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Managing water for sustainable use and economic development is both a technical and a governance challenge in which knowledge production and sharing play a central role. This article evaluates and compares the role of participatory governance and scientific information in decision-making in four basins in Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, and the United States. Water management institutions in each of the basins have evolved during the last 10-20 years from a relatively centralized water-management structure at the state or national level to a decision structure that involves engaging water users within the basins and the development of participatory processes. This change is consistent with global trends in which states increasingly are expected to gain public acceptance for larger water projects and policy changes. In each case, expanded citizen engagement in identifying options and in decision-making processes has resulted in more complexity but also has expanded the culture of integrated learning. International funding for water infrastructure has been linked to requirements for participatory management processes, but, ironically, this study finds that participatory processes appear to work better in the context of decisions that are short-term and easily adjusted, such as water-allocation decisions, and do not work so well for longer-term, high-stakes decisions regarding infrastructure. A second important observation is that the costs of capacity building to allow meaningful stakeholder engagement in water-management decision processes are not widely recognized. Failure to appreciate the associated costs and complexities may contribute to the lack of successful engagement of citizens in decisions regarding infrastructure.water management | water sustainability | public participation | stakeholder engagement

The Northeast of Brazil is characterized by a semi-arid environment with highly variable rainfall and frequent drought. Its population, particularly rural inhabitants who practice rainfed agriculture, are especially vulnerable to climatic extremes that compromise fragile livelihood systems. Since the end of the 19th century, the government has assumed the responsibility for solving the drought problem through programs designed to reduce immediate impacts and permanently diminish the overall vulnerability of the population. This paper focuses on the central northeastern state of Ceará, where the history of drought has been particularly savage and the public policy response particularly ambitious. Based on 3 yr of research, it first documents the vulnerability of rural Ceará, then traces the history of public efforts to mitigate these climatic crises, with particular focus on the role of seasonal forecasting. At the same time, the paper uses field data to report household coping mechanisms of rural inhabitants to drought. The conclusions argue for the need to combine both public and private responses in effective drought planning. KEY WORDS: Drought · Vulnerability · Seasonal forecastingResale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisher

The phrase persistent vulnerability reflects the enduring relationship of the rural population in Ceará with a highly variable climate. Persistence underscores the historical and unyielding nature of this vulnerability. Yet contrary to once-catastrophic rates of mortality etched in a public consciousness, no one dies from severe droughts and few people flee them as in the past. Government relief and social transfers have become the institutionalized form of adaptation, giving way to the counterintuitive reality that drought stabilizes the food and income supply for poor people. We analyze how maladaptive risk reduction, which is embedded in clientilistic social relations, undermines resilience, and we examine pathways toward a more sustainable adaptive relationship. [ABSTRACT Aplicamos o termo vulnerabilidade persistente para representar a relação duradoura entre a população rural do estado do Ceará e a quadra chuvosa altamente variável e incerto. Esta persistência se destaca na inevitabilidade histórica desta vulnerabilidade.Ao contrário dasépocas de seca catastróficas bem cravadas na consciência pública do sertanejo cearense, o cenário da seca marcada de morte e fuga não existe mais. Os programas de emergência e de proteção social já se transformaram em formas institucionalizadas de adaptação, deixando transparecer a realidade irônica que a seca acarreta um período de estabilidade de alimentos e renda para a população mais necessitada. Aqui avanç amos a tese que esta estratégia pública de adaptaçãoà seca, sendo baseado num clientelismo enraizado, enfraquece a resiliência fundamental da sociedade faceà mudanç a climática. Findamos por examinar os caminhos de adaptação mais promissores e sustentáveis.

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