Adapting to Socio-Environmental Change: Institutional Analysis of the Adaptive Capacity of Interacting Formal and Informal Cooperative Water Governance

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

After carefully review, I think this manuscript is not qualified to be published in this version. 

1. The abstract doesn't tell us enough infor and no results presented.
2. No paper structure mentioned in the first section.
3. The location map is terrible, the readers cannot get any useful infor.
4. The research design is not adequate. 
5. The authors need to find some methods to assess.
6. No implications.
7. It's more like a report while not academic paper.

Author Response

Authors’ Response: We acknowledge that this manuscript is not set out as a conventional empirical data based article. That is not the intent of the paper – it is an institutional analysis based on case-study methodology. We have made major revisions to the manuscript including the abstract, introduction, and methods to more clearly describe this and situate the manuscript as an academic paper. The location map has been redrawn, the methods have been described with greater clarity, and the implications of the manuscript clearly articulated in the discussion.

Reviewer 2 Report

Overall, I feel this paper is well-written, and does a good job of describing "the various actors and institutions that organize themselves to achieve long-term management of their resources" in the USRB (quote from paper abstract). It describes in detail the linkages among actors and institutions, and how these have changed over time in response to trends in water scarcity and availability.  In my opinion, however, the authors need to better identify and describe how this case study is positioned within the social-ecological systems (SES) literature.  Although sections 1 and 2 of the paper provide an overview of SESs and associated frameworks, I feel these sections need to delve deeper into recent literature on riverine (and other) systems as SESs.  As the paper is written now, it seems to be more of an institutional analysis, rather than an examination of the USRB as a SES.  To this point, while sections 3 and 4 are thorough and offer an in-depth examination of the relationships among actors and institutions at various scales, section 5 (Discussion) and section 6 (Conclusions, currently mis-labeled as section 5) lack a description of how the analyses presented builds on and/or relates to the current literature on SESs.  The paper would benefit greatly from a clear argument for how the case study and findings contribute to the literature on SESs in sections 1 and 2, then, in sections 5 and 6, the authors should return to that literature, describing the specific contributions their analyses make to that same literature.

Author Response

Authors’ Response: We appreciate these very constructive comments. We have made major revisions to the manuscript to address these comments and suggestions. Notably we have significantly revised sections 1 and 2 and now more clearly describe the purpose and methods as an institutional analysis (with appropriate references – Creswell et al. 2018, Denzin et al. 2018, Hutchinson et al. 2012, Morgan et al. 2017) and have situated this in the context of more recent and relevant literature on SESs (e.g., Cosens et al. 2020, 2021).  And we have significantly revised sections 5 and 6 to connect the institutional analyses and implications of the case study to the SES literature.

Reviewer 3 Report

Review:

The authors in this article argue for a social-ecological systems approach to water management. The argument is in response to the fact that most policies are developed top-down ignoring the complexities of the system. The authors also highlight the relevance of locally-tailored actions as opposed to universal solutions (since it is said, these tend to focus only on one level and ignore the others that constitute the SES).

My observations are the following.

1. The authors argue that “there is an increasing need to think of human and ecological systems as coupled social-ecological systems (SESs) that do not operate in isolation 28 from one another [1]” 
   • I believe that this assumption is almost granted in any sustainability project nowadays. This assumption is not new in any sense to the current debate in sustainability science. In this regard, the literature cited is not very recent, or plain old. It is not the case that these references are not still valid, but the most recent article cited regarding SES is from 2016!
2. There is an incomplete explanation of what the tragedy of the commons is. The tragedy of the commons refers to the depletion of resources if the behaviour of users is not regulated. The tragedy of the commons is justified by the belief that humans are intrinsically selfish. Humans would act to get the most of resources, regardless of others’ needs or the state of the resources.
3. In paragraph 2, page 1, the authors refer to privatisation as a way of avoiding the tragedy of the commons. However, it is never mentioned again or has any explanatory role in the article. 
4. The authors seem to confuse epistemological and methodological reductionism with centralisation and top-down approaches. The first ones have to do with knowing, the second with forms of governance. To present them as if they were necessarily linked to each other is problematic. I do not think this logic can hold. One can think of many counter-examples. I would suggest acknowledging them and addressing them separately. Later on, making a case for the further complications when both are combined. Or, making the case for the benefits of a bottom-up and systems perspective and how that can take place. 
5. For me, it is not clear what the connection between the SES perspective and the defence of bottom-up initiatives is. Bottom-up initiatives can also be blind to the systemic embeddedness of the resource of interest. I wonder if the actors at the local level conceived the river and the basin as a system (in their own terms, of course). And if so, how come they came to have that knowledge? And was that knowledge applied to resource management?
6. In section 2, the authors say: “These approaches ignore the fact that ecological systems are a function of social and institutional influence, and that the conscious choices made by social actors and collaboration among them are fundamental to the function of resource systems.” 
   • “These approaches” would also ignore the uncertainty introduced by the social, political, economic “conscious” decisions, due to the non-linear dynamics of an SES, which are probably more important.
7. The 8 points referring to the links between the system components Anderies et al 2004), seem to play an important part in how the authors conceived the article, yet there is no place for them in the discussion.
8. The authors say that their research identifies the many dynamic relationships between the system’s social and ecological components. It appears to me that the authors did this by historical recount, nonetheless, it is not clear how exactly was it done. How did the authors get from their historical recount to figure 5? And how does figure 5 capture the system dynamics and not only the networked structure of the system?
9. It seems that a bottom-up approach worked because there was a top-down institutional, legal and infrastructure condition that made it possible. By saying this, I don't mean to say that the case is not relevant and interesting. However, bottom-up governance is challenging because it faces social-political and economic negative conditions. 

1. • Perhaps the authors could increase the relevance of the article to a wider audience by telling how this particular socio-political environment evolved, with local stakeholders and bottom-up approaches helping to build it.

 

My general comment is that it is not clear what is its contribution. Mostly because it seems that what has been done here has been done many times before, therefore it is hard to grasp where is its innovative aspect. In other words, what, as readers, are to learn from this case, beyond learning from the case itself. Perhaps the idea is there, but it is not clear enough to see it.

 

Author Response

Authors’ Response: We appreciate these very constructive comments. We have made major revisions to address these comments, including updating the SES literature to incorporate 2018 – 2022 articles; rewritten the description  and context of the tragedy of the commons; rewritten and provided clearer context for top-down and bottom-up approaches to governance. The Discussion has been rewritten to articulate the contribution of the analyses and this manuscript.  

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Author,

Please improve the discussion wih addding more reference

Author Response

Authors’ Response: As noted in response to Reviewers 2 and 3 we have updated and expanded references, particularly providing recent SES literature relevant to governance of riverine systems, and rewritten the Discussion to reference this expanded context.

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments in the attachment

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Authors’ Response:   We have rethought and rewritten the title and abstract as suggested to better situate the article. The introduction, methods and discussion have been significantly rewritten to address the comments concerning triggers for changes in the structure of formal and informal governance, and to expand on the characteristics of the SES that enhances the ability to adapt over time. We have also drafted a new Figure 1 that provides a vastly improved location of the study area. All Figure citations have been updated for consistency and correctness. While there is a science of socio-ecological systems our emphasis is on SES as a conceptual approach – we have clarified this in the revised manuscript.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for allowing me to review this article. I consider that the comments have been satisfactorily answered by the authors.

Author Response

Thank you for allowing me to review this article. I consider that the comments have been satisfactorily answered by the authors.

Authors’ Response: Thank you for reviewing our revised manuscript.

Reviewer 5 Report

First, I would like to thank the authors for their rigorous work in improving the text. However, I believe that some can be improved.

The title remains ambiguous, unclear. The idea is that the article gives us an analysis of the figure of the cooperative for water management and the impact of formal and non-formal institutions on that local structure and its processes of adaptation to change, from a socio-ecological systems approach?. If it is this, the title does not reflect it and the socio-ecological systems term seems disconnected.

In lines 68-80 the authors present a little clearer the contribution of the work, but it is not yet enough to understand the concrete contribution in research area. Good for the context and evolution of the work of Ostrom and collaborators, but the emptiness and contributions made by the research is weakly argued, it must be improved. Additionally, it should be clear how the results obtained contribute to the strengthening of decision-making processes or can be used to guide sustainability in the study area. This should also be considered in the conclusions, which with respect to the version of the previous manuscript were omitted, in lines 688-696 a very brief paragraph of lines of conclusions is presented, important not only to highlight future needs, but also the possibilities of application of the results obtained. Although in the methods it is mentioned that it is a case study, and therefore the results are context-dependent and cannot be generalized to other SES, if the applicability of what is obtained can be shown for example the strengthening of the cooperative or forms of non-formal governance in articulation to the formal, for purposes of improving or maintaining sustainability.

Form comments

Some of the new texts that were added to the manuscript have change control, which made the reading a bit confusing.

In Figure 4, it is important in the figure footer to explain the meaning of the acronyms, which although they are in the development of the text, would facilitate the reading and interpretation of the figure.

 

Author Response

First, I would like to thank the authors for their rigorous work in improving the text. However, I believe that some can be improved.

The title remains ambiguous, unclear. The idea is that the article gives us an analysis of the figure of the cooperative for water management and the impact of formal and non-formal institutions on that local structure and its processes of adaptation to change, from a socio-ecological systems approach?. If it is this, the title does not reflect it and the socio-ecological systems term seems disconnected.

Authors’ Response: We have revised the title to more closely reflect the message of the manuscript “Adapting to Socio-Environmental Change: Institutional Analysis of the Adaptive Capacity of Interacting Formal and Informal Cooperative Water Governance”

In lines 68-80 the authors present a little clearer the contribution of the work, but it is not yet enough to understand the concrete contribution in research area. Good for the context and evolution of the work of Ostrom and collaborators, but the emptiness and contributions made by the research is weakly argued, it must be improved. Additionally, it should be clear how the results obtained contribute to the strengthening of decision-making processes or can be used to guide sustainability in the study area. This should also be considered in the conclusions, which with respect to the version of the previous manuscript were omitted, in lines 688-696 a very brief paragraph of lines of conclusions is presented, important not only to highlight future needs, but also the possibilities of application of the results obtained. Although in the methods it is mentioned that it is a case study, and therefore the results are context-dependent and cannot be generalized to other SES, if the applicability of what is obtained can be shown for example the strengthening of the cooperative or forms of non-formal governance in articulation to the formal, for purposes of improving or maintaining sustainability.

Authors’ Response: We have expanded the context provided in the Introduction by connecting the body of work on governance, complexity, and SES with recent work on transformative strategies and multisystemic resilience in SES (Alessa & Kliskey, 2021; Béné, C.; Doyen, 2018; Brown, 2021; Cosens et al 2021; Pahl-Wostl et al 2019, 2021; Shi & Moser, 2021). The conclusion has also been expanded to provide a stronger articulation of the contribution of this work and to connect back to the newer literature and highlight the relevance of this study to decision-making processes and sustainability.

Form comments

Some of the new texts that were added to the manuscript have change control, which made the reading a bit confusing.

Authors’ Response: The Introduction and Conclusion in the revised manuscript were expanded and edited to address this issue.

In Figure 4, it is important in the figure footer to explain the meaning of the acronyms, which although they are in the development of the text, would facilitate the reading and interpretation of the figure.

Authors’ Response: Thank you for pointing out this omission, we have added the description of each acronym in the Table caption.