Solidarity in transboundary flood risk management: A view from the Dutch North Rhine–Westphalian catchment area

Climate change is putting pressure on water systems, and its effects transcend man-made boundaries, making cooperation across territorial borders essential. The governance of transboundary flood risk management calls for solidarity among riparians, as climate change will make river basins more prone to flooding. ‘Solidarity’ means that individuals act to support members of a particular community to which they belong. Recently, the solidarity principle has become institutionalized due to its formalization in the EU Floods Directive. However, it is not clear what solidarity means in the upstream–downstream practices of transboundary flood risk management. Understanding the meaning of solidarity is important for the development of cross-border climate adaptation governance. This article discusses the conceptualization of the solidarity principle and explores its meaning for international cooperation in the Dutch North Rhine–Westphalian border region. Our critical case study reveals that although all actors understand the importance of solidarity, they interpret it differently, often based on self-interest related to their position in the catchment. The formal inclusion of the solidarity principle in the Floods Directive can best be seen as a step in the continuous development of transboundary flood risk governance, as no striking changes in practice have been identified after its formalization.

Policy relevance

As climate change increasingly puts pressure on river basins and other shared resources, cross-border cooperation and solidarity are seen as increasingly important. This article discusses the meaning of solidarity in practice and reveals how this normative principle may contribute to transboundary climate adaptation governance. Understanding its meaning is important for future cross-border climate adaptation governance.     

Closing the governance gaps in the water-energy-food nexus: Insights from integrative governance

The water-energy-food nexus has become a popular concept in environmental change research and policy debates. Proponents suggest that a nexus approach promotes policy coherence through identifying optimal policy mixes and governance arrangements across the water, energy and food sectors. Although the nexus literature identifies some barriers to achieving coherence it does not clearly explain why the barriers are present, what influences them, and how they can be acted upon. These gaps disconnect the nexus literature from the governance processes it ultimately seeks to influence. This paper examines how the integrative environmental governance literature can help to close these gaps. It extracts insights from seven streams of research literature and discusses their relevance for the nexus literature. We argue that connecting the nexus to decision-making processes requires: i) rethinking the boundaries of nexus analysis vis-à-vis other sectors and levels; ii) elaboration of shared principles that can guide decision-making towards policy coherence − or an appropriate form of fragmentation − in different contexts; iii) viewing policy coherence as a continuous process of changing values and perception rather than as an outcome.     

Assessment of institutional capacity to adapt to climate change in transboundary river basins

Responses to climate change in transboundary river basins are believed to depend on national and sub-national capacities as well as the ability of co-riparian nations to communicate, coordinate, and cooperate across their international boundaries. We develop the first framework for assessing transboundary adaptive capacity. The framework considers six dimensions of transboundary river basins that influence planning and implementation of adaptation measures and represents those dimensions using twelve measurable indicators. These indicators are used to assess transboundary adaptive capacity of 42 basins in the Middle East, Mediterranean, and Sahel. We then conduct a cluster analysis of those basins to delineate a typology that includes six categories of basins: High Capacity, Mediated Cooperation, Good Neighbour, Dependent Instability, Self-Sufficient, and Low Capacity. We find large variation in adaptive capacity across the study area; basins in Western Europe generally have higher capacities to address the potential hazards of climate change. Our basin typology points to how climate change adaptation policy interventions would be best targeted across the different categories of basins.     

Bringing resilience-thinking into water governance: Two illustrative case studies from South Africa and Cambodia

Resilience is a multidimensional concept that is increasingly used to understand environmental change in hydrological systems. Yet, the current discussion about water governance and resilience remains relatively limited, with resilience typically seen as a normative outcome for governance (i.e., to be resilient against change). Using a theoretical multiplicity approach, we explore how the theories of social-ecological systems (SES), resilience and interactive (water) governance can provide new insights for water governance studies. We propose a resilience–governance framework that captures the partly overlapping but distinct characteristics from these three theories. The framework aims to develop a more nuanced way of using resilience-thinking for water governance, viewing resilience as a function of three capacities (absorptive, adaptive and transformative capacity) and noting the simultaneous existence of three interpretations for resilience (as a property, process and outcome) across different scales. The framework also considers issues of power and equity, which are often missing from resilience framings. We illustrate the framework with two case studies – the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia and a small sub-catchment of the Limpopo River Basin in South Africa – to provide two distinct examples of the possibilities of resilient governance. Finally, we consider what the framework suggests more broadly for ongoing discussions around resilience and water governance, including the possibilities for governance to also ‘bounce forward’ – i.e., transform – to a new, improved state. We argue that resilience-thinking may be valuable in understanding governance characteristics and guiding governance processes, in addition to seeing resilience (just) as a normative end-goal. In this way, the article supports an epistemological shift away from focusing on institutional structure, towards capturing the dynamic processes within governing systems.     

Seeing the forest and the trees: Facilitating participatory network planning in environmental governance

Governance processes to address environmental change involve many different actors from multiple spatial, temporal and socio-political scales, not all of whom are connected by hierarchy and whose actions cannot always be mandated. In the environmental governance literature, Social Network Analysis (SNA) has been found useful in understanding complex governance arrangements. In this paper we present and reflect on our experience with the Net-Map tool for participatory network mapping. The Net-Map tool was applied in three transdisciplinary case studies for three different purposes: (a) to contribute to an improved understanding of biodiversity knowledge flows in Europe, (b) to explore the interplay between actors with influence on water, agriculture, and energy developments at the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, and (c) to understand the challenges facing stakeholders engaged in conservation and economic development in a Southeast Asian mountain range. The case studies explore how network maps can serve as boundary objects to engage stakeholders of diverse points of view and jointly design strategies to address governance challenges. More specifically they show how network maps are used to gain a better understanding of governance situations, to help stakeholders identify strategies for navigation of the complex networks in which they are embedded and to support transdisciplinary research processes. We close with some reflections on the potential and limitations of the Net-Map tool in facilitating multi-stakeholder processes and disentangling complex governance arrangements.     

Exploring earth system governance: A case study of floodplain management along the Tisza river in Hungary

This paper discusses a recently proposed conceptualisation of ‘earth system governance’ by applying it to floodplain management in the Hungarian Tisza river basin. By doing so it aims to improve our understanding of governance systems facilitating adaptation to a changing world. The conceptualisation of earth system governance consists of three elements: problem structure, principles and research challenges. These three elements are assessed using results from actor interviews and policy review. A regional example of natural resources management is found to be a valid case for earth system governance research. The proposed conceptualisation of earth system governance explains well the main problems, barriers and opportunities for adapting floodplain management to climate change in the Tisza region. Problem structure analysis highlights how previous socio-economic and political orders continue to shape expectations and patterns of conduct. Current barriers can be attributed to a lack of the key governance principles credibility, stability, inclusiveness and adaptiveness. Interviewees perceived the lack of credibility and effective cooperation between organisations as the largest barrier. The research challenges proposed for earth system governance agree well with opportunities identified for adapting Tisza floodplain management, calling for inclusion of actors beyond governments and state agencies, and equitable resource allocation in particular. The analysis suggests that an additional challenge for earth system governance is the prioritisation of actions to support an existing governance system and its actors in adapting.     

Urban greenspace as a climate change adaptation strategy for subtropical Asian cities: A comparative study across cities in three countries

Interest in nature-based approaches for climate change adaptation in cities is growing. Whilst there is a growing field of scholarship in a European and North America setting, research on the policy and governance of urban greenspace for climate adaptation in subtropical Asia is limited. Given the different development patterns, environmental characteristics and governance arrangements in subtropical cities, plus their comparatively large population and high climate risk, this is a significant knowledge gap. In response, this paper evaluates competences – skill sets, capabilities, and supporting policy and legislation – to enact adaptation through greenspace across different governance contexts; and assesses how international rhetoric on nature-based adaptation becomes localised to subtropical Asian city settings. We conduct interviews with stakeholders, plus review of relevant policy and city-specific research, for three cities with different governance and development contexts: Hanoi (Vietnam); Taipei (Taiwan); and Fukuoka (Japan). Across all three cases, we find that institutional structures and processes for connecting different remits and knowledge systems are a bigger challenge than a lack of appropriate policy or individuals with the required technical knowledge. However, opportunities for civil society participation and consideration of justice issues vary between the cities according to the socio-political context. These findings illustrate the value of individuals and organisations able to work across institutional boundaries in linking greenspace and adaptation agendas for subtropical Asian cities; and the importance of competence in collaboration with developers and civil society so that the rapid development or regeneration seen in subtropical Asian contexts does not tend towards green climate gentrification. More broadly, our findings show that the diverse nature of subtropical Asian cities means the role of greenspace in climate adaptation is likely to be context-specific, and thus that caution must be exercised against uncritically importing best practices from exemplar cases elsewhere.     

Navigating climate crises in the Great Barrier Reef

A dramatic escalation of extreme climate events is challenging the capacity of environmental governance regimes to sustain and improve ecosystem outcomes. It has been argued that actors within adaptive governance regimes can help to steer environmental systems toward sustainability in times of crisis. Yet there is little empirical evidence of how acute climate crises are navigated by actors operating within adaptive governance regimes, and the factors that influence their responses. Here, we qualitatively assessed the actions key governance actors took in response to back-to-back mass coral bleaching – an extreme climate event – of the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 and 2017, and explored their perceptions of barriers and catalysts to these responses. This research was, in part, a product of collaboration and knowledge co-production with Great Barrier Reef governance actors aimed at improving responses to climate crises in the region. We found five major categories of activity that actors engaged with in the wake of recurrent mass coral bleaching: assessing the scale and extent of bleaching, sharing information, communicating bleaching to the public, building local resilience, and addressing global threats. These actions were both catalyzed and hindered by a range of factors that fall within different domains of adaptive capacity; such as assets, social organization, and agency. We discuss the implications of our findings as they relate to existing research on adaptive capacity and adaptive governance. We conclude by coalescing insights from our interviews and a participant engagement process to highlight four key ways in which the ability of governance actors, and the Great Barrier Reef governance regime more broadly, can be better prepared for, and more effectively respond to extreme climate events. Our research provides empirical insight into how crises are experienced by governance actors in a large-scale environmental system, potentially providing lessons for similar systems across the globe.     

Governing geoengineering research: why, when and how?

Research on geoengineering – deliberate management of the Earth’s climate system – is being increasingly discussed within the science and policy communities. While justified as necessary in order to expand the range of options available to policy makers in the future, geoengineering research has already engendered public controversy. Proposed projects have been protested or cancelled, and calls for a governance framework abound. In this paper, we consider the reasons why geoengineering research might be subject to additional governance and suggest mechanisms that might be usefully applied in developing such a framework. We consider criteria for governance as raised by a review of the growing literature on geoengineering and other controversial scientific topics. We suggest three families of concern that any governance research framework must respond to: the direct physical risks of the research; the transparency and responsibility in decision making for the research; and the larger societal meanings of the research. We review what mechanisms might be available to respond to these three families of concern, and consider how these might apply to geoengineering research.     

Looking beyond the fisheries crisis: Cumulative learning from small-scale fisheries through diagnostic approaches

The common scientific and media narrative in fisheries is one of failure: poor governance, collapsed stocks, and vanishing livelihoods. Yet, there are successful fisheries – instances where governments and/or communities have maintained or rebuilt stocks, where fishers have robust livelihoods, and where institutions are strong. Scientists and managers alike are becoming increasingly interested in moving beyond the doom-and-gloom stories of fisheries failures toward cumulative knowledge for making fisheries governance more successful. Recent literature has attempted to determine what separates the successes from the failures and better understand how lessons learned for effective fisheries governance can be cumulatively compiled. In this special issue, we present a range of fisheries studies from around the world – Latin America, The Pacific, and East Africa. The studies look at varying fisheries outcomes, including sustainability, cooperation, self-governance, and sustaining livelihoods. The contributions in this special issue all tackle the challenge of exploring, testing, and refining the Diagnostic Framework for Analyzing Social-Ecological Systems developed by Elinor Ostrom as a way to cumulate knowledge on the potential conditions that could be causing a problem or creating a benefit in the governance of small-scale marine fisheries. These articles successfully explore the applicability and contributions of the framework while providing important theoretical refinements for small-scale fisheries.     

Certification,good agricultural practice and smallholder heterogeneity: Differentiated pathways for resolving compliance gaps in the Indonesian oil palm sector

Enhancing smallholder compliance with sustainability standards and good agricultural practices features prominently on the global sustainability agenda. Operating in a sector that bears intense public scrutiny, Indonesia’s oil palm smallholders are especially confronted by pressures to enhance their environmental performance. Because smallholders experience differentiated compliance barriers however, it is widely recognized that for the purpose of more effectively prioritizing and targeting the necessary intervention support, smallholder heterogeneity needs to be better understood. This is especially the case for independent – in contrast to ‘plasma’ - oil palm smallholders, for whom corporate technical, input and financial support is comparatively inaccessible. Through multivariate analysis, this article contributes to these needs by developing a typology of independent oil palm smallholders in Indonesian Borneo. We subsequently model the predicted probabilities of different types of smallholders complying with Indonesia’s major national sustainability standard and select indicators of good agricultural practice. This analysis reveals structural compliance gaps, which threatens to restrict smallholder access to formal markets in future. In showing that intervention strategies to resolve these compliance gaps can be more impactful when these are adapted to smallholder livelihood assets, portfolios and strategies, this article points to the importance of more explicitly accounting for socio-economic differentiation when addressing contemporary smallholder upgrading challenges. With results however revealing how local entrepreneurs and elites complicit in regulatory evasion and illegal land encroachments play a significant role in the sub-sector, local political resistance to initiatives that aim to bring the sub-sector above board can be anticipated. This highlights how institutional building needs to be more explicitly incorporated into the design of smallholder-centric intervention strategies; through, for example, the adoption of more integrative landscape-level planning approaches.     

Quantifying interregional flows of multiple ecosystem services – A case study for Germany

Despite a growing number of national-scale ecosystem service (ES) assessments, few studies consider the impacts of ES use and consumption beyond national or regional boundaries. Interregional ES flows – ecosystem services “imported” from and “exported” to other countries – are rarely analyzed and their importance for global sustainability is little known. Here, we provide a first multi-ES quantification of a nation's use of ES from abroad. We focus on ES flows that benefit the population in Germany but are supplied outside German territory. We employ a conceptual framework recently developed to systematically quantify interregional ES flows. We address four types of interregional ES flows with: (i) biophysical flows of traded goods: cocoa import for consumption; (ii) flows mediated by migratory species: migration of birds providing pest control; (iii) passive biophysical flows: flood control along transboundary watersheds; and (iv) information flows: China's giant panda loan to the Berlin Zoo. We determined that: (i) Ivory Coast and Ghana alone supply around 53% of Germany's cocoa while major negative consequences for biodiversity occurred in Cameroon and Ecuador; (ii) Africa´s humid and sub-humid climate zones are important habitats for the majority of migratory bird species that provide natural pest control services in agricultural areas in Germany; (iii) Upstream watersheds outside the country add an additional 64% flood regulation services nationally, while Germany exports 40% of flood regulation services in neighboring, downstream countries; (iv) Information flows transported by the pandas were mainly related to political aspects and - contrary to our expectations - considerably less on biological and natural aspects. We discuss the implications of these results for international resource management policy and governance.     

Unpacking governance: Building adaptive capacity to climate change of river basins in Brazil

Governance and institutions are critical determinants of adaptive capacity and resilience. Yet the make-up and relationships between governance components and mechanisms that may or may not contribute to adaptive capacity remain relatively unexplored empirically. This paper builds on previous research focusing on integrated water resources management in Brazil to ‘unpack’ water governance mechanisms that may shape the adaptive capacity of water systems to climatic change. We construct a river basin index to characterize governance approaches in 18 Brazilian river basins, apply a reliability test to assess the validity of these governance indicators, and use in-depth qualitative data collected in a subsample of the basins to explore the relationship between the governance indicators and adaptive capacity. The analysis suggests a positive relationship between integrated water governance mechanisms and adaptive capacity. In addition, we carry out a cluster analysis to group the basins into types of governance approaches and further unveil potential relationships between the governance variables and overall adaptive capacities. The cluster analysis indicates that tensions and tradeoffs may exist between some of the variables, especially with equality of decision making and knowledge availability; a finding that has implications for decision makers aiming to build adaptive capacity and resilience through governance and institutional means.     

Governing community forests and the challenge of solving two-level collective action dilemmas—A large-N perspective

The effectiveness of forest governance practices has consequences that range from the local to the global level. In general, the study of community forest governance relies heavily on case-study materials. The strength of single case and small-N comparative studies is related to the ability to uncover the nuances of time and place specific particularities. A recognized weakness of this approach relates to the fact that results cannot easily be extrapolated. For my analysis, I use a large-N, cross-national dataset instead. What constitutes an effective local forest governance regime? I show that especially monitoring – and to a lesser extent, maintenance – is correlated with improving forest conditions. When are effective governance regimes likely to emerge? I show that social capital, organization, leadership and autonomy contribute to the development of institutions for collective action. How does competition between forest users affect governance? I provide empirical evidence that two-level collective action dilemmas hinder the emergence of effective governance regimes.     

The ‘co’ in co-production of climate action: Challenging boundaries within and between science,policy and practice

Effective action taken against climate change must find ways to unite scientific and practice-based knowledges associated with the various stakeholders who see themselves as invested in the global delivery of climate governance. Political decision-makers, climate scientists and practitioners approach this challenge from what are often radically different perspectives and experiences. While considerable work has been done to develop the idea of ‘co-production’ in the development of climate action outputs, questions remain over how to best unite the contrasting epistemological traditions and norms associated with different stakeholders. Drawing on the existing literatures on climate action co-production and from translational perspectives on the science-policy interface, in this paper we develop the concept of ‘boundary agency’. Defining this as the agency ‘possessed’ when willing and able to translate between different epistemological communities invested in a similar policy and governance challenge such as climate change, we offer it as a useful means to reflect on participants’ understanding of the ‘co’ in co-production. This is in contrast to the more established (often academic-led) focus on what it is that is being produced by co-production processes. We draw from two complementary empirical studies, which explicitly encouraged i) engagement and ii) reflection on cross-boundary co-production between climate action stakeholders from different backgrounds. Reflecting on the two studies, we discuss the benefits of (and barriers to) encouraging more active and sustained engagement between climate action stakeholders so as to try to actively blur the boundaries between science and policy and, in doing so, invent new epistemological communities of practice.     

Mediating science and action across multiple boundaries in the Coral Triangle

This study seeks to refine literature on boundary work by exploring how stakeholders in the Coral Triangle Initiative, an international agreement between six countries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, are forging relations across various domains and governance levels, and the outcomes of this process. We do this in an effort to increase its relevance to multi-level environmental governance, and understand the challenges that face such governance. We are also interested in the pathways leading to policy outcomes that are perceived as salient, credible, and legitimate to all stakeholders involved in governance. The study shows that boundary work is challenged by resource inequalities resulting in limited knowledge diversity, blurred boundaries between science and politics, and misaligned scales. We conclude that boundary work has an important temporal dimension that has often been neglected, and that literature on boundary work must provide a conceptual guide to understand tradeoffs arising as a result of stakeholders’ various strategies to engage in boundary work.     

Knowledge exchange and policy influence in a marine resource governance network

Few case studies have considered the impact of network structure on the resilience of complex resource management systems that operate over large spatial scales. To help fill this knowledge gap our study examined two types of relational ties—knowledge exchange and policy influence—within a marine wildlife co-management network in Northern Australia. We conducted interviews and follow-up surveys with key-informant stakeholders in dugong and marine turtle management and used these data to perform social network analysis for the dugong and turtle co-management network. The network structure of this marine governance system supports extensive cross-scale information flow, but with a disproportionate amount of top-down policy influence compared with knowledge accumulation, an arrangement that may hinder evidence-based decision making. We developed a typological ‘map’ of stakeholder roles in the network to characterize each stakeholder's contribution of knowledge and ability to influence policy, helping to identify gaps or overlaps in network linkages. Improving communication links between knowledge producers and policy makers is important for evidence based decision making throughout the management network, while addressing overlapping management roles and functions should help decrease conflict in the system. These improvements would increase social-ecological resilience in the management network by providing better protection for marine species while meeting the needs of diverse stakeholders.     

Rethinking barriers to adaptation: Mechanism-based explanation of impasses in the governance of an innovative adaptation measure

Many of the possible barriers in the governance of climate change adaptation have already been identified and catalogued in the academic literature. Thus far it has proven to be difficult to provide meaningful recommendations on how to deal with these barriers. In this paper we propose a different perspective, with different epistemological assumptions about cause and effect than most existing barrier studies, to analyze why adaptation is often challenging. Using the mechanismic framework, we study how the idea for an innovative “Water Plaza” was realized in the city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Mechanisms are understood as patterns of interaction between actors that bring about change in the governance process that lead to policy impasses. Our analysis reveals three mechanisms that explain the impasses in the first Water Plaza pilot project: the risk-innovation mechanism, the frame polarization mechanism, and the conflict infection mechanism. Only after several substantive changes in the project design, location choice, and process architecture was the project of Water Plaza's revitalized. We discuss how the short-sighted ideas about cause–effect relationships, reflected in the superficial identification of barriers, may prove to be counterproductive; if there is high uncertainty about the risks of an innovation, the solution of offering more certainty is not very helpful and could, as it happened in the case study, trigger other mechanisms, creating an even tighter deadlock. Our study also suggests that when adaptation is considered as something innovative, the chances will increase that the risk-innovation mechanism will occur. We conclude that unearthing mechanisms offers new opportunities and different types of strategic interventions in practice than most existing studies have offered.     

The role of uncertainties in the design of international water treaties: an historical perspective

Water is one natural resource whose management is especially susceptible to uncertainties, many of which are being exasperated by climate change. Some of these uncertainties originate from knowledge deficits in physical conditions while others relate to behavioral and social variability related to water supply and use. However, to our knowledge no quantitative analysis of how uncertainties have been translated into transboundary water treaty structures exists. The present paper partially fills this gap through an examination of how uncertainty has been reflected in basin specific transboundary treaties and how that reflection has changed over the last century. While we could identify only minor trends in the frequency with which uncertainties are mentioned in treaties, we did find two clear patterns in the strategies adopted to deal with them. First, treaties seem to adopt a portfolio approach that spreads the dangers of uncertainty by concurrently including several management strategies simultaneously. Second, there is a trend towards more open-ended strategies in recent decades, rather than hard codification of rules as had earlier been more common.     

‘Earth system governance’ as a crosscutting theme of global change research

In 2001, the four global change research programmes ‘urgently’ called for ‘an ethical framework for global stewardship and strategies for Earth System management’. Yet this notion of ‘earth system management’ remains vaguely defined: It is too elusive for natural scientists, and too ambitious or too normative for social scientists. In this article, I develop an alternative concept that is better grounded in social science theory: ‘earth system governance’. I introduce, first, the concept of earth system governance as a new social phenomenon, a political programme and a crosscutting theme of research in the field of global environmental change. I then sketch the five key problem structures that complicate earth system governance, and derive from these four overarching principles for earth system governance as political practice, namely credibility, stability, adaptiveness, and inclusiveness. In the last part of the article, I identify five research and governance challenges that lie at the core of earth system governance as a crosscutting theme in global change research. These are the problems of the overall architecture of earth system governance, of agency beyond the state, of the adaptiveness of governance mechanisms and of their accountability and legitimacy, and of the modes of allocation in earth system governance—in short, the five A's of earth system governance research.