8. Current Thinking
1.
Understand
the system
2. Assess water
resilience
3. Deep
analysis and
Action Plan
4. Implement Action
Plan
5. Monitor plan
Consensus on system
definition and
interdependencies
Consensus on water
resilience
vulnerabilities
Governance gap analysis and
options to address them
Consensus on implementation
priorities, and how to get there
Actions completed
Lessons
learnt
9. Scale-matching
“Any lasting adaptive
governance regime must
operate on a scale with the
best “fit” between social and
ecological components of the
system”
(Rijke et al. 2012)
The key social connectors
critical to the alignment of
social/ ecological boundaries
is leadership, coordination of
actors across multiple levels
through networks and activate
social memory
(Olsson et al. 2007)
10. Next Steps
Develop governance web tool to
support steps 1 and 2
Develop indicators for governance that
are flexible and adaptable
• These must include aspects that are
subjective, objective and relational
(Folke, 2016)
1.
Understand
the system
2. Assess overall
Resilience with
CWRF
3. Analysis.
Generate
Alternatives and
Action Plan
4. Implement Action
Plan
5. Monitor plan
This paper is the last of the special edition and focuses on governance and decision making. Why? Because we must recognise that the last and arguably most encountered hurdle to implementing resilience actions is human choice. The hypothesis here is that, if we can ensure that our decision making processes and governance structures reflect those qualities of our physical solutions then we stand a better chance of inspiring agency. The paper draws on the work of the City Water Resilience Framework, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. This project aims to develop a process that allows a city to define their water system/ hydropolis, diagnose water resilience vulnerabilities and propose and implement an action plan to improve their urban water resilience. My name is Alexa Bruce and I am here on behalf of the Resilience Shift, which is an initiative funded by the Lloyds Register Foundation that aims shift the focus in how we manage our critical infrastructure systems towards resilience.
When I think of adaptive management I think of the tech world, of treating every action as an experiment to prove or disprove your hypothesis, words stolen from Folke. Adaptive co-management brings in elements of cooperation and collaboration which in turn operationalises adaptive governance. Chaffin and others put this simply as Adaptive governance being a strategy to mediate the social conflict that plagues adaptive management of complex ecosystems but also that in totalitarian contexts, adaptive management may be sufficient without adaptive governance. We are interested in exploring how these concepts transcend across different governance structures and politics.
Another key aspect for us in considering governance for resilience is the question of attributes, what qualities should we seek of our governance structures and processes such that they foster a resilience approach? Critically, is there a difference between good governance and governance for resilience?
Almost universally, coordination and collaboration in decision making, or lack there of, have been cited as a major help or hindrance in dealing with shocks and stresses. A few examples to share with you briefly to illustrate this:
The climate compact was established in Miami that brought together all four counties of the region to agree on a common approach to tackling climate change. A key output of this collaboration was the establishment of unified sea level rise projections that now form the common base of decision making around sea level rise.
In recent emergency drought situation in Cape Town, elected officials were unable to know who to trust, what the trade offs of different options were etc. This led to Section 80 committee being set up, made up of external experts operating on a volunteer basis and chaired by an elected official.
In other cities, we found that, international organisations operating through different parts of government had very little contact or communication with one another. This created a somewhat chaotic environment in which perverse and contradicting incentives were established in order to satisfy the requirements of different donors.
In one city, in an interview with a very senior government official, when discussing how decisions are made, he leant over and said, go and look in the drawers of the desks in this building, you will see study after study that look at very similar if not the same. And each one comes to the problem as though it is a clean slate. We have so many plans that never come to pass! For us, this has been really important as a word of warning. We must not seek to reinvent the wheel but build on good work that has already been done.
I think this is a critical point that speaks to the aspect of social memory highlighted as a key characteristic of adaptive governance by Folke.
So what does this mean for our work? We know that if we want to support decision makers through the entire decision making cycle to foster the conditions necessary for implementing resilience actions. This is a classic decision making cycle that although we have all seen before, is rarely supported by a comprehensive framework that delivers the principles we are seeking (the goal posts), the method by which to implement those principles, and the tools to deliver each aspect.
Although obvious it is worth reminding ourselves of what the outcomes we are seeking are from each of these steps. In this phase of work we are focussed on steps 1 and 2 and I just wanted to share a little of our thinking on these with you today to get your friendly critique and input.
Starting from the beginning – it is clear that we need to tackle the issue of scale matching, or institutional fit to ensure hydrological and governance boundaries are aligned. Additionally, we need to have a good understanding of existing projects and programmes and it is from there that we can then conduct our resilience assessment on that basis.
How was this received in the cities?