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Building social-ecological resilience through adaptive comanagement in the Cache River Watershed of southern Illinois

Informally Refereed

Abstract

There is growing recognition that the sustainable governance of water resources requires building social-ecological resilience against future surprises. Adaptive comanagement, a distinct institutional mechanism that combines the learning focus of adaptive management with the multilevel linkages of comanagement, has recently emerged as a promising mechanism for building social-ecological resilience. This paper employs the concept of adaptive comanagement to analyze ongoing institutional reforms in the Cache River watershed of southern Illinois. Since the 1970s, efforts have been made to promote collaborative decisionmaking aimed at the restoration of the watershed. However, the current governance system remains vulnerable because little attention has been given to building the capacity of the watershed for learning and adaptation. Adaptive comanagement can contribute to building resilience in the watershed by creating awareness, generating interest, creating opportunities, and building capacity for adaptation.

Parent Publication

Citation

Akamani, Kofi. 2014. Building social-ecological resilience through adaptive comanagement in the Cache River Watershed of southern Illinois. In: Groninger, John W.; Holzmueller, Eric J.; Nielsen, Clayton K.; Dey, Daniel C., eds. Proceedings, 19th Central Hardwood Forest Conference; 2014 March 10-12; Carbondale, IL. General Technical Report NRS-P-142. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station: 36-47.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/47323