Claudia Pahl-Wostl

Social Learning and Water Resources Management

Natural resources management in general, and water resources management in particular, are currently undergoing a major paradigm shift. Management practices have largely been developed and implemented by experts using technical means based on designing systems that can be predicted and controlled. In recent years, stakeholder involvement has gained increasing importance. Collaborative governance is considered to be more appropriate for integrated and adaptive management regimes needed to cope with the complexity of social-ecological systems. The paper presents a concept for social learning and collaborative governance developed in the European project HarmoniCOP (Harmonizing COllaborative Planning). The concept is rooted in the more interpretive strands of the social sciences emphasizing the context dependence of knowledge. The role of frames and boundary management in processes of learning at different levels and time scales is investigated. The foundation of social learning as investigated in the HarmoniCOP project is multiparty collaboration processes that are perceived to be the nuclei of learning processes. Such processes take place in networks or “communities of practice” and are influenced by the governance structure in which they are embedded. Requirements for social learning include institutional settings that guarantee some degree of stability and certainty without being rigid and inflexible. Our analyses, which are based on conceptual considerations and empirical insights, suggest that the development of such institutional settings involves continued processes of social learning. In these processes, stakeholders at different scales are connected in flexible networks that allow them to develop the capacity and trust they need to collaborate in a wide range of formal and informal relationships ranging from formal legal structures and contracts to informal, voluntary agreements.

Adaptive Water Governance: Assessing the Institutional Prescriptions of Adaptive (Co-)Management from a Governance Perspective and Defining a Research Agenda

Method and circuitry for decreasing the recovery time of an MOS differential voltage comparator after an input voltage overdrive. At the beginning of a comparison cycle a reverse voltage is momentarily applied between the gates and sources of the input pair of source-coupled MOS transistors of sufficient magnitude to form a charge accumulation layer in the channel region of each of the transistors. Operating the differential voltage comparator in such manner substantially decreases the time required for the transistors to recover from an imbalance in their electrical characteristics caused by the input voltage overdrive.

Towards sustainability in the water sector – The importance of human actors and processes of social learning

Abstract. Current regimes in resource management are often unsustainable as judged by ecological, economic and social criteria. Many technological resource management regimes are inflexible and not built to adapt to changes in environmental, economic or social circumstances. This inflexibility poses problems in a world characterized by fast change. The water sector is currently undergoing major processes of transformation at local, regional and global scales. Todays situation is challenged by uncertainties, e.g., in water demand (diminishing in industrialized countries, rising in developing countries), by worsening water quality, by pressure for cost-efficient solutions, and by fast changing socio-economic boundary conditions. One expects additional uncertainties, due to climate change, such as a shift in the pattern of extreme events. Hence, new strategies and institutional arrangements are required to cope with risk and change in general. When one considers processes of transformation and change, the human dimension is of particular importance. Institutions and rule systems may cause resistance to change but can also enable and facilitate necessary transformation processes. This paper explores conceptual approaches in social learning and adaptive management. It introduces agent-based modelling, and the link between analytical modelling and participatory approaches as promising new developments to explore and foster changes towards sustainability and the required transformations in technological regimes and institutional settings.

Managing change toward adaptive water management through social learning

The management of water resources is currently undergoing a paradigm shift toward a more integrated and participatory management style. This paper highlights the need to fully take into account the complexity of the systems to be managed and to give more attention to uncertainties. Achieving this requires adaptive management approaches that can more generally be defined as systematic strategies for improving management policies and practices by learning from the outcomes of previous management actions. This paper describes how the principles of adaptive water management might improve the conceptual and methodological base for sustainable and integrated water management in an uncertain and complex world. Critical debate is structured around four questions: (1) What types of uncertainty need to be taken into account in water management? (2) How does adaptive management account for uncertainty? (3) What are the characteristics of adaptive management regimes? (4) What is the role of social learning in managing change? Major transformation processes are needed because, in many cases, the structural requirements, e.g., adaptive institutions and a flexible technical infrastructure, for adaptive management are not available. In conclusion, we itemize a number of research needs and summarize practical recommendations based on the current state of knowledge.

Social Learning in European River-Basin Management: Barriers and Fostering Mechanisms from 10 River Basins

A curl correcting unit in which plural curl correcting sections are sequentially arranged in a sheet transporting direction enhances curl correction in a direction to lower edge portions of a sheet. The curl correcting unit which performs curl correction on a sheet on which an image is formed by an image forming apparatus, has a first curl correcting device for applying pressure to the sheet and performing curl correction in a direction to raise the edge portions of the sheet, and a second curl correcting device for applying pressure to the sheet and performing curl correction in a direction to lower the edge portions of the sheet, the second curl correcting device being positioned downstream of a sheet transporting path with respect to the first curl correcting device, the pressure of the second curl correcting device being applied to the sheet at all times during at least transportation of the sheet.

Progress in integrated assessment and modelling

Environmental processes have been modelled for decades. However. the need for integrated assessment and modeling (IAM) has,town as the extent and severity of environmental problems in the 21st Century worsens. The scale of IAM is not restricted to the global level as in climate change models, but includes local and regional models of environmental problems. This paper discusses various definitions of IAM and identifies five different types of integration that Lire needed for the effective solution of environmental problems. The future is then depicted in the form of two brief scenarios: one optimistic and one pessimistic. The current state of IAM is then briefly reviewed. The issues of complexity and validation in IAM are recognised as more complex than in traditional disciplinary approaches. Communication is identified as a central issue both internally among team members and externally with decision-makers. stakeholders and other scientists. Finally it is concluded that the process of integrated assessment and modelling is considered as important as the product for any particular project. By learning to work together and recognise the contribution of all team members and participants, it is believed that we will have a strong scientific and social basis to address the environmental problems of the 21st Century.

Comparison of Frameworks for Analyzing Social-ecological Systems

In this paper we compare 10 established frameworks for analyzing social-ecological systems. We limited ourselves to frameworks that were explicitly designed to be used by a wider community of researchers and practitioners. Although all these frameworks seem to have emerged from the need for concepts that permit structured, interdisciplinary reasoning about complex problems in social-ecological systems, they differ significantly with respect to contextual and structural criteria, such as conceptualization of the ecological and social systems and their interrelation. It appears that three main criteria suffice to produce a classification of frameworks that may be used as a decision tree when choosing a framework for analysis. These criteria are (i) whether a framework conceptualizes the relationship between the social and ecological systems as being uni- or bidirectional; (ii) whether it takes an anthropocentric or an ecocentric perspective on the ecological system; and (iii) whether it is an action-oriented or an analysis-oriented framework.

Toward a Relational Concept of Uncertainty: about Knowing Too Little, Knowing Too Differently, and Accepting Not to Know

Uncertainty of late has become an increasingly important and controversial topic in water resource management, and natural resources management in general. Diverse managing goals, changing environmental conditions, conflicting interests, and lack of predictability are some of the characteristics that decision makers have to face. This has resulted in the application and development of strategies such as adaptive management, which proposes flexibility and capability to adapt to unknown conditions as a way of dealing with uncertainties. However, this shift in ideas about managing has not always been accompanied by a general shift in the way uncertainties are understood and handled. To improve this situation, we believe it is necessary to recontextualize uncertainty in a broader way?relative to its role, meaning, and relationship with participants in decision making?because it is from this understanding that problems and solutions emerge. Under this view, solutions do not exclusively consist of eliminating or reducing uncertainty, but of reframing the problems as such so that they convey a different meaning. To this end, we propose a relational approach to uncertainty analysis. Here, we elaborate on this new conceptualization of uncertainty, and indicate some implications of this view for strategies for dealing with uncertainty in water management. We present an example as an illustration of these concepts. Key words: adaptive management; ambiguity; frames; framing; knowledge relationship; multiple knowledge frames; natural resource management; negotiation; participation; social learning; uncertainty; water management

The Growing Importance of Social Learning in Water Resources Management and Sustainability Science

An air extraction valve and grill assembly for mounting in an opening in the bodywork of the passenger compartment of a vehicle body, and for enabling the extraction of stale air from the passenger compartment, is molded from the rigid thermoplastic material and defines two air extraction apertures. Each aperture is controllably closed off by a valve flap. Each valve flap is molded from rigid thermoplastics material, or produced from other similar rigid material. Onto each valve flap are over-molded two strips of thermoplastic material. One of these strips forms a hinge for supporting the valve flap in the aperture and biassing it into a position where the other over-molded strip acts as a seal with the rigid body of the assembly.

The Dynamic Nature of Ecosystems: Chaos and Order Entwined

Setting the Stage. Ideas of Stability and Equilibrium in Ecological Thought. Evolution and Ecology. Spatio-Temporal Organization. (Spatio-) Temporal Organization in Simple Communities. On How to Delineate the Structure of Ecological Networks. Attempt at a Synthesis and Some Speculations. Appendices. References. Index.