The politics of adaptive governance: water reform, climate change, and First Nations’ justice in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin

Ecology and Society: a journal of integrative science for resilience and sustainability

article

Carina A. Wyborn¹  Lorrae E. van Kerkhoff¹  Matthew J. Colloff¹  Jason Alexandra¹  Ruby Olsson¹ 

[1] Institute for Water Futures, Australian National University;Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University;Institute for Climate, Energy, and Disaster Solutions, Australian National University

关键词: governance logics climate change;    polycentric governance;    trade-offs;    water justice;    water politics;   

DOI  :  10.5751/ES-13641-280104

学科分类：生物科学（综合）

来源: Resilience Alliance Publications

【 摘 要 】

Adaptive water governance scholarship aspires to flexible and responsive governance that is inclusive and supportslearning and collaboration among a wide range of stakeholders. Much of this scholarship assumes that polycentric arrangements willfacilitate these characteristics as different nodes of decision making adapt and respond to challenges within their arena of authority.However, in the case of both adaptive water governance and polycentricity, there are growing questions as to whether the reality matchesthe theoretical ideal. Drawing on a case study of Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin, we introduce the concept of a polycentric spectrumto distinguish between systems that resist change from those that enable more adaptive transformative change. In our case study, anoverarching national agenda of water reform has generated a perpetual cycle of reviews and inquiries into water governance. Weexamined 34 reviews conducted since 2004, asking whether, how, and to what extent these recommendations are enabling governanceadaptation and transformation versus maintaining conventional paradigms. Our analysis revealed problem-solving logics that havedominated water governance for decades to stymie efforts to move toward the more adaptive and transformative forms of governancerequired to address two key areas of reform: climate change and First Nations’ water justice. Despite an acknowledged need forsubstantive reforms, inquiry recommendations perpetuate technocratic (for climate change) or administrative rationalist (for FirstNations) approaches. We argue that the reform agenda needs to be directed away from governments as the sole agents of change throughdeliberate and strategic efforts to engage local level and non-state actors who are central to adaptive water governance. This wouldrequire debate about reforms to move beyond how water is allocated and optimized to address how power is redistributed in the system.Our analysis questions whether polycentricity alone is sufficient to enable normatively desirable adaptive water governance, suggestingthe need for future work to consider whether other organizing concepts, such as water justice might be required.

【 授权许可】

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