Increasingly, our societies must deal with new challenges related to climate change, ecological degradation and increased economic and technological developments (Biermann et al., 2012). Urban areas face many complexities and uncertainties and show increased efforts to build resilience against the vast challenges they are facing (e.g. Pahl-Wostl 2004; Horlings and Padt 2010; Berkes and Folke, 1998). Resilience (Djalante et al., 2011) is interpreted as the long-term capacity of a system, e.g. a city, a rural area or an urbanised region, to deal with change and disruptions in the end (Resilience Alliance 2000). Dietz et al (2003) introduced the concepts of adaptive governance and the region as a social-ecological system to increase its resilience. While governance as such can be defined as “the interactions between public and/or private entities aiming at the realization of collective goals” (Termeer et al., 2010), adaptive governance is a particular form of governance that emphasizes the capacity of actors to adapt to changing relationships between society and ecosystems (Resilience Alliance 2010). Adaptive governance acknowledges the complexity of interactions between society and ecosystems (Folke et al., 2005) and emphasizes the capacity of stakeholders and ruling institutions to adapt to this complexity.
Current management strategies that focus on the optimal use and control of natural resources have often failed, which has led to more adaptive approaches that can deal with complexity, uncertainty and abrupt change in the natural and social environment (Boyd and Folke 2012; Liu et al., 2007). In this respect, the notion of adaptive governance is increasingly mentioned as a useful framework for analysing and informing multilevel governance modes that enable ecosystem stewardship and increase regional resilience (Boyd and Folke 2012; Crona and Parker 2012). Actors start design experiments that involve multiple actors and encourage learning and innovation (Berkes and Folke 1998; Olsson et al., 2004). Still, at present, the underlying mechanisms of adaptive governance to increase regions resilience are still poorly understood.
Against this background, in this article we explore how adaptive governance conditions can be useful to enhance regional resilience. We first introduce three possible conditions for adaptive governance, namely 1) discourse arenas, 2) epistemic networks and 3) leadership, based on Folke et al (2005). Thereafter, we examine these three conditions in a case study in the Markermeer-IJmeer area, in the heart of the Dutch Metropole Region Amsterdam in the Netherlands. In this region, resilience is at stake due to interrelated phenomena of climate change, ecological degradation and socio-economic developments. A social-ecological system approach typically involves the interaction of ecological and social elements at multiple levels (Walker et al., 2004). The Markermeer-IJmeer region in the Netherlands provides a good case because of comprehensive experiences with challenging planning processes.
Source: Stuiver, M., Groot, A., van Slobbe, E., Blom-Zandstra, E. M., Korevaar, H., & Soma, K. (2019). Key Conditions of Adaptive Governance for Resilient Urban Areas: Insights from the Markermeer-IJmeer Region in the Amsterdam Metropole Region, the Netherlands. Environmental Management and Sustainable Development, 8(1), 127-146. https://doi.org/10.5296/emsd.v8i1.14295