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Building Adaptive Capacity in Water- Scarce Environments: Governance, Knowledge and Institutional Change. Maria Carmen Lemos School of Natural Resources and Environment-University of Michigan. Adaptive capacity.
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Building Adaptive Capacity in Water- Scarce Environments: Governance, Knowledge and Institutional Change Maria Carmen Lemos School of Natural Resources and Environment-University of Michigan
Adaptive capacity “The ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes), to moderate potential damages, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with the consequences’’ (IPCC 2001)
Knowledge and water management • Brazil’s technocratic tradition: water management as sectoral, hierarchical and technically insulated • Implications of knowledge use to water management
Basin committees attributions • Conflict resolution • Basin Plans • Bulk Water Charging: Pricing rules / Investment plans • Priorities for Water Rights • Approving government programs • Approving large water rights concessions
Institutions and Governance Mechanisms Engle 2007
Adaptive Capacity Index (Engle 2007) • Guiding assumptions • Representation: The more representative, the higher the adaptive capacity. • Participation: The more participatory, the higher the adaptive capacity. • Knowledge and Information Availability and Use: The more knowledge and information available and used, the higher the adaptive capacity. • Equality: The more equal distribution of power and agenda setting ability, or the less inequality, the higher the adaptive capacity. • Flexibility: The more flexible, the higher the adaptive capacity. • Commitment/Buy-In: The more commitment/buy-in, the higher the adaptive capacity. • Networks/Connectivity: The more networked and connected with other institutions and stakeholders, the higher the adaptive capacity. • Experience: The more water management and public policy experience, the higher the adaptive capacity. • Resources: The more resources (wealth and education), the higher the adaptive capacity.
Constraints • Difficulty in measuring “latent” state of adaptive capacity; how to define and measure dependent variable (adaptation) • Limitations of data; scale • Need to “ground truth” it with qualitative interviews
Governance/democracy Knowledge
Water reform in Ceará • Early 1990s • Role of técnicos and World Bank • Cobrança and outorga • Cogerh
Experience • Values, preferences, ideas • networks • Accountability • Discretion • Compatibility • insulation Simplified Institutional model individual Willingness to adopt techno scientific knowledge organization • Culture • Autonomy • capacity • Complexity/nature of the problem • Built infrastructure • Institutional arrangements Broader Institutional environment Knowledge “fit,” access, communication
Survey • Although 65.9 % of the water committee members surveyed report that technical information makes decisionmaking easier, only 22% perceive it as accessible and available to all. • Disparate level of knowledge between técnicos and general members as the main constraint to the democratization of decisionmaking within the Committee, above economic and political power disparities.
Water management, Knowledge and Adaptive Capacity • Reservoir scenarios • Why does it work? • Role of reform-oriented técnicos, perception of “fit” • Conflict between • different users • Ajuzante/montante • Amounts of water discharged from three different reservoirs
Findings • The new system in Ceará significantly decentralized decision-making about water allocation and stimulated user participation. • Technical information: • improved participation and allowed for better informed decisions • may allow for more participation for water users, especially elites which contributes to the continuation of traditional patterns of non-elite exclusion. • reinforce the dominance of a technical discourse in water management (advocates for the dominance of technical discourse argue that considering the possibility of excessive and wasteful consumption, there should be limits to users’ discretionary powers in the first place. • the Ceará case supports the argument that institutional change alone will not guarantee effective participation of stakeholders in water management. Beyond the creation of formal participatory organizations, the availability and accessibility of knowledge may play a crucial role
The role of técnicos and their personal belief systems and worldviews is critical • There is evidence—if not of democratic water management—of more equitable, transparent, and accountable systems when compared with the region’s previously exclusionary, clientelistic approach to water management. • The relative success of negotiated allocation and the use of techno-scientific knowledge may signal the building of adaptive capacity • The effective decrease in water resources consumption also indicates progress in intergenerational implications of water management. • Yet, the failure to consider long-term environmental effects and regulate groundwater challenges sustainablity in the long run.
Farmers building a dam as part of the government emergency work front program
The Ceará “exception” • Water scarcity and historical technocratic approach • “drought industry” and clientelist politics • “Centralized decentralization” • Social scientists and the Dept of Users Organizing • Users Commissions and participatory methodologies • Political backlash
Watermark Project (Projeto Marca D’agua)www.marcadagua.org.br • 35 researchers in academia and policy • Survey of 626 members of river basin committees and consortia across 18 basins • Five modules: • participation, • representation, • information use, • Sociodemographic data and values, • physical characteristics and activities
What kinds of inequity constraint the democracy of decisionmaking in your basin: technical knowledge
Accessibility of Technical information (presented in a manner that facilitates understanding.
