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WaterCoG Evidence on How the Use of Tools, Knowledge, and Process Design Can Improve Water Co-Governance

The European Union Water Framework Directive (WFD) encourages water managers to implement active stakeholder involvement to achieve sustainable water management. However, the WFD does not describe in detail how member states should operationalize participation. The need for local experience and local understanding of collaborative governance (co-governance) processes remains. The WaterCoG project evaluated 11 local pilot schemes. Building on the participatory, qualitative evaluation of pilot schemes from Sweden, United Kingdom, Denmark, The Netherlands, and Germany, the authors take a closer look at how co-governance can improve water governance, how water managers can make best use of tools and knowledge, and how they can improve process designs. The results reflect how social learning and successful co-governance are linked. Social learning as a shared understanding of complex ecosystem and water-management issues can be supported with active stakeholder involvement and citizen science. As such, in co-governance processes, stakeholders need technical access to data and knowledge and a shared process memory. This enables them to develop a shared understanding and facilitates bringing together competing interests and finding new solutions. Participatory tools became part of successful processes by building trust and knowledge based on commitment. However, proficient process design and facilitation make these tools more effective.

WaterCoG Evidence on How the Use of Tools, Knowledge, and Process Design Can Improve Water Co-Governance

The European Union Water Framework Directive (WFD) encourages water managers to implement active stakeholder involvement to achieve sustainable water management. However, the WFD does not describe in detail how member states should operationalize participation. The need for local experience and local understanding of collaborative governance (co-governance) processes remains. The WaterCoG project evaluated 11 local pilot schemes. Building on the participatory, qualitative evaluation of pilot schemes from Sweden, United Kingdom, Denmark, The Netherlands, and Germany, the authors take a closer look at how co-governance can improve water governance, how water managers can make best use of tools and knowledge, and how they can improve process designs. The results reflect how social learning and successful co-governance are linked. Social learning as a shared understanding of complex ecosystem and water-management issues can be supported with active stakeholder involvement and citizen science. As such, in co-governance processes, stakeholders need technical access to data and knowledge and a shared process memory. This enables them to develop a shared understanding and facilitates bringing together competing interests and finding new solutions. Participatory tools became part of successful processes by building trust and knowledge based on commitment. However, proficient process design and facilitation make these tools more effective.

Climate adaptation by international multidisciplinary knowledge exchange

Effects of climate change in cities are evident and are expected to increase in the future, demanding adaptation. In order to share knowledge, raise awareness, and build capacity on climate adaptation, the first concept of a “ClimateCafé” has been utilized since 2012 in 25 events all over the world. In 8 years ClimateCafé grew into a field education concept involving different fields of science and practice for capacity building in climate change adaptation. This chapter describes the need, method, and results of ClimateCafés and provides tools for organizing a ClimateCafé in a context-specific case. Early ClimateCafés in the Philippines are compared with the ClimateCafé in Peru to elucidate the development of this movement, in which one of the participants of ClimateCafé Philippines 2016 became the co-organizer of ClimateCafé Peru in 2019. The described progress of ClimateCafés provides detailed information on the dynamic methodological aspects, holding different workshops. The workshops aim at generating context-specific data on climate adaptation by using tools and innovative data collection techniques addressing deep uncertainties that come with climate change adaptation. Results of the workshops show that context-specific, relevant, multidisciplinary data can be gathered in a short period of time with limited resources, which promotes the generation of ideas that can be used by local stakeholders in their local context. A ClimateCafé therefore stimulates accelerated climate action and support for adaptation solutions, from the international and the local, from the public and private sector, to ensure we learn from each other and work together for a climate resilient future. The methodology of ClimateCafé is still maturing and the evaluation of the ClimateCafés over time leads to improvements which are applied during upcoming ClimateCafés, giving a clear direction for further development of this methodology for knowledge exchange, capacity building, and bridging the gap between disciplines within climate adaptation.

Climate adaptation by international multidisciplinary knowledge exchange

Effects of climate change in cities are evident and are expected to increase in the future, demanding adaptation. In order to share knowledge, raise awareness, and build capacity on climate adaptation, the first concept of a “ClimateCafé” has been utilized since 2012 in 25 events all over the world. In 8 years ClimateCafé grew into a field education concept involving different fields of science and practice for capacity building in climate change adaptation. This chapter describes the need, method, and results of ClimateCafés and provides tools for organizing a ClimateCafé in a context-specific case. Early ClimateCafés in the Philippines are compared with the ClimateCafé in Peru to elucidate the development of this movement, in which one of the participants of ClimateCafé Philippines 2016 became the co-organizer of ClimateCafé Peru in 2019. The described progress of ClimateCafés provides detailed information on the dynamic methodological aspects, holding different workshops. The workshops aim at generating context-specific data on climate adaptation by using tools and innovative data collection techniques addressing deep uncertainties that come with climate change adaptation. Results of the workshops show that context-specific, relevant, multidisciplinary data can be gathered in a short period of time with limited resources, which promotes the generation of ideas that can be used by local stakeholders in their local context. A ClimateCafé therefore stimulates accelerated climate action and support for adaptation solutions, from the international and the local, from the public and private sector, to ensure we learn from each other and work together for a climate resilient future. The methodology of ClimateCafé is still maturing and the evaluation of the ClimateCafés over time leads to improvements which are applied during upcoming ClimateCafés, giving a clear direction for further development of this methodology for knowledge exchange, capacity building, and bridging the gap between disciplines within climate adaptation.

ClimateCafé:

ClimateCafé is a multi-, trans-, interdisciplinary and international event of several days in which young professionals, stakeholders and scientist come together to collect data and design (potential) solutions for climate change adaptation in rural or urban areas. ClimateCafé mainly aims to enhance resilience and reduce vulnerability of communities by sharing knowledge, raising awareness and building capacity. ClimateCafé addresses global issues, such as climate change and sustainable development, on a local scale. In a ClimateCafé, context specific challenges, related to climate change and sustainable development, are proposed by local stakeholders and often relate to a specific problem area. Over the past decade, more than 28 ClimateCafés have been organised around the globe, including the Netherlands-Rotterdam, Sweden-Malmö, the Philippines-Manila, and Peru-Pirua. Since the first edition in Thailand (2012), ClimateCafé evolved in content and adopted a ‘learning by doing’ paradigm. Our results indicate ClimateCafé fosters integrated thinking across disciplines, cultures and knowledge sectors while reducing uncertainties affiliated with climate change adaptation. This is demonstrated by participants of previous ClimateCafés having various backgrounds including: law, civil engineering, water management, art, urban planning and environmental engineering. Furthermore, co-production is composed through workshops facilitated by stakeholders of the, so called, quadruple helix including academia, government, civic society and industry. Workshops make use of scientifically embedded methods, always related to the contextual challenge. For example, urban heat stress is measured by sensors on a bike and collecting urban green with online platform ClimateScan, community perceptions are collected through interviews, water quality is measured with the use of drones and perceptions and responsibilities of institutional actors are identified by interviews and field visits. Additionally, data is processed and design workshops facilitate integrated design of potential solutions which is disseminated through participants presenting their findings at conferences. Although ClimateCafé is resource intensive, requires active participation of stakeholders and currently mainly attracts students of affiliated universities, we argue this multi-, inter-, transdisciplinary and international knowledge exchange methodology fosters the innovation that is dearly needed to address global sustainability challenges and climate change adaptation.