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Evaluating Adaptive Governance Approaches to Sustainable Water Management in North-West Thailand

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Abstract

Adaptive governance is advanced as a potent means of addressing institutional fit of natural resource systems with prevailing modes of political–administrative management. Its advocates also argue that it enhances participatory and learning opportunities for stakeholders over time. Yet an increasing number of studies demonstrate real difficulties in implementing adaptive governance ‘solutions’. This paper builds on these debates by examining the introduction of adaptive governance to water management in Chiang Mai province, north-west Thailand. The paper considers, first, the limitations of current water governance modes at the provincial scale, and the rationale for implementation of an adaptive approach. The new approach is then critically examined, with its initial performance and likely future success evaluated by (i) analysis of water stakeholders’ opinions of its first year of operation; and (ii) comparison of its governance attributes against recent empirical accounts of implementation difficulty and failure of adaptive governance of natural resource management more generally. The analysis confirms the potentially significant role that the new approach can play in brokering and resolving the underlying differences in stakeholder representation and knowledge construction at the heart of the prevailing water governance modes in north-west Thailand.

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Notes

  1. We thank a referee for this observation.

  2. The average annual volume of water managed by MTIP is ~620 million m3 (MTIP 2012). In 2010, MTIP supplied water for domestic consumption and industry totalling 5.50 million m3 and in 2011 planned to provide 6.066 million m3 to this sector (Water Management Development Group 2007). Domestic consumption and industrial users include Chiang Mai Water Works Authority, army camps, universities campuses and the tourism industry, and topping up of canals around Chiang Mai city centre (MTIP 2012).

  3. Our thanks to a referee for this expression.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Thai Government for doctoral funding for Chutiwalanch Semmahassak’s research in Chiang Mai province, north-west Thailand undertaken during 2010–2013.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK

    Julian R. A. Clark & Chutiwalanch Semmahasak

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  1. Julian R. A. Clark
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  2. Chutiwalanch Semmahasak
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Correspondence to Julian R. A. Clark.

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Clark, J.R.A., Semmahasak, C. Evaluating Adaptive Governance Approaches to Sustainable Water Management in North-West Thailand. Environmental Management 51, 882–896 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-012-9993-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-012-9993-4

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