Abstract
This chapter has presents and discusses the bridges and barriers identified across the different governance scales and cases. The analysis of bridges and barriers to adaptation in relation to extreme events allows for a better understanding of adaptive capacity to be built, primarily through the identification of a set of favourable conditions for fostering adaptive capacity. Becoming aware of what the bridges and barriers are, even those that may seem immalleable can be seen as a first step in defining key factors that can transform barriers into factors that can transform capacity into action. While the analysis focusses on bridges or barriers to specific needs of adaptation and adaptive capacity building, it also drew on findings from the governance assessments and concepts such as IWRM as a starting point from which adaptation to climate related aggravations could be better navigated. Common bridges and barriers related to autonomy and structure, information and capacity, as well as integration and cooperation.
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Notes
- 1.
Perhaps the best example of this comes from another Chilean basin, the Copiapo. ‘Rio Copiapo, is a symbol for the existing water rights and water laws in Chile in that they are not able to solve this problem. So in the Copiapo, you have a very high level of groundwater extraction and the balance is very negative, up to 18,000,000 m3 per year of over exploitation – and they cannot find a solution – that is legal extraction’. (Interview, MMA, November, 2010). Another example comes from the negotiation of water rights on the Huasco River between Barrick Good and the Juntas. Negotiations took place with the Junta rather than the individual farmers themselves. Juntas do not have the right to enter into an agreement on water rights, as they do not own them, so it is ‘ultra vires’. However, the DGA in this case was unable to stop the agreement, as only the court has the power to do so, by which point individual actors may no longer have the capacity to bring a case forward. (Catholic University of Chile, November, 2010).
- 2.
In other basins, such as the Copiapo, Mesa del Agua were piloted in an attempt to resolve the water management issues. ‘The Mesa del Agua originally had no rules, no power, and no standards. It was not a place to take decisions, but just a place where the different interested parties could come to, in order to hear about the plans for different actors, and see presentations. They therefore created a Mesa Tecnica de Agua, and asked the Regional DGA to create a technical group. The members of this group are comprised of 1/3 Government, 1/3 Organised Society, 1/3 Users: Regional DGA, Regional CONAMA, Mining, Water Provision, and Agriculture.’ (Interview, MMA, November 2010).
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Hill, M. (2013). Bridges and Barriers to Adaptive Capacity. In: Climate Change and Water Governance. Advances in Global Change Research, vol 54. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5796-7_11
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