Anticipatory Governance of Water

Our speakers Heidi D. Mendoza and Dr. Jaishri Srinivasan dive into the different applications of anticipatory governance tools, approaches and techniques in this webinar with a focus on water. Our first speaker Jaishri Srinivasan  will speak about her work in her PhD on River Basin Organisations (RBOs) and how their organizational resilience can be strenghthened in scenarios of environmental disturbances and organizational responses. Our second speaker Heidi D. Mendoza will speak about how theory of anticipation can be used to explore different temporal landscapes of actors, how societies anticipate (un)knowns, and how governance mechanisms that can be developed to coordinate different anticipations over time. Find the full text of the abstracts of our speakers below. 

Dr. Jaishri Srinivasan

About the speaker: Jaishri has a PhD in Sustainability from Arizona State University with a specialization in Complex Adaptive Systems Science. Her research focuses on river governance that balances the conflicting needs of water for food, energy and biodiversity conservation. She uses resilience theory and social-ecological systems science to analyze the ecologies and psychologies of watershed organizations and how decision-making dynamics impact anticipatory and adaptive governance for optimal social-ecological health outcomes. Jaishri also has prior research experience in alternative energy solutions for sustainable development, and climate change adaptation.

Abstract: River basin organizations (RBOs) are the mediating sites of multi-level risks to cities, communities and society. Multi-level risk and resilience assessments are fraught with numerous complexities because of knowledge gaps in both the physical as well as social sciences of the feedback loops and dynamic relationships between different phenomena. A key aspect of future forecasting is to understand past and current responses to multi-risk processes, specifically the human and institutional dynamics. My study characterizes the resilience of organizations undertaking river basin governance and recovery - the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program (UCREFRP) and the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program (LCR-MSCP) in the Colorado River Basin.

I utilize an environmental disturbance-organizational response framework to characterize organizational resilience – and use attitudinal diversity (characterized by attitudes towards agendas) as the mediating metric. Environmental disturbances are defined as either press or pulse and categorized as either institutional or biophysical in nature. Four types of attitudinal diversity metrics are utilized – supportive, clarifying, conditional and critical. Results indicate that institutional press and pulse events generated anticipatory resilience capabilities along with some adaptive capabilities for the organizations. However, the biophysical press and pulse events only reveal coping capabilities and very little adaptive capabilities. With the recent Colorado River shortage declaration, it is critical for the programs to build anticipatory as well as adaptive capabilities for optimal response to biophysical press events.

Heidi D. Mendoza

About the speaker: Heidi Mendoza is a PhD Candidate from the Water and Climate Risk group at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM). Her PhD research focuses on the past and future qualitative storylines of drought-to-flood events as part of the PerfectSTORM Project (‘STOrylines of futuRe extreMes’).

Before joining VU Amsterdam, she was the Program Coordinator of the Sustainable and Inclusive Landscape Governance (SILG) implemented by Foundation Philippines, Tropenbos International, and Wageningen University and Research. Her work entailed designing and facilitating inclusive, and creative dialogues to bring stakeholders together towards sustainable management, and governance of Sierra Madre, Palawan, and Bukidnon-Misamis Oriental landscapes in the Philippines. She also led collaborative research work on community forest rights, and landscape governance assessments.

Prior to her civil society experience, she worked at the University of the Philippines as a Senior Researcher for a Philippine climate-smart agriculture project (Project SARAI). Her work focused on unraveling Filipino farmers’ paradigms, perceptions, and practices on agriculture, and combining these social farming contexts to crop models, and to real-time agricultural monitoring systems.

Abstract: Hydrological extremes such as drought and flood are projected to increase in frequency and severity in the coming decades. Such extremes demand diverse adaptation strategies, adaptive capacities, governance mechanisms, and policies. However, actors may be working on different temporal landscapes and intended futures, and there is a gap in terms of understanding how to coordinate these differences. Hence, this presentation focuses on how theory of anticipation can be used to explore 1) different temporal landscapes that different actors engage in; 2) how societies anticipate (un)knowns; and 3) governance mechanisms that can be developed to coordinate different anticipations over time. In specific, the theoretical framework will be applied to the case of Kaliwa Dam in the Philippines to illustrate how contested and (un)negotiated anticipations lead to mismatches in governance decisions and outcomes.