Applying a Multi-pronged Approach to Assessing Adaptive Capacity - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 78

hydrological extremes, coping techniques and adaptation actions before, during and
after the events.
However, when utilising extreme events as a means to analyse the governance
framework, certain dynamics and limitations do need to be recognised. While look-
ing at both heavy precipitation events and drought allows the study to explore the
governance contexts of two contrasting hydrological events, the governance arrange-
ments for responding to each event are very different. However, findings from the
investigation of the individual governance mechanisms that shape responses to each
form of extreme still are vital for comparative insights into the broader water gover-
nance framework within which they sit (Huntjens et al. 2011 ) .
For the purposes of this study, adaptive mechanisms are termed as a response,
institution or governance mechanism (law, regulation, policy, collective rule)
that are undertaken at the national, regional or local level in order to prepare for
or respond to different scales of environmental change (i.e. inter-annual variability,
drought, floods, climate change impacts). This definition therefore takes into
account both proactive and preparatory adaptation as well as reactive and autono-
mous adaptation. Adaptive actions and mechanisms analysed therefore represent
legislation, or particular articles, regulation, policy frameworks or institutional
actions (i.e. decisions or rules of user group associations) that provide guidance
or mechanisms for drought or flood management, the prioritisation of users during
particular peak periods (scarcity or high demand) and infrastructural adaptation
to shifting hydrological patterns. While the Swiss case area covers adaptive
mechanisms relating to both flooding and scarcity situations, the Chilean examples
pertain only to drought and scarcity. The definition is deliberately broad and evades
an exclusive linkage to climate change impacts since other studies have highlighted
the difficulty in separating 'pressures exerted as a result of climate change from
other economic, environmental or developmental pressures' (Tompkins and Adger
2004 , p 564).
Beyond a certain tipping point of extremes, it is the response system that is
invoked. However, the responses system is formulated through the governance system,
born out of the institutional context and therefore this should not be seen as an
impediment. The characteristics of the governance context are highly relevant to the
effectiveness of the response system. Bearing this in mind, the study proposes that
the governance framework can provide answers to managing flood situations that
are not only pertinent to a response system. For instance, the rules that govern and
frame land use zoning, natural flood plain management and river corrections are all
elements of a water management system, independent to the response system, which
would have an impact on the flexibility of a system to manage heavy precipitation
events. This approach assumes that SESs will conduct some form of adaptation to
such events, and that lessons can be drawn from them as a means of better under-
standing the attributes and variables of a system (governance and institutional
mechanisms) that would foster sustainable adaptive actions to climate change
impacts in the future.
The identification of extreme events within which to analyse adaptive processes
is intended to improve the understanding of the current and future vulnerability