Slutrapportering to Riksbanken Jublieumsfond Project: CADWAGO - Climate change adaptation and water governance - reconciling food security, renewable energy and the provision of multiple ecosystem services

The CADWAGO project examined water governance transformations to enhance climate change adaptation. Key findings highlight that power imbalances and conflicts of interest often distort deliberative processes, while extreme climate events can act as catalysts for collaborative, non-neoliberal governance shifts. The project advocates for moving from a 'security' narrative of water—which it argues can amplify inequities—toward a 'water equity' narrative that empowers diverse stakeholder constellations.

• Power dynamics and conflicts of interest act as significant barriers to equitable change in water governance. The project found that power can distort the outcomes of systemic and deliberative processes intended to resolve water governance controversies, leading to a lack of coherence between river basin management plans (RBMPs) under the EU Water Framework Directive and the actual priorities of stakeholders.
• Extreme climate events, such as floods and droughts, can trigger self-organized governance changes by bypassing existing bureaucratic routines. In case studies from Canada and Australia, these crises encouraged the emergence of collaborative, horizontal pathways and a preference for state or state-citizen hybrid governance models over dominant neo-liberal paradigms.
• The project utilized a co-production of knowledge approach through governance learning events, which fostered co-learning across the science-society interface and created lasting networks.
• The project identifies a trend toward the 'securitization' of climate change and water, where water is framed through a security narrative. The researchers argue this interest-centric approach ignores equity and power brokering, potentially reproducing existing inequities and increasing the risk of violent conflict.
• To resolve water dilemmas, the project proposes replacing the current water security narrative with a 'water equity' narrative. This approach embraces 'coexistence'—the presence of diverse and potentially irreconcilable governance pathways—to enhance adaptive capacity under uncertainty.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2016). Slutrapportering to Riksbanken Jublieumsfond Project: CADWAGO - Climate change adaptation and water governance - reconciling food security, renewable energy and the provision of multiple ecosystem services. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/final-report-of-cadwago.pdf

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Slutrapportering to Riksbanken Jublieumsfond Project: CADWAGO - Climate change adaptation and water governance - reconciling food security, renewable energy and the provision of multiple ecosystem services. 2016. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/final-report-of-cadwago.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Slutrapportering to Riksbanken Jublieumsfond Project: CADWAGO - Climate change adaptation and water governance - reconciling food security, renewable energy and the provision of multiple ecosystem services |date=March 2016 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/final-report-of-cadwago.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2016slutrapportering, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Slutrapportering to Riksbanken Jublieumsfond Project: CADWAGO - Climate change adaptation and water governance - reconciling food security, renewable energy and the provision of multiple ecosystem services}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2016}, month = mar, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/final-report-of-cadwago.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }