Adaptive water management and climate change

Project description

In the past water management and water governance were largely typified by centralistic and vertical structures as well as by top-down management, and they were for this reason poorly equipped to meet the challenges of climate change. Many developing and transition countries have already started to reform their water management systems in keeping with the internationally recognised paradigm of integrated water resources management (IWRM), though often without adopting a forward-looking approach and paying due heed to the impacts of climate change on the hydrological cycle.
The project’s aim was to examine water management under the perspective of climate change and to work out proposals for the transition to a flexible, adaptive, and integrated management that is open to learning processes. Based on two case studies (South Africa and Uzbekistan), the project was looking into the conditions under which change takes place in the water sector and what actors are instrumental in initiating or obstructing such change. Going on from there, the aim was to derive conclusions bearing on the ability of these water management regimes to adapt to climate change.