6. Resistant, Reactive or Proactive Institutions? Exploring Adaptive Water Resources Management in the Po and Syr Darya River Basins

The following chapter presents, interprets and compares the findings from the Po River basin in Italy and the Syr Darya River basin in Kyrgyzstan with respect to the capacity of institutions in the water sector to address the prospected impacts of climatic and socio-economic changes. The analysis suggests that for the Po River basin, the political willingness to mobilise and translate adaptation into concrete responses and longer-term action plans is missing. In Kyrgyzstan, the conditions for adaptation are not established, thus requiring substantial efforts to build adaptive capacity of institutions in the water sector by activating all the considered aspects, i.e. infrastructure, information, finances, human and social capital, and political willingness and structure. The second part of this chapter compares the two water governance systems under review in terms of how the multi-level dimension played out in shaping the relationships and defining the impacts of the hypothesised determinants of adaptive capacity. Our analysis importantly highlights the relevance of international institutions in advancing concerns about adaptive capacity in the case of Kyrgyzstan, and of domestic regional institutions in the case of the Po River basin. Finally, we suggest some policy-relevant adaptation measures to include consistent data collection and dissemination, cross-sectoral collaboration, promotion of domestic political responsibility and initiative, awareness-raising of climate change impacts among key stakeholders, and a regional strategy.