The role of experimentation in water management under climate uncertainty: Institutional barriers to social learning

Current water governance systems and processes are often insufficient to deal with the challenge of climate uncertainty. Adapting to climate uncertainty requires trialing out new experiments in water governance and establishing processes to learn from those experiments. Social learning is regarded as an important aspect that supports the transformation of water governance systems. Understanding where and how social learning is occurring is critical to improving adaptation outcomes of water management in an uncertain climate. Yet, there is little research asserting the scope of social learning processes in a wide variety of empirical contexts. This article examines social learning in water management in Western Australia. Two specific case studies involving the state-of-the-art experiments in surface and groundwater management are used to illustrate and to understand the institutional dynamics and barriers of social learning. The cases depict single-loop learning to a larger extent and double-loop learning to a lesser extent. The findings emphasize the importance of dealing with learning externalities, the mismatch of ecological and administrative scales, and facilitating actor networks and multilevel interaction in order to embed social learning in climate adaptation. Water governance reforms should facilitate institutional configurations that enhance social learning opportunities.