Linking Socio-Ecological-Technological Systems and Water Governance Networks in the Context of Climate Change

Water scarcity and droughts caused by climate change pose growing risks to both human societies and natural ecosystems. Due to the consequences of climate change and the associated adaptation and mitigation decisions, as well as the general use of infrastructure for water use, extraction, and management, humans also actively influence the availability of water at the local level.

The water-climate nexus is spatio-temporally evolving, and driven by both environmental, technological and societal factors. For local political and non-political decision-makers in water management, adapting to climate change poses considerable challenges, as decisions must be made amid the uncertainties and variabilities related to climate change in order to make infrastructure systems resilient. To find out how to improve decision-making in this area, we are investigating water governance networks within the context of climate change and from the perspective of socio-ecological-technological systems in the local environment of Tübingen, Southern Germany. In our interdisciplinary case study, we integrate methods and findings from political and environmental science. To capture the societal perspective, discourse network analysis (Leifeld 2017) of local newspaper coverage on water-related issues in the Neckar Valley and the Upper Gäu region near Tübingen is being conducted. Newspaper articles published between 2018 and 2025 were screened using the keyword "water," and more than 1.500 articles were systematically coded to identify stakeholders involved, their relations, their constellations, and their expressed positions. For the environmental perspective we investigate climate and hydrogeological data from the same region. We explore the linkages between socio-political discourse and hydrogeological systems, and test for changes in conversations due to climatic extremes. Specifically, we investigate how local or regional hydrogeological or climate-related events, such as droughts, influence the intensity of discourse and the salience of issues in local water governance debates.

We aim to improve our understanding of governance networks during times of climate crisis. The results of our study aim to help identify effective strategies for water resilience, adaptive capacity building, and carbon reduction, thereby supporting informed decision-making.

 

References:

Leifeld, P. (2017). Discourse network analysis. In The Oxford handbook of political networks, 301–326.