Governing water in multi-functional landscapes: Coordination, collaboration and networks

Prevailing governance systems fail in addressing the complex and systemic challenges in human-environment relations. Climate change is exacerbating this situation. Whereas resource problems such as water scarcity are characterized by a complex web of interdependencies in human-environment relations, governance is fragmented. Despite efforts for integration such as the Water-Energy-Food Nexus, policies, regulatory frameworks and administrative structures are largely organized according to resources and sectors. We argue for a systemic governance of multi-functional landscapes to address water issues. Theoretical arguments and empirical evidence suggest that polycentric governance systems have higher capacities to address complex governance challenges such as landscape governance. However, major knowledge gaps exist about processes and structures that lead to and sustain such capacities. Attention has mainly focused on how to achieve cross-sectoral coordination in formal policy processes and largely formal governance networks. We suggest to extend the focus on issue-based collaboration in largely informal actor networks and on the interplay between these different networks to open new avenues for strengthening the capacity needed to achieve transformative change. A network lens to analyse distinct relational patterns among actors involved in environmental governance and social dynamics in associated group processes in detail has offered intriguing insights in recent years. The article summarizes recent conceptual and methodological developments and discusses promising areas for new research on how to reduce misfit in social-ecological networks, how to support collaboration and how to build transformative capacity for addressing water issues in multi-functional landscapes.