoods of the delta population now and in the future, is therefore increasingly stressed and with compounding challenges: population growth, urbanization, degradation of the environment, dietary change, and climate change. An integrated approach is necessary to navigate this complexity and to move towards a sustainable but uncertain delta future. We introduce three methodological building blocks to facilitate governance in the delta towards sustainability: A food system approach, co-creation of transition pathways, and scale sensitive governance. We underpin the approach, describing the building blocks while referring to the articles in this Special Issue and other recent research using similar approaches. In this way, the article brings together insights on food systems transitions in deltas from different professional backgrounds and provides insight into and contributes to improving governance in water and food-stressed delta regions.
The Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD) is the main agricultural production region in Vietnam producing rice, fruits, shrimps, livestock among a variety of crops. The current VMD agricultural production system (APS) is under threat from sea level rise aggravated by climate change causing further inland salinity intrusion. Transition pathways towards increased salinity adaptation in APSs are therefore required to maintain food security. This study assesses the present water sources usage for APSs and associated quality, quantity and food safety issues. Water-related stresses observed by farmers in the coastal Tra Vinh region are described based on a focus group discussion and in-depth household interviews. Multiple water sources were described for agricultural practices (e.g., surface water, deep well, rainwater) which differed per season. Also, farmers reported to be affected by salinity (67.3%) and groundwater shortages (28.8%) hampering current agricultural production. Solutions and adaptations foreseen vary from more efficient irrigation, dropping crops and new practices and in a lesser brackish water farming systems or moving to new places and transfer to new jobs. Subsequently, transition pathways focusing on salinity adaptation to maintain food security are proposed from a water- and soil management perspective and include i) irrigation innovations to produce crops under more scarce fresh water availability, ii) freshwater storage as a buffer in dry season; iii) basic water treatment options to make water brackish/saline water suitable for livestock and iv) increase soil organic content which can improve soil water retention and reduce impacts of salinity on crops. It is recommended to test multiple transition pathways on farm level in representative regions in the VMD through living labs or demonstration farms.
This paper investigates the prevalence of water scarcity discourse in Jordan’s policy indicators and examines potential implications of such metrics on the achievement of sufficient, clean water for household needs. The research utilises concepts of household water security and indicator bias to unpack policy-related assessments of domestic water allocation performance and compare them with end-user experiences of system outcomes. Stakeholder perspectives were collected in two northwestern districts, Irbid Qasaba and Ramtha, with a focus on vulnerable Syrian refugee and Jordanian households. The study reveals that the indicators used in policymaking measure allocation performance based on average supply per capita at the governorate level, which inaccurately presumes accessibility and equitability of service across the studied districts and individual households. Syrian refugee and Jordanian end-users in Irbid reported significant variations in their experiences of household water security, highlighting the importance of factors such as frequency of network delivery, tank storage capacity, and assets for alternative sources like private tanker trucks. These point-of-access differentiators are found to be largely unrepresented in policymakers’ data and unaddressed in national or regional management strategies. Instead, simplified indicators in Jordan’s water policies appear to reinforce the national discourse of water scarcity and prioritize supply-driven management practices that insufficiently alleviate insecurities of vulnerable Syrian refugee and Jordanian end-users. The paper emphasizes the need for critical reflection on scarcity data and indicators, urging a shift towards more inclusive and accurate representations of household water access in policymaking processes.
While Bangladesh is reported as doing well in food production, there is increasing concern that this essentially deltaic and highly climate-vulnerable country will face steep challenges in food governance and productivity. Anthropogenic drivers shaped by narrow economic goals and sectoral policies have deeply altered Bangladesh’s food systems since the early 1960s and partly led to adverse outcomes. By combining policy and institutional analysis and primary research in Shyamnagar Upazila in Satkhira district in the southern coastal deltas, we revisit two key transitions, poldering and commercial shrimp farming, to reveal how diverse economic, social, and political factors have reshaped the efficiency, inclusivity, and sustainability of agri-food systems. These complex interactions between agrifood systems, the broader ecology, and heterogeneity in poverty, gender, and other social identities are poorly understood and accounted for in policies and program interventions. This has resulted in unequal conflicts and contestations around critical resources, which impact most marginalized groups, also because policy incoherence encourages collusions between local elites and local decision-makers (all men) for resource appropriation and control. Conceptually, a social-ecological systems (SES) framework would identify these complexities. However, SES approaches tend to be technocratic and overlook the overtly economic framing of natural resources governance, diversity amongst local communities, and the politics of resource appropriation. This gap can be remedied by merging SES thinking with a critical political ecology lens to trace the historical, scalar, and deeply intersectional nature of socio-ecological relations.
Climate change means that urban areas are experiencing more extreme weather events. Although effective, grey infrastructure solutions to flooding have been criticised for harming the environment, having a negative impact on place and not delivering social and wellbeing benefits. There is increasing interest in using natural elements, such as rain gardens and green roofs, in combination with a placemaking approach to facilitate solutions to flooding that deliver multiple benefits. However, the means to achieve this is poorly understood. This paper contributes to the limited knowledge base on how placemaking and adaptation measures can be integrated in urban areas to meet the needs of communities. This was achieved through research undertaken in the Dundee local authority area. This area faces threats from groundwater, coastal and surface water flooding and a range of socio-economic challenges. Findings from 24 semi-structured interviews with practitioners and community group members (CGMs) suggest that while placemaking and blue green infrastructure (BGI) can deliver multiple benefits, the realisation of these can be hampered by a range of obstacles. For example, a lack of clear consensus on who is responsible for maintenance and a preference for grey infrastructure solutions. Practical guidance is provided to help overcome the obstacles identified to enhance flood resilient and liveable places. This guidance will be particularly relevant to colleagues in academia, planners, policy makers and a range of practitioners with a remit in flood risk management, climate change and water management and the communities they serve. Ethical Compliance: This study received ethical approval on January 30 2024 from the School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law Ethics Committee at the University of Dundee, approval number UoD-SHSL-EES-PGR-23/24-001.
Immigrants in western democracies are becoming an important social and demographic group. The extent to which water governance processes and structures are positioned to create space for engagement for these newcomers is not well-understood. We employ a systematic review of the literature to determine the extent to which participative (including collaborative) water governance approaches incorporate voices from immigrant communities. We conduct a systematic search of the relevant literature on participatory water governance over the five-year period 2015-2019 to assess the nature of participation by immigrants in water governance. Results from review of articles that directly focus on participatory to water governance indicate that the water governance research community has been slow to recognize distinctive immigrant voices in research. We discuss how such lack of attention is closely tied with issues of justice and fairness as well as its implications for effectiveness of policies aimed water sustainability.
Water related problems caused by climate change are threatening the future of food systems in both Netherlands and Ghana. In this paper we present the results of a comparative case study analysis. The objective is identifying similarities in the use of spatial information by experts and stakeholders in their attempts to remove the barriers or foster the enablers of NbS uptake in view of climate change. Experiences in this field have been listed in the Rhine-Scheldt Estuaries (the Netherlands) and Bono East Region (Ghana) about rainwater harvesting and reuse of wastewater. The analysis focused on identifying similarities in the use of spatial information by stakeholders in their attempts to remove the barriers or foster the enablers of NBS uptake. Both rainwater harvesting and wastewater treatment techniques are available, and ready to be accepted and applied by farmers and food processing industry. Their uptake however is hampered by multiple barriers, ranging from biophysical and technical barriers to social and institutional barriers. We conclude that spatial information can be an enabler for adoption of nature-based solutions, if the spatial information is applicable for the assessment of a wide range of possible solutions for water scarcity considering food production, either nature-based solutions or technologies. In both case studies we observe a struggle to make the future spatially explicit. In both case studies, the effect on biodiversity of respectively reuse of effluent water and RWH did not play a direct role in the stakeholder dialogue.
Successful governance of groundwater is process, people, and policy implementation working in tandem. While its success may be measured in desired outcomes, sustaining those outcomes depends on the interaction of these three elements. This paper reports the results of interviews conducted with local groundwater district Directors and district Managers in the state of Texas who make policy decisions and implement those policies, respectively. New paradigms of groundwater governance see public engagement as social capital that results in more effective groundwater management outcomes. The focus of this paper is to test this paradigm by presenting groundwater management and public engagement from the perspective of the professionals and practitioners in groundwater management. I conduct thirteen interviews with groundwater Managers and Directors in Texas. Three themes emerge from a qualitative analysis of these interviews. First, sharing Information and expertise with the public is seen as a public service by groundwater Managers that augments their professional roles. Second, this sharing is an informal, two-way exchange with those who have local experience and knowledge. The two-way exchange is built on social networks that form social capital, lowering the transaction cost of implementing policy by Managers. Third, factors beyond the control of Managers can also affect transaction costs of groundwater management. The transaction costs of groundwater management include coordinating user activity and managing the conflict or tensions that arise over groundwater supply and demand. This paper contributes to the literature on the importance of social capital to groundwater management. Results of the study illustrate the importance of user, well-owner, and stakeholder group engagement to effective and efficient groundwater management and policy outcomes.
Watershed Development Programmes (WDP) in India primarily focus on improving ecological landscapes in semi-arid regions, despite policy guidelines that call attention to improving community-level participation. Local level hierarchies based on caste and gender inhibit equal participation for all in decision-making, access, and distribution of programme benefits. This paper presents evidence from drought-affected rural Bundelkhand, in Central India to critically examine how participation is practiced at the ground level. We find that systemic efforts are needed to make participation meaningful for all and to achieve the twin goals of social and environmental development through WDP.
The coastal zone, consisting of one-third country's area, is the most climate-vulnerable region of Bangladesh. The country has invested significantly in coastal zone through the construction and rehabilitation of polders. Despite vast opportunities, land productivity in the polders is very low due to poor water governance and management. To improve in-polder water management, the responsibility of operation and maintenance of the polder water infrastructure has been transferred to Water Management Organizations (WMOs) since 2001. WMOs are currently voluntary organizations but are very important for micro-level agricultural water management. A study was conducted in 2017 and 2018 in a medium saline polder; with a major focus on organizational behaviour: hierarchy in decision-making, transparency, financial accountability, leadership, internal communication, and motivational incentives of the WMOs. The data were collected through a structured questionnaire from 192 respondents of randomly selected eight Water Management Groups (WMGs – the lowest tier of WMOs), out of 40 WMGs of the polder. The results revealed that the WMGs operations are not fully participatory in principle yet. Even the transparency, financial accountability, leadership, and internal communications within WMGs are not strong enough to take the organizational responsibility to address future challenges in food security of the climate-vulnerable polder communities. Improving drainage through efficient water management showed a yield gain of at least 1.5 t/ha in the wet season only. In addition, improved drainage fosters sustainable year-round cropping with high-yielding, high-value and nutrition-rich crops with 2 to 3 times higher productivity than the traditional cropping system. Therefore, investment in water governance particularly in improving drainage in the polders could be a major game-changer in sustaining the food security of the climate-vulnerable polder communities of Bangladesh. The study identified the knowledge gap as a significant concern that demands the need for capacity building of the WMOs.
A large sandy peninsula and beach were realized in Dutch coastal waters in the Sand Engine pilot project. In addition to the benefits for flood protection, the Sand Engine generates multiple other societal values. It provides a new type of landscape of uncommon size along the Holland coast where nature, culture, history and the future can come together. In this paper we discuss the added value of the Sand Engine for culture and the arts, its iconic value, and the development of knowledge in diverse sciences most notably morphology, archeology and paleontology, as well as its educational function. Then we explore how different governance modes can influence how the added value is generated and what type of societal value arises. We distinguish four different governance modes related to the level of control exercised and the level of autonomous societal development allowed by project initiators and managers: directive, co-creational, facilitatory and observational. Different modes can co-exist and may change over time. For the Sand Engine we find that the knowledge development was highly directed, archeology and paleontology were facilitated, while an observational mode was employed towards arts and culture. This leads to the inference that when the physical and societal space is created, societal value-added initiatives emerge. However, such emergence depends on the societal and institutional context as this can act to constrain or enable the type of societal value generated and the extent to which it is realized. Finally, we suggest that applying a more pro-active governance mode to the Sand Engine even at this stage could lead to more diverse and inclusive societal value generation.
The Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has identified periurban development as one of the major drivers of climate risk on vulnerable communities. At the same time, ‘grand challenges’ such as the Covid pandemic and urban–rural contestations create a new imperative for renewed attention to issues of periurban water insecurity by drawing attention to living conditions in periurban spaces where people live in crowded and often informal settlements with inadequate access to safe water. Understanding periurban water insecurity requires paying attention to the dynamic processes of change characterising periurban spaces that make access to water in periurban spaces uncertain and fluctuating. Rather than focus on quantitative indicators of periurban water insecurity or assume that reclassification of jurisdiction status will improve periurban water security, action research with robust partnerships across academia, government and civil society organisations should inform approaches to improve water governance in periurban spaces.
Land and water acquisitions exacerbate the complexity of the water allocation challenges in the Nile region and consequently have contributed to the growing tensions along the Nile River. Smallholders are especially negatively affected by the increase in water use by foreign investors, the loss of access to the commons, and disposition of ownership. This policy brief is a result of a scenario workshop organized in early 2020 in Leiden, the Netherlands, during which some 30 young scientists from a variety of disciplines joined forces to develop four plausible Nile-futures in 2050. The exercise revealed new challenges and potential knowledge gaps in four areas of policy-based research: local innovation and technology, institutional capacity, gover- nance, and investment regulation. Most urgent was the recommendation to have a unified basin- wide university, which would support basin-wide legislation to promote sustainable farming and reduce the negative impacts of land and water acquisitions.
Water conflicts and negotiations between riparian states in the Nile Basin have mostly focused on legal, political, technical, and hydrological aspects of the river and dam construction. The contemporary cultural, emotional, and symbolic dimensions of the river and its dams have been largely overlooked. Therefore, this article explores how the Nile is portrayed, embedded, and perceived in Ethiopian popular culture, particularly popular songs. The Abbay, as the Nile is called in Ethiopia, is an integral part of the country’s identity, culture, history and politics. The river is at the heart of Ethiopian public space and popular songs, which both influence and are shaped by public opinion and official government discourses. The narratives communi- cated through these popular songs dramatically changed after construction began for the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile in 2011. While most songs had previously lamented and cursed the river’s indifference to Ethiopians’ strife, newer narratives glorify and celebrate the river and the GERD. This study used discourse analysis to illustrate how popular songs shape public opinion about Abbay and mobilize popular support for the construction of the GERD. The article concludes with broader implications for water diplomacy and ongoing GERD negotiations.
The COVID-19 crisis has caused a major reshuffle in the core of water governance principles, including food security, water productivity, self-sufficiency and water allocation to high-value us- ers. The pandemic, as a sudden external driver, impacted such principles; this impact was noticed through the effects of the lockdown on exports of crops and supplies, as well as the reduced labour workforce. This article introduces a framework to analyse the effects of the pandemic on the water sector since traditional indicators and data do not capture the initial shock of the first wave of the pandemic. The framework is operationalized and applied to study the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Egyptian water sector and on how it shapes water governance. The article analyses those changes in the urban water sector and in the agricultural sector. It analyses the effects it has on the urban water system, as the sector moves towards digitalization and safe- guarding urban water supplies. In the agricultural sector, Egypt’s position on self-sufficiency and food security policy changes in food imports and exports is analysed. Analysing the two sectors will allow us to see how COVID-19 could have changed the present and translated it into possible pathways for future water governance in Egypt. Moreover, the COVID-19 crisis has created op- portunities for sustainable water governance in Egypt that can help deal with future crises. In ad- dition, there are slow, creeping effects of climate change that Egypt has experienced when Cairo experienced a severe urban flood. The article draws insights from the past on how COVID-19 has changed the present and translates them into future pathways for possible water governance in Egypt. Assessment of the reliability of the water sector undergoing crises or pandemic situations is crucial to facilitate decision-making so as to evolve action plans that can maintain the water availability for the people and safeguard essential services.
This paper provides a historical perspective on the evolution of water governance in the Republic of Ireland where long-term shifts in agricultural activities, demographic characteristics, water and debates over drinking water supply charges have influenced water resources governance and the integration of management practices. Drawing on threads from the past, the paper first describes how water governance from the early 1950s focused on rural access to water, pollution control and monitoring. With the advent of the Water Framework Directive in 2003, the crux of policy and management practices changed, with 81% of present policies mirroring Integrated Water Resource Management principles. However, issues such as the implementation of drinking water supply water charges and equitable access to water resources remain controversial. Looking to the future, the effects of climate change and land use planning, as well as demographic changes and international legislation are among those factors influencing water policy and management in the Republic of Ireland. Structured stakeholder engagement and further research directed at improving water quality is advocated to promote a sustainable and equitable water future.
This article examines the final years of colonialism and the establishment of independent government in East Africa, particularly Uganda. It finds that the British broke from the Nile Wa- ters Agreement by not only ceasing to recognize it but by also circumventing the process for ensuring treaty compliance. They did so on behalf of foreign investors seeking irrigation water. Furthermore, this article shows why the colonial government in Uganda integrated the proposal to flood Lake Albert – which would displace many Ugandans – into discussions about the treaty. The government based this decision on Cold War politics, the personal biases of its advisers and technocratic designs for resettling the region. To contextualize the lack of scholarly analysis re- garding these issues, this article examines how former colonial officials became diplomats, then scholars, who downplayed their treaty breakage and their roles supporting the proposal to flood Lake Albert. Providing further context for the lack of analysis regarding Uganda, it shows how the independent Ugandan government navigated the ambiguous situation that the British left. It also finds that scholars have reproduced the Lake Albert proposal without considering its local signifi- cance. I conclude that although the colonial breakage from the Nile Waters Agreement left the in- dependent governments with no relationship to it, the present role of the Ugandan government in Nile governance is part of a resurgence of foreign investments in East Africa. Outsider control of Lake Victoria is becoming entrenched even as the influence of the Nile Waters Agreement wanes.
