Understanding material dependencies, adaptations and livelihoods in the Danube Delta: Implications for adaptive governance and knowledge integration

Abstract

We propose an approach to adaptive governance of social-ecological systems which can contribute to an advanced contextualization and specification of governance and adaptation by introducing three interrelated typologies in governance: typologies of livelihoods, of adaptations and of material dependencies. Applying these typologies can produce a sharper image of the social-ecological system, of human-environment relations, of problems and possible solutions. Empirically, we illustrate our framework with insights from the Romanian Danube Delta, an ecologically and culturally complex yet sensitive area, where adaptation issues are foregrounded on a regular basis. Using the typologies produces a re-interpretation of the coastal community as embedded in its ecological environment, the impact of that environment on the community and vice versa. A history of adaptations in two directions has to be clarified before a localized version of adaptive coastal governance can be considered. We discuss the value of the perspective for knowledge integration towards adaptation as well as the value for de-construction of existing patterns of integration and discursive dominance.