Addressing Water Governance Challenges in the Anthropocene - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 11

with associated impacts on the timing and amount of run off (Häberli and Beniston
1998 ; Pellicciotti et al. 2007 ) projected to increase (Christensen et al. 2007 ) .
As mountainous areas, climate change impacts will be keenly felt in both cases,
mainly through alterations in seasonality (Viviroli et al. 2011 ) . However, shifts in
seasonality and decreases in glacier melt take on particular significance in the Andean
region where dependence on glacier and snow melt run off is high for water availability
during the dry summer months (Pellicciotti et al. 2007 ; Souvignet et al. 2008 ) .
Global climate models show that warming and drying trends have already been
observed and can be projected to intensify for the Andean region (Christensen et al.
2007 ). Temperature increases in the Alps have exceeded 1-1.5 °C since 1900 (about
three times the global-average temperature rise), with corresponding implications
for increased glacial melt and changes in snow pack (OcCC 2008 ; Solomon et al.
2007 ). Furthermore, in combination with the strong El Nino Southern Oscillation
(ENSO) event currently occurring, the central-northern regions of Chile have been
experiencing one of the worst drought periods in memory (DGA 2010 ) . The conver-
gence of climate change impacts with the complex political and economic issues
poses significant challenges across the two case areas that will need to be navigated
through effective water governance frameworks.

1.4 Summary

Effective adaptation and building adaptive capacity should therefore be seen as
crucial to the sustainable management of water resources in the Anthropocene.
Governance is recognised as being an issue at the heart of water resource challenges,
and therefore strengthening adaptive capacity through governance frameworks
is essential for responding effectively to future climatic uncertainty and stress (Folke
et al. 2005 ; UNECE 2009 ) and shifting to means of managing freshwater in a way
that incorporates climate change associated changes in timing, quantity and quality.
Moreover, higher uncertainties and the increasingly indeterminate nature of water
risks (e.g. years of drought followed by extreme flooding) from climate change
challenge the fixed rules and regulations that define many water institutions, and
may lie beyond current planning practices (Matthews and Le Quesne 2009 ) .
As attention has shifted to better understanding adaptive processes, a set of
assumptions and panaceas (single solution applied to wide range of problems) have
arisen in the literature that address how to foster governance arrangements that are
more adaptive, integrative and flexible. However, despite an upsurge in research into
governance and adaptation and the water sector over the past decade, a lack of com-
parative analyses of the application of these approaches in river basins persists
(Huntjens et al. 2011 ). Furthermore, there remain considerable gaps in the empirical
exploration and understanding of the complex dynamics that effect the stimulation
and mobilisation of adaptive capacity at different scales as well as the role of different
governance regimes in building adaptive capacity.