A Network Approach to Analyzing Governance of Land, Water and Ecosystems

Christian Stein

Sussex University, 23 September 2010

Pathways to sustainable water resources management…

have to balance landscape modifications linked to socio-economic development, e.g. food production, against the potential impacts on other water users, including ecosystems

Pathways to sustainable water resources management…

Source: Comprehensive Assessment 2007

must encompass not only the liquid water in rivers lakes and aquifers (blue water), but also soil moisture (green water) and how the complex of green and blue water sources and flows is influenced through changes in land and vegetation cover

Pathways to sustainable water resources management…

have to go through a range of stakeholders related to each other through complex governance arrangements

Source: Figure adapted from Bodin and Crona 2009

Systems devised for governing natural resources display a large diversity

but the tools to understand them are strikingly blunt

Source: Carllson and Berkes 2005

A social network approach

Has recently been used to analyze problems in natural resources management and governance

Focuses on relationships between social entities and the implications of these relationships

Can be used for analyzing across different sectors and scales

A network approach to analysing governance of land, water and ecosystems

The Mkindo catchment in the Wami basin in Tanzania

Linking actors to green-blue water sources and flows

Inventory of activities Inventory of organizations

The empirically measured social network influencing land, water and ecosystems

‘Bottom up’ analysis to understand existing social structures

Klique finder analysis to identify cohesive subgroups

Centrality measurements to identify potentially influential actors

Emergent results

Formal actors are not be the only or even the most important actors

Local (informal) actors perform important functions with regards to governing green and blue water at the catchment scale, but they are not adequately linked to the (formal) water governance system

No organization coordinates the various land and water related activities across the catchment, i.e. limited horizontal interaction and local actors have limited linkages to ‘official’ actors at higher-levels of governance, i.e. limited vertical interaction

Current attempts to address identified gaps could benefit from building upon already existing social network structures, some of which have been identified through this network approach

Thank you!

Acknowledgement:

Dr. Jennie Barron – SEI & SRCDr. Henrik Ernstson – SRC & UCT

Conceptual framework

Analyse the social network structurei.e. the pattern of interactions

Identify opportunities and constrains of the existing governance systeme.g. existing structures that can be build on

Source: Ernstson et al 2010

Multi scale assessment/framework/approach

Source: Barron et al 2008

Institutional landscape in Tanzania

Administrativeperspective

Hydrologicalperspective

Networkperspective

Source: Comprehensive Assessment 2007

Source: Rockström unpublished

Stylized Networks illustrating the network perspective

Based on a better understanding of the existing social network structures (A), potential interventions can be identified (A>B) to adapt the governance network (B)

Study design

I) Inventory of activities influencing green blue water flows

II) Inventory of organisations influencing activities

Water management – the traditional focus

Source: Rockström unpublished

Green and blue water management

Source: Rockström unpublished

The empirically measured social network influencing land, water and ecosystems

Organisations directly or indirectly influencing green and blue water flows in the Mkindo catchment (n=70)

Multi-scale assessment including governmental, civil society, and privet sector actors from the village level to the national level

Analysis focuses on reciprocated collaborative relations influencing land, water and ecosystem governance in the Mkindo catchment