Adaptation pathways are increasingly being promoted as an effective way to manage water resources. They seek to achieve management goals despite uncertain future conditions through sequences of actions that are implemented in anticipation of changed circumstances. Adaptation pathways share features with water markets in that both promote flexibility, responsiveness to changed circumstances, and the efficient allocation of resources over time. This talk contrasts these two approaches to water resource management, highlights critical differences between them, and considers the potential for both to co-exist.
Adaptation pathways are an environmental planning instrument built on the principles of adaptive management where the allocation of public goods across communities of stakeholders is controlled by responsible authorities and is adjusted in response to new information from monitoring and evaluation. Water markets convert the public good of water into a private good delivered to individuals, and adjustments take the form of relatively constrained set of regulatory interventions.
Where they are being developed adaptation pathways are applied at local and regional (i.e. catchment) scales. The authorities responsible for their development are known and so they are more likely to be accountable for flaws. Water markets, in contrast, are applied across far larger scales, promote only the commercial value of water, and it is not clear who is accountable for flaws.
Environmental sustainability is the sine qua non of adaptation pathways in that they seek to sustain the benefits of resources for all sectors and most users over time. In contrast, efficiency is the primary goal of water markets, and sustainability is a secondary outcome to be achieved through caps, purchases of environmental water, and decreasing use of water per unit of output.
Both instruments have their merits and a system that harnesses the best of both approaches is desirable.