Session> 23582> Social-Ecological Resilience, Climate Change and Adaptive Water Governance of Regional Scale Water Systems in the United States

Lance Gunderson 1, Barbara Cosens

1 : Emory University

Dept. of Environmental Studies 400 Dowman Drive Atlanta, GA 30322 USA - États-Unis

* : Auteur correspondant

We propose an interdisciplinary dialogue that will discuss findings and progress on integrating resilience,

climate change and governance in five case studies in the US; Columbia River, Platte River, Klamath River,

Rio Grande River and the Everglades of Florida. The session will discuss barriers and bridges to integrating

ecological theory with legal and governance frameworks in the context of a changing climate. The results

are an outcome workshops supported by the US Social Ecological Synthesis Center (SESYNC).

Water, in addition to its role in sustaining human life, supports ecosystems that provide many of the

services society relies on. In order to provide a reliable set of services, most United States water based

systems are heavily managed and characterized by aging infrastructure, degraded ecosystems, multiple laws,

rules and regulation as well as a complex set of institutions that govern these systems. Our past and current

governance of these major water systems has not placed them on a path toward sustainability, as these

systems are characterized by crisis and gridlock and continued erosion of ecosystem services. While climate

change accelerates the potential for conflict, it also presents a window of opportunity in which policy

makers may feel sufficient need for response. Resilience thinking provides a bridging concept between

knowledge of the biophysical system and governance principles to move systems of water and society to a

more sustainable future. Facilitating sustainability should involve the development of new models of law

that merge concepts of ecological resilience with social processes that are viewed as legitimate, equitable

and just by the participants in a democratic society, recognizing the need for pragmatic linkages between

current governance systems and new approaches. Achieving this level of integration between ecological

concepts and governance requires a dialogue across multiple disciplines, including ecologists with expertise

in ecological resilience, hydrologists and climate experts, with social scientists and legal scholars.

23916> Rebuilding Windows of Opportunity: Adaptive governance and creative disturbance in the Klamath Basin, USA

Brian Chaffin 1,

1 : Oregon State University (OSU)

Adaptive governance (AG) is increasingly called upon as a type of environmental governance used to build

resilience or shape transformation in social-ecological systems (SESs). Mounting empirical evidence

suggests that AG is often catalyzed during a period of SES reorganization following a major disturbance or

crisis. The context dependent and non-linear genesis of AG structures and processes such as informal

networks, polycentric institutions, and collaborative organizations makes a transition toward AG hard to

characterize, but in essence, it consists of a transformation toward a more preferred state of environmental

governance through leveraging opportunities and managing legacies of a failed system. Governance legacies

can serve as learning opportunities or direct constraints to achieving AG often manifested as reoccurring

disturbances. Theoretically, the defining structures and processes of AG are adept at both managing these

continued disturbances and creating further disturbances that produce windows of opportunity to overcome

constraining legacies of failed governance systems. Using empirical evidence from a case study of a SES in

transition toward a regime of AG, this presentation analyzes AG structures and processes not only as

managers of disturbance, but also as creators of disturbance in order to facilitate further governance

transformation. Specifically, this speed talk highlights a series of social and policy transformations within

the Klamath Basin bioregion of Oregon and California, USA. Analytical emphasis is placed on the roles of

stakeholder collaboration, shadow networks, and polycentric policy direction as both sources and sinks of

disturbance in an ongoing conflict over governance of water, threatened and endangered species, and land

use.

24175> Trans-boundary Headwater Governance in Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH): Need for Building Regional Geo-political Resilience for Adaptation to climate change in South and East Asia

Prakash Chandra Tiwari 1, Bhagwati Joshi 2,

1 : Kumaun University, Nainital, India (KU)

Department of Geography, DSB Campus, Kumaun University, Nainital 263002, Uttarakhand, India - Inde

2 : Government Post Graduate College, Rudrapur, India (GPGC)

Department of Geography, Government Post Graduate College, Delhi Road, Rudrapur, Uttarakhand, India - Inde

* : Auteur correspondant

Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) constitutes headwaters of some of the largest trans-boundary basins of planet

that sustain more than one-fourth global population dependent primarily on subsistence agriculture in South

and East Asia. However, water resources of the region are currently facing severe threats from multitude of

drivers of global environmental change, particularly climate change. Global warming is resulting into rapid

retreat of glaciers, decrease in permafrost and changes in seasonality of run-off. Besides, during recent past,

Asian monsoon has shown sweeping changes resulting into erratic rainfall and increased frequency and

severity of extreme weather events. These changes have stressed hydrological regimes of HKH headwaters

through disruption of groundwater and decreased stream-flow. In view of this, regime of water resources in

South and East Asia is likely to change rapidly, with respect to discharge, volumes, availability and access to

freshwater both in up-streams and down-streams thus exacerbating region's limited capacity to cope with

projected decrease in availability of water for drinking and food production. This may increase proportion of

water, health, food and livelihood insecure population in South and East Asia which includes some of the

poorest people of the world with access to less than 5% of planet's freshwater resources. This will have

enormous regional implications for fundamental human endeavours ranging from poverty alleviation to

environmental sustainability and climate change adaptation, and even to human security and peace in the

region. A regional headwater cooperation framework is therefore highly imperative not only for adaptation

to long-term impacts of climate change, but also for regional security and peace in the region.

Paper aims at engineering geo-political resilience for regional cooperation for adaptive governance of trans-

boundary headwaters in HKH. Comprehensive study of available literature and media reports, interpretation

of people's responses obtained through interviews, interaction with political leadership, government officials

and institutions across the region formed basis of this study. It was observed, increasing power of some

countries and political instability in other states, internal and external security threats, weak leadership, and

long standing inter-state conflicts are important reasons for weakening geo-political resilience in regional

water cooperation in the region. However, there is growing realization and demand by scientific community,

intellectuals, NGOs and civil society organizations and regional institutions for building geo-political

resilience in the region for trans-boundary river-basin management in HKH. Climate change has provided

opportunity to foster regional cooperation, and therefore demands building of geopolitical resilience in the

region. An effective regional water co-operation framework need to be evolved based on: (a) sharing of

hydro-meteorological information for early warning; (b) sustainable headwaters development for mitigating

and moderating risks of climate change induced disasters both in uplands and lowlands; and (f) integrated

watershed management in upland river basins to increase availability of water for drinking and food

production both in upstream and downstream. A number of regional institutions working in South-east Asia

are willing to play meaningful role in initiating trans-boundary headwater governance. Furthermore,

perspective of regional economic cooperation may help in evolving conducive institutional mechanisms for

regional headwater cooperation.

24447> Developing resilient, adaptive water management systems through a bottom-up participatory technology development process - A case study in four Indigenous communities in Canada

Rachael Marshall 1, Khosrow Farahbakhsh 1,

1 : School of Engineering, University of Guelph

* : Auteur correspondant

Indigenous communities in Canada have faced many challenges over the past century, including socio-

economic crises, geographic isolation, a lack of political voice, and failing infrastructure. A lack of synergy

between Indigenous ways of knowing and scientific/technical worldviews has been identified as a primary

contributing factor to many of these issues. The pronounced dichotomy between these perspectives has

resulted in systems that are neither resilient nor meet the unique needs of Indigenous communities. Policies

and procedures that exclude Indigenous worldviews have inhibited effective decision-making processes and

meaningful community engagement.

Water management systems provide a clear case of inhibited decision-making processes in Indigenous

communities. Outdated design and decision-making processes developed and tested in southern, urban

environments are imposed on these communities. The resulting infrastructure is prone to frequent failure,

marked by routine boil water advisories, jeopardizing the health and safety of Indigenous communities.

Indigenous governments and communities must constantly respond to crisis, providing no room to plan for

long-term, appropriate, and resilient water management systems. Compounding these crises are the many

vulnerabilities, including climate change, energy insecurity, and socio-economic and political uncertainties.

We will be presenting the outcomes of an interdisciplinary (Engineering, Sociology, Anthropology, and

Native Studies) research project with four Indigenous partner communities to develop long-term plans for

resilient and adaptive water management systems that fit their unique circumstances. The aim is to build

adaptive capacity to transition these water management systems from complex to complex adaptive.

Embedded in post-normal science, this project has developed appropriate methodologies and tools for

community engagement; gathering local knowledge; characterizing local context; understanding the

complex system of management; and developing long-term scenarios that are informed by both Indigenous

ways of knowing and established scientific and technical knowledge bases.

In particular we will focus on the following aspects:

Methodologies and tools for exploring the synergies between differing knowledge systems

(Indigenous and Western) and to facilitate community engagement;

Application of the narrative approach to design and planning in Indigenous communities;

Application of the adaptive cycle to learning and capacity development; and

Development of a framework for meaningful interdisciplinary research that is both informed by and

informs the community engagement processes.

25413> Symbiosis or Exploitation? Assessing the Ramifications of Rural-Urban Water Transfers in Tamil Nadu, India.

Shanmuga Priya Gnanasekaran 1, Thomas Clark 2,

1 : PhD Candidate, College of Architecture and Planning, University of Colorado Denver.

2 : Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning and Policy Development, Department of Planning and Design College of

Architecture and Planning, University of Colorado Denver

Transferring water from rural agriculture use to urban municipal and industrial use by administrative

decisions is widely practiced in many water-scarce regions in India. There have been numerous ‘for' and

‘against' arguments on rural-urban water transfers. Water transfers are justified on the basis of more efficient

use of water, as farmers are often seen as getting a disproportionate share of water and wasting water.

However, opponents of water transfers argue that mostly short term economic gains play a major role in

shaping water transfers, ignoring the broader political economy and environment. Ideally, planning and

implementation of such water transfers should be carried out with the understanding of the trade-offs

involved, as there is economic, social and environmental interdependence between urban and rural areas.

The processes and critical impacts of rural-urban water transfer are not well researched or understood (Celio

et al., 2010). Past empirical inquiries on water transfers focus on just a few variables, ignoring the

intervening or modifying mechanism, such as characteristics of the water supplying region and response

capacities of preexisting water users, and present contrasting results. Hence, to understand the trade-offs

involved in the rural-urban water transfers, the analysis needs to take a holistic approach that considers the

complex and interdependent ecological and socio-economic processes and feedbacks. In this context, it

would be beneficial to adopt a complex Social-Ecological Systems (SES) approach, as the existence of

trade-off, losing one quality or aspect in exchange for another, is one of the fundamental aspects considered

in the analysis of SES.

This study analyses a selected water transfer case in totality deploying a SES framework (Ostrom, 2011)

and presents the results. Water transfer process is examined from a broad systems perspective,

conceptualizing the water supplying region in the selected case as a complex SES. Chennai Water

Augmentation Project I is chosen for the detailed analysis. This project was implemented in 2004 to convey

water from the Veeranam Lake to the city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, through a 230 km pipeline. The

Veeranam Lake, constructed in the 11th century, irrigates an area of 18,152 ha benefitting 128 villages.

This study draws upon both qualitative and quantitative data derived from surveys, key informant

interviews, field observations and secondary data, and investigates the nature of changes in the supplying

region. Socio-economic characteristics, agricultural productivity, land use and water availability before and

after water transfers are analyzed to determine the changes in the supplying region . The analysis reveals the

following trends: increase in well irrigated and rain-fed agricultural lands; a shift from agriculture as the

main source of income and employment; temporary migration of agricultural workers.

Based on the study findings, the water transfer policy and planning processes can be optimized to balance

the trade-offs between and within the rural and urban regions.

References:

Celio, M., Scott, C. A., & Giordano, M. (2010). Urban-agricultural water appropriation: The Hyderabad, India case.

Geographical Journal, 176(1), 39-57.

Ostrom, E. (2011). Background on the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework. Policy Studies Journal, 39,

7–27.

25736 > The role of social relations and local power structure in managing drinking water stress after natural extreme events

Raju Sarkar 1, Joachim Vogt,

1 : Institute of Regional Science (IfR) - Site web

Kaiserstraße 12 D-76131 Karlsruhe - Allemagne

This paper aims to find out the functionality, scope, and limitation of post-disaster communal response and

communal capacity to adopt with disaster adversities; implicitly concentrating in drinking water aspects in

south-western rural coastal areas of Bangladesh. The intensity of difficulties in drinking water sector in the

study area is mainly influenced by the spatially varied availability of drinking water sources and related

seasonality aspects. Tube well, ponds with or without adjacent filtration facility and household based

rainwater harvesting plant are the main drinking water sources available here. Because of high salinity in

shallow aquifers, particle size of the soil, thickness of aquifer, availability of potable water layer in small

pockets and significant concentration of arsenic and iron, success in terms of tube well installation is limited.

People can drink pond water mainly in the monsoon season because of the tolerable limit of salinity but it is

subject to microbiological contamination. Possibility to collapse for the above mentioned drinking water

supply system remains always high after natural extreme events, because of an outbreak of epidemics and

other forms of secondary impacts. The southwestern coastal inhabitants have experienced such incidence

during the last devastating cyclone ‘Aila' in 2009.

After this incidence, along with inter and intra communal initiatives; a temporary water supply programme

has been put into action by different NGOs to face the challenge, where water has been distributed as

disaster relief material. Information regarding the distribution programme, other forms of coping strategies,

and related problem features has been collected through structured questionnaire survey, in depth interviews

and case studies. The results show that the communal resilience in managing drinking water stress after

catastrophic destruction is limited due to the marginal livelihood security along with geo-spatial constraints,

lack of coordination between socio-political and administrative organizations, the informal interactions of

local power structure and mass level corruption. On the contrary, the social bondage, enthusiasm as well as

voluntary labor offered by the local young generation and the sense of fellow feelings in general to combat

the adversities represents their capacity to cope with such crisis situation.

25183> Linking the participatory evaluation of the water system vulnerability with resilience assessment in communal aqueducts to improve their performance

Gabriela Chaves 1, 2,

1 : Laura Benegas

2 : William Watler

In Costa Rica in 1941, the National Institute of Aqueducts and Sewage Systems (AyA by its Spanish

acronym) was created, with the main purpose to improve access to drinking water and population health.

However, in the 90's decade AyA was unable to cover the water demand of the whole country, and

delegated through a norm, the administration and distribution of water for human consumption to the

Administrative Associations of Communal Aqueducts (ASADA). An ASADAs is a rural nonprofit

organization for public service.

Decentralization, understood as a good strategy to promote local organization led to the creation of more

than 2000 ASADA to the present. Nevertheless, this process lacks a suitable governmental planning,

capacity building and economic support for a good performance of the ASADA. Nowadays, these

organizations are highly dependent of the government in economic terms, which, together with the complex

bureaucratic system, paradoxically generates a new centralization, and permanent problems of water

management for the ASADA.

In 2012, with the financial aid of the Commission for Handling and Management of the Reventazón Basin

(COMCURE), the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) did the

participatory evaluation of the vulnerability of 25 ASADA located in the Reventazón basin in Costa Rica.

The results showed evident problems which were diverse and at different scales, such as the lack of

synergies especially among the governmental institutions and the ASADA, water quality issues related to

actual land uses, aqueducts affected by intensive rainfall, lack of continuity in the processes due to changes

in the ASADA's members every second year, absence of incentives to aid participation into this associations,

and weak adaptive capacity.

The evaluation of vulnerability gave the knowledge of the actual situation of these ASADA, where 80%

prioritized the problem of acueducto management -These are the key issues equivalent to the disturbances

and uncertainties to what they have to build their resilience. Since we also know the projected water

availability for all these system, ranged from 0, 5 to 3 l/sec. However the methodology does not elaborate on

the different scales of analysis, and thresholds to improve resilience to disturbances

Given this situation, there is a need to assess and relate such problems from another perspective, not from a

negative nature anymore, but from a possibility of problem's overcoming, where members of the ASADA

can develop capacities to cope and recover from disturbances. With this goal, it will be used the approach of

socio-ecologic systems, that is to say, of resilience to be able to do an integral management of water

resources from the local knowledge of these aqueducts.

That is why recently initiated a new research from the resilience approach ASADA socio-ecological system

will interact considering the different scales of analysis to generate the construction of systems that are able

to resist, we will present the thresholds and interactions synthesis build for each aqueduct, at the conference.