Adaptive governance of large, complex ecosystems – such as the Gippsland Lakes

Introduction

The current conditions of the Gippsland Lakes – a 60,000-ha series of coastal lagoons and fringing wetlands formed behind a barrier dune system, 300 km east of Melbourne (Victoria) – are a result of multiple factors (EGCMA 2019). Pressures on these Ramsar-listed wetlands include pollution, invasive species, climate change and bushfires which combine to drive their current condition and future trajectories (Kirono et al. 2022; The Royal Society of Victoria 2024). The Victorian Auditor-General has inquired into the state of the wetlands and whether government is meeting its obligations (Victorian Auditor-General’s Office 2016). Following the 2019–2020 bushfire season, the Commonwealth commissioned the CSIRO to inquire into the Gippsland Lakes Ramsar site and its vulnerability to bushfire and climate change (Kirono et al. 2022). These inquiries provide a background to this investigation. However, the matters raised by these reports will not be re-investigated.

Governance challenges facing the Lakes are increasing because climate change is interacting with other pressures resulting in the need for multidisciplinary holistic responses (The Royal Society of Victoria 2024). Climate change interactions result in complex uncertainties, along with compound and systemic risks that challenge simple risk assessment methods (Alexandra 2023). There are not linear relationships between warming and environmental challenges. Rather, change may be sudden, disruptive and unexpected. Such change – driven by extreme events (like droughts, floods and fire) and changes in underlying processes that determine catchment stability and water quality – can shift the Lakes systems to new states (Alexandra and Finlayson 2020).

Many of the risks facing the lake systems and their catchments are evolving, and management cannot rely on static risk assessment models or predictable outcomes from management interventions (Kirono et al. 2022). All ecosystem and water resources management must deal with non-stationarity, in combination with changing climatic and geochemical cycles (Colloff et al. 2017). The post-normal world is characterised by ‘irreducible complexity, deep uncertainties, multiple legitimate perspectives, value dissent, high stakes, and urgency of decision-making’ with science unable to provide absolute truths and confident solutions (Dankel et al. 2017, p. 2).

These conditions have profound implications for governance and research including the well-recognised need for interdisciplinary, participatory and trans-disciplinary approaches. Dealing with these challenges will require forms of governance that are inclusive, integrative, adaptive and transformative (Chaffin et al. 2014).

This paper sets out some ideas about the characteristics of governance models that are appropriate for the social–ecological system of the Gippsland Lakes. It is based on a paper presented at the Royal Society of Victoria in May 2023 (The Royal Society of Victoria 2024).

Understanding governance and climate risk

Governance processes determine how change is understood, decisions made, resources allocated and outcomes evaluated (Chipperfield and Alexandra 2023). Governance involves formal and informal structures and institutions, processes and practices, including those of large bureaucracies, smaller units, businesses, non-government organisations and informal networks. These institutions operate in accordance with rules, norms and practices codified formally as laws, regulations and standards or informally as accepted practices and organisational or social cultures. Governance institutions determine how large, complex systems, such as lakes and river basins, are understood, managed and governed (Hassenforder and Barone 2019). A sizable body of literature argues that institutions become locked-in to ways of thinking and acting that constrain their ability to adapt to change, new expectations or new circumstances (institutional lock-in) and that path dependence is critical in fashioning and constraining options for change (Marshall and Alexandra 2016).

Victoria’s governing institutions, including those for the Gippsland Lakes and their catchments, emerged from British colonisation, the state-sponsored economic development of the 20th century and modernism’s focus on siloed technical disciplines. These historical foundations shape contemporary governing practice, with certain paradigms and disciplinary traditions becoming sedimented into the systems of governing (Cleaver and de Koning 2015). For the Lakes these combine water resources management, civil engineering, public administration, hydro-developmentalism, and more recently, neo-liberalism, conservation, environmentalism and the tourism and recreation economy. Together these form governing orthodoxies burdened with considerable inertia and produce governing techniques and policy logics that can limit capacity for adaptation.

Impacts of climate change are unpredictable given the non-linear relationship between warming and change (sudden events) and uncertainty (Butler et al. 2016). They involve interdependencies and feedback loops. Climate risk analysis needs to account for potential state-shifts in socio-ecological systems (Walker and Salt 2006). Combined with other human-induced environmental changes, climate change can contribute to tipping points beyond which impacts may amount to a state-shift of unknown dimensions (Rockström et al. 2009). Climate change risk increases, and uncertainty escalates, at regional scales with changes in precipitation, wind speeds, seasonal variations and weather extremes magnified through catchment and ecological processes and socio-ecological feedbacks (Fankhauser 2017; Alexandra 2021). Improved climate risk assessment techniques are emerging, but these typically adopt administratively rational models of problem-solving (Alexandra 2021). Techniques used to support adaptation decisions under various degrees of uncertainly include cost–benefit analysis where uncertainty is less profound (for example, sea level rise); adaptation pathways where there are prospects uncertainty can be resolved (for example, flood protection) to robust decision-making for solutions that can work under a range of scenarios where the information base is insufficient.

Stanley et al. (2013) identify a complex layering of climate risks. Their 1st-to-4th order impact framework illustrates the flow-through of risks from immediate and direct impacts to ecosystem and livelihood impacts. The framework shows, for example, linkages between climate changes (1st order) and ongoing viability of food production (2nd order), rising in food, water and energy prices (3rd order) and a consequent increase in poverty (4th order). They emphasise feedback between the four orders. Rising et al. (2022) argue current risk management models, including those based on scenario analysis, typically suffer from five deficiencies: (1) biophysical impacts are either outdated or unavailable; (2) the poor handling of extremes; (3) the failure to deal with the magnification of impacts through feedback loops and interactions; (4) inability to comprehend the deep uncertainties for which probabilities do not exist; and (5) and unknown, poorly quantified or unidentified risks.

Adaptive governance models

Adaptive governance models and the use of dynamic adaptive policy pathways seek to address the problems of these deep uncertainties while also taking into account new knowledge and evolving societal preferences and perspectives (Hassnoot et al. 2013). These adaptive approaches extend and revise analysis over time, monitoring critical developments and tipping points that could render policy responses inappropriate (Zandvoort et al. 2017). Hassnoot et al. (2013) contrast adaptive approaches with traditional static ‘predict and plan’ approaches that ‘assume the future can be predicted’, planned for and managed (p. 485). The adaptive approaches focus on the capacities of the decision-making process rather than specific outcomes, emphasising adaptive decision-making ‘in the face of high uncertainty and inter-temporal uncertainty’ (Wise et al. 2014). The use of adaptation pathways addresses the need for societal transformations, where the goal of adaptation is not specific ‘risk reduction per se but rather addressing the systemic drivers of vulnerability in dynamic systems’ (Wise et al. 2014, p. 327). Barnett et al. (2014) tested an adaptation pathway approach to adapting to sea level rise for Lakes Entrance, a major centre on the Gippsland Lakes, identifying low regrets initial options. Despite many local examples, there are few examples of fully developed, comprehensive and broad adaption strategies because most strategies focus on incremental change that supports the status quo, rather than transformative change (Wise et al. 2014). While recognising there are different contexts for adaptation, the task of enabling decision-making ‘requires understanding the interdependencies between institutions, values and knowledge and how to change these’ (Wise et al. 2014, p. 330).

Adaptive governance is good governance in periods of rapid change and therefore needs to be:

Adaptive governance for the Gippsland Lakes

Governance processes needs to bring together stakeholders to encourage them to develop their capabilities, engage in productive deliberations about joint decision-making, and develop informed positions about risks and appropriate responses. The need for open ended, transparent, participatory planning approaches is axiomatic in adaptive governance. The adaptation pathway approach developed and tested for Lakes Entrance (Barnett et al. 2014) provides one useful example of an attempt to engage citizens in this kind of participatory and anticipatory planning.

For large, complex systems, such as the Gippsland Lakes, governance needs to be cautious, yet recognise that we do not have governance and management approaches suited to post-normal conditions. These conditions require scientists and practitioners to implement approaches unconstrained by disciplines and sectoral boundaries, geopolitical polarities or technical problematisation (Alexandra 2023). Instead, governance practice suited to a ‘post-normal world’ requires a stronger focus on inclusive creation of knowledge and the interaction of this knowledge with societal values and rules (Colloff et al. 2017; Alexandra 2023).

The ideas outlined above about adaptive governance are intended to help guide thinking about what is needed for governing the Gippsland Lakes. At present, the Gippsland Lakes governance is fragmented and disaggregated with numerous specialist agencies responsible for components of the system. Strategies developed since the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office (2016) report have attempted to guide and coordinate management efforts. We are not advocating for a specific governance model – such as the creation of a single new authority – or specific forms of oversight – such as a co-governance model with lead responsibilities for actions allocated across different agencies, with other agencies monitoring their performance. What we are arguing for is that we need to assess governance models and structures for their capacities to deal with the complex uncertain challenges we face, and explore, design and deliberate on the models that will provide the adaptive capacities needed as we face uncertain futures. Decisions about which governance models are preferred and the reforms needed to create them must be guided by democratic deliberations. These need to be openly discussed and debated if they are to be inclusive and capable of mobilising communities and stakeholders.