Delivering Change

This book addresses pressing challenges of policy makers, planners and project managers in the water sector to successfully implement adaptation action. Taking into account both strategic planning and implementation of adaptation projects, it provides principles and attributes that contribute to the effective delivery of adaptation to flooding and drought.

The book is organised around questions of ‘what?’, ‘when?’, ‘why?’ and ‘how?’. It explains that a governance approach to adaptation is effective when it is ‘fit-for-purpose’ in a specific social-ecological or socio-technical context. The concept of ‘fit-for-purpose’ governance is applied to evaluate the effectiveness of governance efforts in three Australian cities to adapt to a decade of drought.

Based on a case study of the Room for the River flood protection programme in the Netherlands, this book describes how planned adaptation projects in multi-stakeholder settings can be managed effectively and how large scale investment programmes can contribute to a transition of a water system that is adapting to a changed context.

The cases in Australia and the Netherlands are used to link governance for strategic planning and governance for the delivery of adaptation. Through combining insights about multi-level governance, adaptive governance, transition management, programme management this book enriches the scientific literature about adaptation to flooding and drought.