Bridges and Barriers to Adaptive Capacity - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 211

Table 11.2 (continued)

Major barriers and bridges to adaptation: Switzerland

Scale Barriers Bridges

Length of time needed for application of the law in general can be
problematic - e.g. implementation of Art 80 WPA was originally
set for a15 year deadline (2007), however, this has now been
extended to 2012 - due to lack of capacity at the cantonal
administration within its environmental departments and strong
autonomy of communes in the Valais

Legal basis of TRC ensures that a participative process has to
happen, and helps to ensure that a consensus is built earlier
in implementation to avoid the risk of recourse later on -
including the involvement of environmental organisations
from the start of the project
Recognition from private actors (e.g. hydropower operators) of
the need to improve the ecological status of waterways,
where possible, as required by the law
Relative financial dependence of Valais on federal subsidies (one
of the poorer cantons in Switzerland) counterbalances their
relative autonomy and conservativeness to ensure that federal
and cantonal resilience based provisions can still be
implemented

Lack of long term holistic planning or investigation concerning
multi-uses of the streams in relation to changing hydrological
parameters
The highly participative process (e.g. TRC) can be seen as tedious
and ineffective, particularly when lacking needed leadership to
navigate towards a common solution; frustrations also lie in the
lack of expert knowledge from participants in certain cases
EIA process - lack of knowledge and objectivity concerning EIA
process being outsourced to private environmental consultancy
companies that may have it in their interest to write up a
favourable report for the companies that pay them - this is a
regular occurrence with EIA process across many countries

Commune
level

Strong local autonomy is not always matched by strong institutional
capacity and technical expertise.
Implementation of federal provisions for environmental flows causes
tensions for energy, environmental and agricultural canton
departments, because each commune wants to do their own
activities and money from water taxes on the energy companies is
an important source of income

Local autonomy means that municipalities can act according to
their individual needs and geographies, developing local
adaptive processes for periods of stress (e.g., municipal
regulations, specialised water channels etc.)
A sense of ownership over emergency response and land
management plans is fostered due to autonomy and
responsibility for implementation; also, the highly participa-
tive process ensures that over time a consensus is built,
requiring considerable coordination and communication