Water Infrastructure and Governance in an Age of Climate Change
by Johnathan m. fisk, paul a. harris, stefan m.m. kuks, john c. morris, and joanne vinke-de kruijf
The earth’s climate is changing. Centuries of historical climate patterns are shifting in predictable and unpredictable ways. For thousands of years, human civilizations have altered the landscape to harness water resources for human needs—drinking water, agricultural irrigation, flood control, and a myriad of other uses. This existing infrastructure has been constructed with specific climate patterns and uses in mind. Climate patterns, largely stable for generations, have been changing at a much more rapid pace than historical precedent might suggest. These changes have, in turn, created new pressures on the built environment, water infrastructure and governance systems. To continue serving the needs of populations, our overall investment in water infrastructure is unimaginably large. Yet, that infrastructure is also increasingly under threat of being redundant, useless, or overwhelmed as a result of our changing climate.
The problem of climate change and water infrastructure is truly worldwide. Frequent storms create floods that overwhelm existing stormwater control systems. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina breached the levees built to protect the city of New Orleans, resulting in the flooding of the city and the loss of hundreds of lives. The failure of dikes in the southwestern portion of the Netherlands in 1953 resulted in the loss of thousands of lives as well. Prolonged drought in the American West caused hardship for millions. In the Andes Mountains in South America, cities that rely on seasonal runoff from glaciers in the high mountains are now facing scarcity as the glaciers melt faster than the water can be captured. Island nations (and large metropolitan areas) around the globe are threatened with extinction as sea level rise overwhelms the available land.
These exigent conditions create a pressing need for us to reimagine the governance systems in place to address water infrastructure needs. Our recent article in Public Works Management & Policy, “Framing Water Infrastructure for Climate Resilience: Governance Dimensions and Challenges,” identifies several dimensions to infrastructure regimes currently in use and that shape available solutions. Infrastructure goals can be thought of as symptom control (protection), or adaptive (resiliency and flexibility). Some projects are likely to be highly technical in nature, requiring large-scale, “hard” infrastructure, while others can be addressed with solutions that are nature-based or take place at the landscape level. Scale can also be a determining factor: addressing flooding along a local creek requires a different approach than the levee system along the Mississippi River.
The issue at hand is how to develop governance solutions that can address 21st century water infrastructure in an effective, resilient/equitable, and timely manner. We identify five dimensions that should be considered: levels and scales; actors and networks; problem perspectives and goal ambitions; strategies and instruments; and accountability and resources. These five dimensions are the “building blocks” and are interdependent and will mutually adjust. This means that the governance system is both relatively stable, but also subject to external shocks that are not isolated to one dimension but will affect all of the dimensions. Taken together, these dimensions can be employed to construct a framework for understanding the governance challenges surrounding the water infrastructure system but also provide leverage in discussing solutions.
Our article demonstrates that a “one size fits all” approach to climate resilience and water governance are untenable as effective societal responses to climate change. “Siloed” approaches are likely to provide legacy and even myopic solutions and are likely to fail. Our framework offers an alternative path. The nature of our five dimensions mean that solutions are not neither simple nor complex. Some solutions may be relatively straightforward while others require intricate coordination across local, state, national, and international bodies. As the dimensions suggest, solutions represent an amalgamation of expertise from a range of disciplines – from engineers to public finance to community organizers. Furthermore, solutions may be identified quickly, but in many cases, they are often long-term, requiring up-front investment with little (or no) immediate payoff. Our framework enables users to develop solutions that are time and place-specific, resilient, innovative and integrative across multiple challenges. Today’s infrastructure challenges require a different way of thinking not only about the solutions we can bring to bear, but about the governance structures in place to reach those decisions.
Article Details
Framing Water Infrastructure for Climate Resilience: Governance Dimensions and Challenges
Johnathan M. Fisk, Paul A. Harris, Stefan M.M. Kuks, John C. Morris, and Joanne Vinke-DeKruijf
First published November 5, 2023 Research article
DOI: 10.1177/1087724X231212556
Public Works Management & Policy
About the Authors
