Westling, E. orcid.org/0000-0002-7143-5592, Sharp, L., Scott, D. et al. (3 more authors) (2019) Reflexive adaptation for resilient water services: lessons for theory and practice. Global Environmental Change, 57. 101937. ISSN 0959-3780
Abstract
‘Adaptive management’ concern attempts to manage complex social-ecological and socio-technical systems in nimble ways to enhance their resilience. In this paper, three forms of adaptive management are identified, ‘scientific’ forms focused on collation of scientific data in response to management experiments, but more recent developments adding processes of collaboration as well as emphasising the need for reflexivity, that is, conscious processes of opening up debates to different perspectives and values. While reflexive adaptive management has been increasingly discussed in theory, there is a lack of examples of what its application means in practice.
As a response, this paper examines an ‘Adaptive Planning Process’ (APP), seeking to apply reflexive adaptive management as a means to improve climate resilience in the UK water sector. The APP’s three inter linked workshops – Aspiration, Scenario and Roadmapping – were co-developed and trialled in a water utility. By describing and justifying the choices made in the development of the APP, the paper aims to reveal some of the challenges that arise when trying to design processes that achieve reflexive adaptation.
The paper concludes that, if applied to planning for climate change, reflexive adaptation has the potential to explore multiple value positions, highlight different potential futures and acknowledge (and hence, partly address) power differentials, and therefore to offer the possibility of real change. On the basis of the trial, we argue that through tapping the depth and breadth of internal knowledge the APP process created the potential for decision making to be joined up across different parts of the utility, and hence offering new strategies and routes for addressing uncertainties and delivering more resilient water services.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 Elsevier. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Global Environmental Change. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Article available under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
Keywords: | Adaptive water management; climate adaptation; reflexive governance; collaborative planning; UK water sector; climate change; uncertainty |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Urban Studies & Planning (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 01 Jul 2019 11:26 |
Last Modified: | 02 Jul 2020 00:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.101937 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:147912 |
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Licence: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0