Addressing the Challenge of Institutional Infrastructure in a Technically Focussed World - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 334

to treat clouds as if they were clocks (Pearce 2002 ; Sutherland 2011 ) . While
clocks are ordered and predictable, clouds are typified by change and variation.
In approaching the issues of adapting to climate related challenges in the water
sector, we require a more balanced mix of solutions, that will incorporate both the
perspective of clocks (engineering, technical solutions, dyke and dam building,
irrigation technologies; legal frameworks with no mechanisms for review as
hydrological baselines shift) as well as of clouds (accounting for complex adap-
tive and inter-related systems through multi-scale flexible policies and legislation
that pay closer attention to how actors formulate, share and act on knowledge and
information).
In designing institutional and governance responses for enhanced adaptive capac-
ity, closer attention should be paid not only to the scales of governance at which
particular policies should be fostered at, but also to the different speeds and magni-
tude of change for which they can be mobilised. Taking these issues into account in
institutional and policy design, could guide governance reforms to allow for the
generation of responses that attempt to accommodate uncertainty, rather than stop
uncertainty. Equally, it would assist in refocusing the adaptation discussion beyond
the confines of technical, efficiency and infrastructural responses to impacts at
purely local or national levels.
Water governance regimes need to be both adaptable to amalgamating pressures
as climate change develops but also structured to foster elements of a system that
allows for more holistic and sustainable adaptation to take place. Intensified part-
nership and collaboration is needed not just across different scales of governance
but also across the different sector rivalries within basins or watersheds themselves.
In this respect, some heartening lessons can be drawn from multi-party solutions to
watershed protection that have been developed through public-private partnerships
such as the Water Futures Project (SABMiller 2009 ), in which companies collabo-
rate with other stakeholders to protect the watersheds upon which they rely (Wales
2011 ) in the face of mounting challenges from over-abstraction and climate change
impacts.
The focus of this topic has been on adaptation and the governance frameworks
that allow for greater adaptability in the face of escalating pressures within river
basins due to the potential degree of warming in which the climate system is now
locked in. However, it must also be acknowledged, that beyond certain tipping
points, there are state changes to which adaptation and the ability to cope may be
virtually impossible. The more catastrophic levels of climate change (rapid and
significant sea level rise) are likely to impact on resources and ecosystem services
to such an extent that it would have the potential to push the most adaptive gover-
nance system past its ability to absorb such a level of shock and disturbance.
Therefore, despite the focus on the ability to adapt in this topic, the necessity of
mitigating the more extreme levels of temperature rise must also remain a global
priority. In turn, policies and institutions focussing on mitigation and adaptation
should become better integrated in order to take better advantage of potentially
valuable synergies, and ensure the avoidance of mal-adaptation that might in turn
increase climate change drivers.