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While excited about the ground‐breaking work coming out of the epistemic community promoting adaptive (climate) management (AM), we worry about its tendency to ignore normative implications originating in the implicit worldviews underlying AM literature. Generally, AM has a “green” ideology and focuses on the bioregion as the only sensible level for analysis and action. This tendency for systemic functionalism of AM‐as‐(green)‐policy‐prescription depoliticizes an issue (“what to do about climate change”) that is political through and through. For example, those who stand to lose their livelihood as a result of AM plans or simply cannot adapt so fast may resist AM propositions. Implementing AM in practice thereby often leads to social and institutional engineering to overcome resistance. AM in academia seems quite far removed from the “real worlds” of social deliberation and praxis where policy is made and implemented, and where other values and interests than those implicit in AM prevail. We therefore highlight the importance of practices on the ground, claiming AM is not achieved by bioregional policies, but developed “on the hoof” at locally appropriate scales. Everyday professional work is characterized by “organized improvisation” where tacit professional and experiential knowledge are of prime importance. This article is categorized under: Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Institutions for Adaptation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we review the ways in which water has recently been conceptualized by both natural and social scientists as either hydro-social or socio-hydrological. We do this in order to discuss whether and how they can be compatible, in order to enable dialogue across disciplines that seek to address the ecological and social challenges related to the complex human/water interactions. Through our review, we document the emergence of these specific terminologies, identify how these terms-and the conceptualizations they represent-relate to each other, and suggest what opportunities there are for building further interdisciplinary approaches to understanding water and society. Specifically, we review the recent rise in socio-hydrology amongst natural scientists/hydrologists to put this in discussion with a much longer tradition in social sciences of seeing water as both natural and social. We identify what the paradigms are in both conceptualizations in order to assess what their respective focus is, and what they omit. Our purpose is not to judge competing claims. Rather we want to assess the knowledge claims made in both paradigms: what can we learn when we employ these different approaches, what different rationales for action do they suggest, and what scope exists for collaboration. We conclude that there is scope in combining both approaches without a need to antagonistically question their respective fundamental assumptions, and playing to the strengths of each: the rich case study narratives produced by hydrosocial research can be the basis for the conceptual and quantitative modeling of socio-hydrology. WIREs Water 2017, 4:e1196. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1196 For further resources related to this article, please visit the . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we explore how climate change science is connected to climate change governance. When formally institutionalized, as in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC) or UN Framework Convention on Climate Change ( UNFCCC), these sites may be referred to as boundary organizations. These institutions engage not only in the quality assessment of scientific research, but also in the design of innovative policy instruments, or evaluation of policy impacts-activities that we refer to as boundary work. Boundary work is inherently 'tricky business'. Science and politics are normally demarcated spheres with different sacred stories. Scientists aspire to 'speak truth to power', while policymakers want 'politics on top and science on tap'. Boundary work endeavors to coordinate these apparently incompatible aspirations. In this article, we describe, analyze, and assess whether, to what extent, and how the major international and some national boundary organizations in climate change governance have been able to avoid over-politicization and over-scientization. We demonstrate that the nature and success of boundary organizations and the ways they work depend on: (1) the degree to which the climate change problem is defined as 'wicked' or unstructured, or as (relatively) 'tame' and structured; (2) the stage of the policy process; and (3) characteristics of the policy network and the socio-political context: the degree to which relevant players insist on strict separation and a linear relation from science to politics, or, alternatively, are tolerant of a blurring of the boundaries and hence a two-way, coproductive relation between science and politics. Anna Wesselink's contribution to this article was financially supported by the European Union (European Commission, European Reintegration Grant PERG08-GA-2010-276934). WIREs Clim Change 2013, 4:283-300. doi: 10.1002/wcc.225 Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I explore the specific properties associated with the new knowledge produced by inter- or transdisciplinary research. Using my analysis of a land use planning study in the Meuse valley in The Netherlands, I argue that the process of knowledge integration requires the exercise of value judgement and that the outcomes are emergent. I also show that the selection of a boundary object as objective facilitates interdisciplinary research because it is shared amongst disciplines and because it necessitates judgement in its implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early work on defining and analyzing resilience in domains such as engineering, ecology and psychology, the concept has gained significant traction in many fields of research and practice. It has also become a very powerful justification for various policy goals in the water sector, evident in terms like flood resilience, river resilience, and water resilience. At the same time, a substantial body of literature has developed that questions the resilience concept's systems ontology, natural science roots and alleged conservatism, and criticizes resilience thinking for not addressing power issues. In this study, we review these critiques with the aim to develop a framework for power‐sensitive resilience analysis. We build on the three faces of power to conceptualize the power to define resilience. We structure our discussion of the relevant literature into five questions that need to be reflected upon when applying the resilience concept to social–hydrological systems. These questions address: (a) resilience of what, (b) resilience at what scale, (c) resilience to what, (d) resilience for what purpose, and (e) resilience for whom; and the implications of the political choices involved in defining these parameters for resilience building or analysis. Explicitly considering these questions enables making political choices explicit in order to support negotiation or contestation on how resilience is defined and used. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water Governance.Engineering Water > Planning Water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]