Assessing Adaptive Capacity - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 287

integration of uncertainty into the management and planning of water resources
in the basin.
Ideological rigidity limits the ability to change the framework rules which gov- -

ern the water system and constricts actors' views of how to resolve the complex
emerging problems.
Lacks preparedness and planning for possible scarcity situations due to the per- -

ception of climate change as an issue to be taken into account for long term
horizon planning but not yet for operational day to day management.

Networks

- Lack of trust between actors impedes integrated solutions to common

problems.
Power imbalances between different ministries and government institutions are -

associated with the environment and weaker economic actors being side-lined in
water resource management.

Chapter 11 then presented and discussed the major bridges and barriers to adap-
tive capacity. Results were drawn from the coding and analysing of interviews,
which identified points made about the challenges and ability of the systems to
respond to climate related stresses, to identify aspects of the governance system that
can stop, delay, hinder, or help actors during the process of adaptation. Results from
the bridges and barriers analysis revealed common challenges across both case areas
and scales of governance relating to conflicts between inter-jurisdictional agency
and autonomy, institutional and technical capacity, as well as information and data
availability and accessibility.
In Chile, despite stakeholders at the national level suggesting the flexibility of
the Water Market was a major bridge to mobilising flexible solutions to hydrologi-
cal variation, water users at the local level did not point to market transactions them-
selves as a mechanism that enabled coping during drought periods. Instead, a lack
of information and trust, as well as enforcement issues and institutional capacity
were the main preoccupations at the local level that detracted from the potential
positive effects of flexible management at the user level. In Switzerland, stakehold-
ers across all levels concentrated more on the issues of local autonomy, including
challenges and strategies related to the decentralised mode of governance, as a
potential barrier to integrated long term planning of water resources that could
develop proactive capacity. Across both case areas, stakeholders pointed to the
importance of research networks and knowledge partnerships in developing their
understanding of the challenges and solutions to climate change impacts.
Drawing on these analytical steps, Chap. 12 presented a set of more nuanced
indicators of adaptive capacity that had been developed from the original determi-
nants presented in Part I. Finally, this chapter has presented an analysis of the
fulfilment of the adaptive capacity indicators and a synthesis review of the correla-
tion between adaptive mechanisms and the operationalised indicators of adaptive
capacity. Assessment of the indicators showed challenges across the regime