Webinar on adaptation and governance
Changing Climate, Shifting Institutions: Building Governance and Capacity through Freshwater Adaptation
Efforts to respond to the impacts of a shifting climate in the water community have widely focused on particular eco-hydrological changes in freshwater systems, such as floods, droughts, and higher water temperatures. From this perspective, climate change is defined largely as a problem with an engineering (or engineering finance) solution. Engineers themselves, however, have declared that the current measures for designing long-lasting water infrastructure assumes that the recent historical hydrological information is a fair representation of future conditions — an assumption that has recently been declared “dead,” since historical statistically “normal” hydrological states are expected to shift, but without knowing how much or often even in what direction. Climate change thus causes increasingly uncertain hydrological futures for decades and possibly centuries.
Efforts to respond to the impacts of a shifting climate in the water community have widely focused on particular eco-hydrological changes in freshwater systems, such as floods, droughts, and higher water temperatures. From this perspective, climate change is defined largely as a problem with an engineering (or engineering finance) solution. Engineers themselves, however, have declared that the current measures for designing long-lasting water infrastructure assumes that the recent historical hydrological information is a fair representation of future conditions — an assumption that has recently been declared “dead,” since historical statistically “normal” hydrological states are expected to shift, but without knowing how much or often even in what direction. Climate change thus causes increasingly uncertain hydrological futures for decades and possibly centuries.
In a session during World Water Week on Monday, 6 September, a group of more than 10 governmental and non-governmental organizations will focus on climate change as a challenge to the institutional basis for managing water resources across temporal and spatial scales. In many cases, the tools for developing effective approaches to manage water resources more effectively under a stationary climate are well known and appreciated. IWRM, IRBM, basin-level planning, stakeholder cooperation, EIA, and environmental flows analyses have all been developed as strategies or tools for stabilizing freshwater systems that are already stressed by unsustainable use and rapid growth. The barriers to implementing these approaches are largely those of institutional inertia and governance efficacy. However, the climate is not fixed, and therefore these approaches will be increasingly inadequate in future in most regions with intensive water use unless they are sufficiently adaptive.
Under a shifting climate, policies and management regimes must be regularly “updated” as climate variability alters and mean climate conditions create a moving target for water managers. The management of water resources must be flexible, span multiple possible futures, and focus on risk assessment. Hence, water governance institutions will have to be able to learn and evolve in pace with the climate. How do we in the water community begin to incorporate models, and their associated uncertainty, to anticipate emerging aspects of climate that directly impact freshwater availability and quality? What does sustainability mean in the context of an evolving definition of “normal”? Given the centrality of water to climate change adaptation, the implications are that water institutions must themselves become the instruments of climate adaptation, which is a novel role.
The session will also be webcast at this site if you are unable to attend.
Please join us in Stockholm!
Under a shifting climate, policies and management regimes must be regularly “updated” as climate variability alters and mean climate conditions create a moving target for water managers. The management of water resources must be flexible, span multiple possible futures, and focus on risk assessment. Hence, water governance institutions will have to be able to learn and evolve in pace with the climate. How do we in the water community begin to incorporate models, and their associated uncertainty, to anticipate emerging aspects of climate that directly impact freshwater availability and quality? What does sustainability mean in the context of an evolving definition of “normal”? Given the centrality of water to climate change adaptation, the implications are that water institutions must themselves become the instruments of climate adaptation, which is a novel role.
The session will also be webcast at this site if you are unable to attend.
Please join us in Stockholm!
