Applying a Multi-pronged Approach to Assessing Adaptive Capacity - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 70

Chapter 5
Applying a Multi-pronged Approach
to Assessing Adaptive Capacity

Abstract The chapter explains the methodological approach for the research
presented in this topic that aims to contribute to both theory and practice for devel-
oping climate adaptive water governance regimes. The chapter presents how suitable
proxies and indicators for adaptive capacity were identified and developed through
in depth empirical assessment of institutional adaptations and reactions to extreme
events and stresses across the highly contrasting case areas. It details the multi-scale
empirical approach taken in the context of recent extreme events to address some of
the weaknesses from previous, often normatively driven, research on adaptive
capacity that has often been focused either at national or local levels, but rarely
across different jurisdictional, administrative and political levels.

Keywords Empirical assessment of adaptive capacity • Proxy extreme events
• Assessment of adaptive actions • Governance determinants of adaptive capacity
• Water governance assessment • Qualitative analysis of adaptive capacity

5.1 Introduction

The research presented in this topic posed the following key questions:

• How do governance regimes (and mechanisms within these regimes) facilitate

adaptive capacity in the water sector?
What are the key tensions in building adaptive capacity that manifest across dif- •

ferent contexts and scales, and how might these be navigated?

Focusing on adaptive capacity across multiple scales (Fig. 5.1 ) could redress the
frequent disjuncture between the complex interactive nature of adaptive actions in
reality and the levels at which the different adaptation foci tend to take place and at
which research has primarily been targeted (Brunner 2010 ; Dovers and Hezri 2010 ) .