Adaptive Capacity, Adaptive Governance and Resilience - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 35

approaches that embrace the concept of experimentation and 'learning by doing'
have high importance (Brooks et al. 2005 ; Gunderson 1999 ; Olsson et al. 2004a ;
Pahl-Wostl et al. 2007a ) .
Within the water sector itself, there is a general call for all new water management
measures to be climate resilient. Adaptation strategies therefore aim at reducing
vulnerability, including the possibility of increasing adaptive capacity (UNECE 2009 ) .
To meet the challenges that water-related institutions face from climate change, the
water resources and research community have in recent years focussed more heavily
on better understanding adaptive processes (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2007b ) as a crucial com-
ponent to sustainable water resources management. Different approaches have been
lauded as being relevant for building adaptive capacity at institutional levels in the
water sector. These approaches have included IWRM (as detailed above) as well as
adaptive management, and adaptive governance (as will be detailed in the following
section) (Adger et al. 2005 ; Brooks et al. 2005 ; Eakin and Lemos 2006 ; Yohe and Tol
2002 ), so that institutions and governance frameworks can better cope with an uncer-
tain climate future and its interaction with other, non-climate drivers of change.
In summary, enhancing adaptive capacity aims to broaden existing coping ranges,
thus minimising vulnerability to increasing intensities or frequencies of hazards or
shocks that could erode the resilience of the system (Yohe and Tol 2002 ) . For con-
ceptual clarity, an outline of some of the key terms discussed, features below:

￿ Coping capacity represents the range or boundary within which a system can

deal with environmental/climate stresses through underlying resilience within
the system (Smit and Wandel 2006 ; Yohe and Tol 2002 ) .
Adaptive capacity represents the ability of the system to respond to environmental ￿

and climate variability in order to enable and mobilise adaptation, both in antici-
pation and reaction to potential or current stresses (Nelson et al. 2007 ) .
Determinants of adaptive capacity are the social, economic, ecologic and political

￿

preconditions that influence the ability of the system to adapt (Smit and Wandel
2006 ; Wilbanks and Kates 1999 ) .
Adaptations are manifestations of adaptive capacity, represented by changes in ￿

the system to better deal with impacts from climate and environmental change to
which that system is vulnerable (Smit and Wandel 2006 ) .
Reactive adaptation refers to autonomous reaction to events, mobilising adaptive ￿

capacity (Dovers and Hezri 2010 ; Engle 2010 ; Tompkins and Adger 2005 ) .
Proactive adaptation refers to planning for future climate change, developing adap- ￿

tive capacity (Dovers and Hezri 2010 ; Engle 2010 ; Tompkins and Adger 2005 ) .

3.3 Building Adaptive Capacity Through Adaptive Governance

and Management Approaches

Adaptive governance is one facet of the theoretical movement beyond single policy
concepts (as discussion in earlier sections in this chapter), that reflects the general
call for water management solutions to be more nuanced and fitting to local social,