| 1. |
- Baird, Julia, et al.
(författare)
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Contemporary Water Governance : Navigating Crisis Response and Institutional Constraints through Pragmatism
- 2016
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Ingår i: Water. - : MDPI AG. - 2073-4441. ; 8:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Water has often been the source of crises and their frequency will intensify due to climate change impacts. The Niagara River Watershed provides an ideal case to study water crises as it is an international transboundary system (Canada-United States) and has both historical and current challenges associated with water quantity and quality, which resonates broadly in water basins throughout the world. The aim of this study was to understand how stakeholders perceive ecosystems and the relationship with preferences for governance approaches in the context of water governance. An online survey instrument was employed to assess perceptions of the system in terms of resilience (engineering, ecological, social-ecological, or epistemic), preferences for governance approaches (state, citizen, market, and hybrid forms), and the most pressing issues in the watershed. Responses showed that, despite demographic differences and adherence to different resilience perspectives, support was strongest for governance approaches that focused on state or state-citizen hybrid forms. The validity of the resilience typology as a grouping variable is discussed. The roles of institutional constraints, pragmatism in governance approach preferences, and the influence of multiple crises are explored in relation to the context of the study site, as well as to water governance scholarship more broadly.
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| 2. |
- Baird, Julia, et al.
(författare)
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Ecosystem Perceptions in Flood Prone Areas : A Typology and Its Relationship to Preferences for Governance
- 2016
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Ingår i: Water. - : MDPI AG. - 2073-4441. ; 8:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A shift appears to be occurring in thinking about flooding, from a resistance-based approach to one of resilience. Accordingly, how stakeholders in flood-prone regions perceive the system and its governance are salient questions. This study queried stakeholders' internal representations of ecosystems (resistance- or resilience-based), preferences for governance actors and mechanisms for flooding, and the relationship between them in five different regions of the world. The influence of personal experience on these variables was also assessed. Most respondents aligned themselves with a resilience-based approach in relation to system connectedness and response to disturbance; however, respondents were almost evenly split between resistance- and resilience-based approaches when considering system management. Responses generally were considered to hold for other disturbances as well. There was no clear relationship between internal representations and preferences for governance actors or mechanisms. Respondents generally favoured actor combinations that included governments and mechanism combinations that included regulations and policies. Those who had personal experience with flooding tended to align themselves with a resilience-based internal representation of system management, but personal experience showed no clear relationship with governance preferences. The findings support an evolutionary perspective of flood management where emerging paradigms enhance preceding ones, and prompt a critical discussion about the universality of resilience as a framing construct.
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| 3. |
- Melo Zurita, Maria de Lourdes, et al.
(författare)
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Global Water Governance and Climate Change : Identifying Innovative Arrangements for Adaptive Transformation
- 2018
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Ingår i: Water. - : MDPI AG. - 2073-4441. ; 10:1
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- A convoluted network of different water governance systems exists around the world. Collectively, these systems provide insight into how to build sustainable regimes of water use and management. We argue that the challenge is not to make the system less convoluted, but rather to support positive and promising trends in governance, creating a vision for future environmental outcomes. In this paper, we analyse nine water case studies from around the world to help identify potential innovative arrangements' for addressing existing dilemmas. We argue that such arrangements can be used as a catalyst for crafting new global water governance futures. The nine case studies were selected for their diversity in terms of location, scale and water dilemma, and through an examination of their contexts, structures and processes we identify key themes to consider in the milieu of adaptive transformation. These themes include the importance of acknowledging socio-ecological entanglements, understanding the political dimensions of environmental dilemmas, the recognition of different constructions of the dillema, and the importance of democratized processes.
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| 4. |
- Plummer, Ryan, et al.
(författare)
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Flood Governance : A multiple country comparison of stakeholder perceptions and aspirations
- 2018
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Ingår i: Environmental Policy and Governance. - : Wiley. - 1756-932X .- 1756-9338. ; 28:2, s. 67-81
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Flooding is routinely among the most disastrous annual events worldwide with extensive impacts on human wellbeing, economies and ecosystems. Thus, how decisions are made about floods (i.e. flood governance) is extremely important and evidence shows that it is changing, with non-governmental actors (civil society and the private sector) becoming involved in new and sometimes hybrid governance arrangements. This study investigates how stakeholders perceive floods to be governed and how they believe decision-making ought to occur, with the intent of determining to what extent changing governance is evident on the ground and how well (or poorly) it aligns with desired governance arrangements. Flood governance stakeholders were surveyed in five flood-prone geographical areas from Australia, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden. The findings suggest that a reconfiguration of flood governance is underway with relatively little consensus regarding the specific arrangements and mechanisms in place during this transitionary period. Across the five cases, stakeholders indicated that they wanted flood governance to be organized at multiple levels, with strong government involvement and with diverse actor groups, and through mechanisms that match the involvement of these actors, with a lack of desirability for some specific configurations involving the private sector in particular. There was little alignment between stakeholder perceptions of governance currently in place and their desired arrangements, except for government involvement. Future research directions highlight the importance of the inclusion of stakeholder perspectives in assessing flood governance, and following the transition in flood governance over time.
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| 5. |
- Plummer, Ryan, et al.
(författare)
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Probing the relationship between ecosystem perceptions and approaches to environmental governance : an exploratory content analysis of seven water dilemmas
- 2018
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Ingår i: Resilience. - : Informa UK Limited. - 2169-3293 .- 2169-3307. ; 6:1, s. 54-73
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Addressing wicked 'water dilemmas' requires an understanding of the context within which they are embedded. This study explored perceptions of the ecosystem in terms of resilience and the governance approaches employed through a content analysis of documents from seven case studies across the globe. Analytical constructs developed for resilience and governance approaches guided the exploration. Multiple resilience types were present in documents for each case, but few patterns emerged across cases. Governance approaches were strongly focused on state approaches in most cases. A relationship between resilience type and governance approach was not clear; however, a pattern emerged between the presence of the social-ecological resilience type and non-state-centred governance forms. The type of author (government, non-government) or the type of document (research and advisory, descriptive) were not found to mediate the findings as resilience framings varied considerably and state governance approaches were emphasised throughout. As the findings stand in contrast to contemporary scholarship on understanding ecosystems and environmental governance they raise important issues to which individuals must be cognizant when accessing documents for guidance. They also open avenues for future investigation of water dilemmas at the nexus of theory, policy and practice.
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| 6. |
- André, Karin, et al.
(författare)
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Analysis of Swedish Forest Owners' Information and Knowledge-Sharing Networks for Decision-Making : Insights for Climate Change Communication and Adaptation
- 2017
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Ingår i: Environmental Management. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0364-152X .- 1432-1009. ; 59:6, s. 885-897
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- To further the understanding of climate change adaptation processes, more attention needs to be paid to the various contextual factors that shape whether and how climate-related knowledge and information is received and acted upon by actors involved. This study sets out to examine the characteristics of forest owners' in Sweden, the information and knowledge-sharing networks they draw upon for decision-making, and their perceptions of climate risks, their forests' resilience, the need for adaptation, and perceived adaptive capacity. By applying the concept of ego-network analysis, the empirical data was generated by a quantitative survey distributed to 3000 private forest owners' in Sweden in 2014 with a response rate of 31%. The results show that there is a positive correlation, even though it is generally weak, between forest owner climate perceptions and (i) network features, i.e. network size and heterogeneity, and (ii) presence of certain alter groups (i.e. network members or actors). Results indicate that forest owners' social networks currently serve only a minimal function of sharing knowledge of climate change and adaptation. Moreover, considering the fairly infrequent contact between respondents and alter groups, the timing of knowledge sharing is important. In conclusion we suggest those actors that forest owners' most frequently communicate with, especially forestry experts providing advisory services (e.g. forest owner associations, companies, and authorities) have a clear role to communicate both the risks of climate change and opportunities for adaptation. Peers are valuable in connecting information about climate risks and adaptation to the actual forest property.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Armitage, Derek, et al.
(författare)
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An Approach to Assess Learning Conditions, Effects and Outcomes in Environmental Governance
- 2018
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Ingår i: Environmental Policy and Governance. - : Wiley. - 1756-932X .- 1756-9338. ; 28:1, s. 3-14
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We empirically examine relationships among the conditions that enable learning, learning effects and sustainability outcomes based on experiences in four biosphere reserves in Canada and Sweden. In doing so, we provide a novel approach to measure learning and address an important methodological and empirical challenge in assessments of learning processes in decision-making contexts. Findings from this study highlight the effectiveness of different measures of learning, and how to differentiate the factors that foster learning with the outcomes of learning. Our approach provides a useful reference point for future empirical studies of learning in different environment, resource and sustainability settings.
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| 9. |
- Armitage, Derek, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental governance and its implications for conservation practice
- 2012
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Ingår i: Conservation Letters. - 1755-263X. ; 5:4, s. 245-255
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Governments are no longer the most important source of decision making in the environmental field. Instead, new actors are playing critical decision-making roles, and new mechanisms and forums for decision making are becoming important (e.g., in some contexts regulation is being supplemented or replaced by markets and cooperative arrangements). New ways of governing in relation to the environment have important implications for the practice of conservation. Greater awareness of key ideas and concepts of environmental governance can help conservation managers and scientists participate more effectively in governance processes. Understanding how conservation practice is influenced by emergent hybrid and network governance arrangements is particularly important. This short review explores key environmental governance concepts relevant to the practice of conservation, with specific reference to institutional fit and scale; adaptiveness, flexibility and learning; the coproduction of knowledge from diverse sources; the emergence of new actors and their roles in governance; and changing expectations about accountability and legitimacy. Case-based examples highlight key directions in environmental governance.
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| 10. |
- Armitage, Derek Russel, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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Adaptive capacity and environmental governance
- 2010
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Bok (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Rapid environmental change calls for individuals and societies with an ability to transform our interactions with each other and the ecosystems upon which we depend. Adaptive capacity - the ability of a social-ecological system (or the components of that system) to be robust to disturbances and capable of responding to changes - is increasingly recognized as a critical attribute of multi-level environmental governance. This unique volume offers the first interdisciplinary and integrative perspective on an emerging area of applied scholarship, with contributions from internationally recognized researchers and practitioners. It demonstrates how adaptive capacity makes environmental governance possible in complex social-ecological systems. Cutting-edge theoretical developments are explored and empirical case studies offered from a wide range of geographic settings and natural resource contexts, such as water, climate, fisheries and forestry. • Of interest to researchers, policymakers and resource managers seeking to navigate and understand social-ecological change in diverse geographic settings and resource contexts.
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