Applying a Multi-pronged Approach to Assessing Adaptive Capacity - Climate Change and Water Governance: Adaptive Capacity in Chile and Switzerland - page 75

achieved and what insights can be drawn across different scales and geographies,
but inherently recognises the complexity of linked social and ecological systems,
inter-connections across scales of governance and change, and the challenges of
separating climate change from other scales (Lawrence 2010 ; Schoonfeldt 2010 ;
Smit and Wandel 2006 ) .

5.3 Governance Assessment

The initial governance assessment provides a basis from which the adaptive capacity
assessment could take place in each case area, that focused more on how the systems
dealt with climate related uncertainties and impacts from recent extreme events. The
Striver governance assessment methodology has been developed by the Centre for
Water Law, Policy and Science (CWLPS) at the University of Dundee, whose aim
was to develop a systematic methodology to measure governance in the specific
context of integrated water resource management. The legal analysis of water
governance is a first step to its improvement at the local, regional and national levels.
The methodology has already been applied and refined in a number of basins and
sub-basins including the Sesan (Vietnam and Cambodia), the Tagus (Spain and
Portugal) and the Lhasa (China/Tibet - upper Brahmaputra). Its application in the
basins of the Rhône in the Valais, Switzerland and the Aconcagua, in Chile will aim
to further refine and build on the methodology.
While there have been many attempts to assess the quality of governance, most
relate to 'vague aspects of the broad context of governance but do not specifically
address water and governance issues per se' (Rieu-Clarke et al. 2008 ) . The indica-
tor based approach to water governance is founded upon three core elements of
governance; accountability , transparency and participation . Such an approach
provides a mechanism not only to assess existing laws, policies and institutions,
but also the extent to which such governance arrangements have been implemented
in practice. For the purposes of this study, the governance context relates to: legis-
lation; regulation; policies; formal organised institutions (ministries, government
agencies); associations (self-organised groups); legal agreements amongst private
actors; public-private agreements and judicial interpretation. Therefore within the
STRIVER ( www.striver.no ) project, a comprehensive set of indictors for good
governance, tailored directly to the IWRM context, were developed in the style of
a questionnaire comprising 18 key questions, and 60 sub-questions. The resulting
outputs are intended to provide a benchmark for identifying potential gaps and
barriers to implementing IWRM (Rieu-Clarke et al. 2008 ) .
The methodology comprises a series of key indicators which are allocated scores
based on two key criteria: Commitment , which is the degree to which the gover-
nance context adheres to accepted standards of good governance; and Process , the
extent to which this governance context is implemented in reality. Research was
conducted initially through a desktop study to gather all relevant information on the