Meeting the Challenges of Transdisciplinary Knowledge Production for Sustainable Water Governance

Abstract Increasing pressure on mountain water resources is making it necessary to address water governance issues in a transdisciplinary way. This entails drawing on different disciplinary perspectives, different types of knowledge, and different interests to answer complex governance questions. This study identifies strategies for addressing specific challenges to transdisciplinary knowledge production aiming at sustainable and reflective water governance. The study draws on the experiences of 5 large transdisciplinary water governance research projects conducted in Austria and Switzerland (Alp-Water-Scarce, MontanAqua, Drought-CH, Sustainable Water Infrastructure Planning, and an integrative river management project in the Kamp Valley). Experiences were discussed and systematically analyzed in a workshop and subsequent interviews. These discussions identified 4 important challenges to interactions between scientists and stakeholders—ensuring stakeholder legitimacy, encouraging participation, managing expectations, and preventing misuse of data and research results—and explored strategies used by the projects to meet them. Strategies ranged from key points to be considered in stakeholder selection to measures that enhance trustful relationships and create commitment.

[1]  B. Hedelin.  Criteria for the Assessment of Sustainable Water Management , 2007, Environmental management.

[2]  B. Kiteme,et al.  Researchers' roles in knowledge co-production: experience from sustainability research in Kenya, Switzerland, Bolivia and Nepal , 2010 .

[3]  Bradley D. Parrish,et al.  What is social learning , 2010 .

[4]  Lisa Scholten,et al.  Structured decision-making for sustainable water infrastructure planning and four future scenarios , 2015 .

[5]  Ioan Fazey,et al.  Integrating local and scientific knowledge for environmental management. , 2010, Journal of environmental management.

[6]  Eva Plavcová,et al.  Climate change scenarios of precipitation extremes in Central Europe from ENSEMBLES regional climate models , 2011 .

[7]  Urs Wiesmann,et al.  Moving from sustainable management to sustainable governance of natural resources: The role of social learning processes in rural India, Bolivia and Mali , 2007 .

[8]  Lisa Scholten,et al.  Combining expert knowledge and local data for improved service life modeling of water supply networks , 2013, Environ. Model. Softw..

[9]  Michael Lehning,et al.  Enabling effective problem-oriented research for sustainable development , 2012 .

[10]  Claudia Pahl-Wostl,et al.  Analyzing complex water governance regimes: the Management and Transition Framework , 2010 .

[11]  B. Truffer.  Knowledge Integration in Transdisciplinary Research Projects – The Importance of Reflexive Interface Management Wissensintegration in transdisziplinären Projekten – Flexibles Rollenverständnis als Schl?sselkompetenz für das Schnittstellenmanagement , 2007 .

[12]  M. Burawoy.  The Extended Case Method* , 1998 .

[13]  U. Flick.  Qualitative Sozialforschung : eine Einführung , 2007 .

[14]  Philipp Mayring.  Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse : Grundlagen und Techniken , 2003 .

[15]  R. Mayntz,et al.  Policy Networks: Empirical Evidence And Theoretical Considerations , 1991 .

[16]  Claudia Pahl-Wostl,et al.  Transitions towards adaptive management of water facing climate and global change , 2006 .

[17]  F. Schneider.  Approaching water stress in the Alps: Transdisciplinary co-production of systems, target and transformation knowledge , 2011 .

[18]  Arnim Wiek,et al.  Challenges of transdisciplinary research as interactive knowledge generation experiences from transdisciplinary case study research , 2007 .

[19]  Daniel J. Lang,et al.  Problem structuring for transitions: The case of Swiss waste management , 2009 .

[20]  H. Fowler,et al.  Climate change and mountain water resources: overview and recommendations for research, management and policy , 2011 .

[21]  Stanley Wasserman,et al.  Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications , 1994, Structural analysis in the social sciences.

[22]  K. Ingold,et al.  Stakeholder analysis combined with social network analysis provides fine-grained insights into water infrastructure planning processes. , 2013, Journal of environmental management.

[23]  R. Stouffer,et al.  Stationarity Is Dead: Whither Water Management? , 2008, Science.

[24]  Steven P. Schnaars.  How to develop and use scenarios , 1987 .

[25]  Pim Martens,et al.  Transdisciplinary research in sustainability science: practice, principles, and challenges , 2012, Sustainability Science.

[26]  Anil Graves,et al.  Who's in and why? A typology of stakeholder analysis methods for natural resource management. , 2009, Journal of environmental management.

[27]  B. Truffer.  Wissensintegration in transdisziplinären Projekten. Flexibles Rollenverständnis als Schlüsselkompetenz für das Schnittstellenmanagement , 2007 .

[28]  Frederick L. Kirschenmann,et al.  Facilitating Sustainable Agriculture. , 2001 .

[29]  E. Bader.  The Psychology of Mediation: Issues of Self and Identity and the IDR Cycle , 2008 .

[30]  E. Reynard,et al.  Water use management in dry mountains of Switzerland. The case of Crans-Montana-Sierre area , 2012 .

[31]  I. Seidl,et al.  Social capacities for drought risk management in Switzerland , 2013 .

[32]  Claudia Pahl-Wostl,et al.  Towards sustainability in the water sector – The importance of human actors and processes of social learning , 2002, Aquatic Sciences.

[33]  Robin Gregory,et al.  Structured Decision Making: A Practical Guide to Environmental Management Choices , 2012 .

[34]  W. Filho.  Climate Change and the Sustainable Use of Water Resources , 2012 .

[35]  Leon M. Hermans,et al.  Actor analysis methods and their use for public policy analysts , 2009, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[36]  M. Hill.  Characterizing Adaptive Capacity in Water Governance Arrangements in the Context of Extreme Events , 2012 .

[37]  Matthias Bergmann,et al.  Transdisciplinarity: Between mainstreaming and marginalization , 2012 .

[38]  F. Schneider,et al.  Exploring Water Governance Arrangements in the Swiss Alps From the Perspective of Adaptive Capacity , 2013 .

[39]  Flurina Schneider,et al.  Social Learning Processes in Swiss Soil Protection—The ‘From Farmer - To Farmer’ Project , 2009 .

[40]  Geoffrey C. Poole,et al.  Ecology and Society , 2006 .

[41]  A. J. Woodhill,et al.  The second wing of the eagle: the human dimension in learning our way to more sustainable futures , 1994 .

[42]  E. Kardorff,et al.  Qualitative Sozialforschung , 2006 .

[43]  I. Seidl,et al.  Informationsbedarf für die Früherkennung von Trockenheit in der Schweiz. Die Sicht potentiell betroffener Nutzergruppen , 2010 .

[44]  Camilla Sandström,et al.  Multi-stakeholder collaboration in Russian and Swedish model forest initiatives: adaptive governance toward sustainable forest management? , 2010 .

[45]  Robin Grimble,et al.  Stakeholder methodologies in natural resource management: a review of principles, contexts, experiences and opportunities , 1997 .

[46]  Dale S. Rothman,et al.  Formalised and Non-Formalised Methods in Resource Management—Knowledge and Social Learning in Participatory Processes: An Introduction , 2008 .

[47]  F. Wickson,et al.  Transdisciplinary research: characteristics, quandaries and quality , 2006 .

[48]  P. Gleick.  Global Freshwater Resources: Soft-Path Solutions for the 21st Century , 2003, Science.

[49]  M. Bergmann,et al.  Qualitätskriterien transdisziplinärer Forschung , 2005 .

[50]  Arnim Wiek,et al.  Water, People, and Sustainability—A Systems Framework for Analyzing and Assessing Water Governance Regimes , 2012, Water Resources Management.

[51]  P. Kenis,et al.  Policy networks and policy analysis : Scrutinizing a new analytical toolbox , 1991 .

[52]  Tom A. B. Snijders,et al.  Social Network Analysis , 2011, International Encyclopedia of Statistical Science.

[53]  C. Pohl,et al.  Implications of transdisciplinarity for sustainability research , 2006 .

[54]  Gill Ringland,et al.  Scenario Planning: Managing for the Future , 1998 .

[55]  Hermann Klug,et al.  Water management in a changing environment: strategies against water scarcity in the Alps: project outcomes and recommendations: Alp-Water-Scarce Oct. 2008 – Oct. 2011 , 2011 .

[56]  Pierre Wack,et al.  Scenarios : Uncharted Waters Ahead , 1996 .

[57]  N. Röling,et al.  Facilitating Sustainable Agriculture: Participatory Learning and Adaptive Management in Times of Environmental Uncertainty , 1999 .