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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]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including policy making in Great Britain, green infrastructure policy in Ireland, and climate change policy.

Many scientists feel that scientific outcomes are not sufficiently taken into account in policy-making. The research reported in this paper shows what happens with scientific information during such a process. In 2001 the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management commissioned their regional office in Limburg to assess how flood management objectives could be achieved in future in the Dutch Meuse valley, assuming climate change will increase peak discharges. To ensure political support, regional discussion rounds were to help assess the measures previously identified. This paper discusses the ways in which hydrological and hydraulic expertise was input, understood and used in this assessment process. Project participants as a group had no trouble contesting assumptions and outcomes. Nevertheless, water expertise was generally accepted as providing facts, once basic choices such as starting situation had been discussed and agreed. The technical constraints determined that politically unacceptable measures would have to be selected to achieve the legally binding flood management objective. As a result, no additional space will be set aside for future flood management beyond the already reserved floodplain. In this case, political arguments clearly prevail over policy objectives, with hydraulic expertise providing decisive arbitration between the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]