Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Barchiesi 2009 ) or institutional infrastructure to enhance the ability of the governance
system to agree on and implement efficient, equitable and sustainable solutions to
mounting challenges. Turning attention to incentivising better connections between
economic actors in the basin might allow actors to agree on alternative market based
solutions to restore degraded ecosystems and thus enhance natural infrastructure, as
has been practised in USA basins (Harmon 2010 ) .
Finally, Tompkins and Adger ( 2005 , p 568) note that 'learning by doing requires
decision-makers to accept that they make mistakes and bad decisions…if this accep-
tance is not present, then learning cannot happen'. Just as the focus is on technical
adaptation, the majority of literature on the Chilean water model is concerned with
whether or not the existence of a market can be identified (Thobani 1995 ) , despite
more recent focus by practitioners and academics on the effectiveness of the model
(Bauer 2004 ; Dourojeanni and Jouravlev 1999 ). Optimistically, there is a growing
interest in the government as well as NGO communities as to what precisely the
market is and is not effective for.
Government researchers and analysts, as well as Chilean and World Bank aca-
demics need to move beyond the dogma of the market and place greater emphasis
on this latter question, in relation to the accumulating stresses in the energy-water-
food and environment nexus, to be able to better understand the linkages water
adaptation can provide for sustainability, prosperity and resilience. Furthermore,
findings in this topic showing the limitations of the model in developing and mobil-
ising adaptive capacity to shocks at different scales should be taken as a reinforce-
ment of other studies that have warned against selling the neoliberal market panacea
to other emerging and developing countries as an attractive alternative approach to
water resources governance (Bauer 2004 ) .
16.6
Final Thoughts
Across the world, impacts from climate change are being increasingly experienced
through either too much or too little water, at times in some areas in close succes-
sion to one another (e.g. 2010 floods that followed the severe drought years in the
Murray Darling Basin). While these impacts are likely to intensify through shifts in
climate, water governance challenges do not stem from climate change alone, but
are subject to a mix of interrelated political, environmental, technical and socio-
economic pressures. In addressing these mounting challenges, focussing on how to
transition and transform to more sustainable water governance and management
paradigms, is a crucial piece of the puzzle that includes technical and hard infra-
structural adaptation, but should not be limited to it. For too long, water related
issues have resided in the kingdom of engineers and economists. Rigidity, con-
straint, and structured rules have persisted, constraining both the physical and gov-
ernance systems.
As we move into a new period where uncertainty, unpredictability and com-
plexity (from environmental and social drivers) mount, we can no longer expect
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