Towards sustainability in the water sector – The importance of human actors and processes of social learning

Abstract

Current regimes in resource management are often unsustainable as judged by ecological, economic and social criteria. Many technological resource management regimes are inflexible and not built to adapt to changes in environmental, economic or social circumstances. This inflexibility poses problems in a world characterized by fast change. The water sector is currently undergoing major processes of transformation at local, regional and global scales. Today's situation is challenged by uncertainties, e. g., in water demand (diminishing in industrialized countries, rising in developing countries), by worsening water quality, by pressure for cost-efficient solutions, and by fast changing socio-economic boundary conditions. One expects additional uncertainties, due to climate change, such as a shift in the pattern of extreme Aquatic Sciences events. Hence, new strategies and institutional arrangements are required to cope with risk and change in general. When one considers processes of transformation and change, the human dimension is of particular importance. Institutions and rule systems may cause resistance to change but can also enable and facilitate necessary transformation processes. This paper explores conceptual approaches in social learning and adaptive management. It introduces agent-based modelling, and the link between analytical modelling and participatory approaches as promising new developments to explore and foster changes towards sustainability and the required transformations in technological regimes and institutional settings.

Managing Change toward Adaptive Water Management through Social Learning

“…As pointed out by Bormann et al (1993), "Adaptive management is learning to manage by managing to learn." In this case, learning encompasses a wide range of processes that span the ecological, economic, and socio-political domains in the testing of hard and soft approaches (Pahl-Wostl 2002, Gleick 2003. In this respect, adaptive management emphasizes the importance of the management process rather than focusing on goals, but without claiming that the process is an end in itself.…”

“…However, the implementation of an IWRM approach that fully accounts for the complexity and interdependencies of human-technology-environment (HTE) systems has yet to be realized. The increasing awareness of the complexity of environmental problems and of HTE systems has encouraged the development of new management approaches based on the insight that the systems to be managed are, in broad terms, complex, unpredictable, and characterized by unexpected responses to intervention (Committee on Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research 1999, Pahl-Wostl 2002, Prato 2003, Pahl-Wostl 2007bS. Light and K. Blann, unpublished manuscript).…”

Conceptualising uncertainty in environmental decision-making: The example of the EU water framework directive

“…On quite different ways it is pointed out that uncertainty needs to be dealt with when developing solutions for environmental problems (e.g. Faber et al 1992;Handmer et al 2001;Harremoes 2003;Morgan and Henrion 1990;Pahl-Wostl 2002, 2007. This can be observed very well within the present discussion about climate change and possible consequences for water management where a long-term and global perspective is crucial (BMU 2007;Pahl-Wostl et al 2006).…”

Restoration in Integrated River Basin Management

“…To make such nonprofessional perspectives available, stakeholder participation in river governance is recognized universally (Renner et al 2013) as an integral component of river restoration practices, especially in design, funding, and authorization of such projects (Bennett et al 2011). The need for more flexible, adaptive, and integrative approaches to water management (e.g., Gleick 2003;Pahl-Wostl 2007;Milly et al 2008;Viviroli et al 2011) has driven experiments in making governance more adaptive through reflective, participatory, and deliberative dialogue (Pahl-Wostl 2002;Rist et al 2007;Wiek and Larson 2012). These processes and the lessons gained from these experiments are more thoroughly covered in Chap.…”