Addressing Water Governance Challenges in the Anthropocene - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 2

Chapter 1
Addressing Water Governance Challenges
in the Anthropocene

Abstract Water governance, negotiation between actors and institutions for the
effective implementation of acceptable water allocation and regulation, faces a
plethora of challenges over the coming decades. The challenges arising from popu-
lation growth, development, climate variability as well as climate change impacts.
Concurrently, a crisis of governance has been recognised as one of the major issues
facing global water resources over the past decades. The duality of essential role
water governance plays in responding to these challenges and the recognised limita-
tions and failures of governance regimes to adequately manage legacy issues predi-
cates the value of closer investigation of both water governance challenges and
solutions in the context of climate change and uncertainty. This chapter provides an
introduction to the developments in both the challenges to and solutions from water
governance over the past few decades.

Keyword Water governance challenges ￿ Climate change uncertainty ￿ Hydro-
climatic pressures ￿ Water governance solutions ￿ Adaptive and integrative water
management

1.1 Climate Change and Uncertainty: The Great Acceleration

The crisis of governance in the challenges facing global water resources is now well
recognised (Gleick 2009 ; UNESCO 2006 ; WEF 2009 ) . Governance re fl ects the
negotiation between society and government for effectively implementing socially
acceptable allocation and regulation by mediating behaviour through values, social
norms and laws (Rogers and Hall 2003 ). Water governance therefore encompasses
the laws, regulations, property rights, institutions, policies and actions, which man-
age and negotiate water resources as well as networks of influence, such as interna-
tional market forces, the private sector and civil society (UNDP 1997 ) . Population
growth, development, and diminishing water supply from current climate variability