An article co-written by IWSN researchers has been published by the Global Water Forum.
Combining water security and adaptive capacity for improved water management was written by Prof. Maria Carmen Lemos (University of Michigan); Assoc. Prof. David Manuel-Navarrete (Arizona State University); Dr. Bram Leo Willems (Centro de Competencias del Agua, Peru); Prof. Rolando Diaz Caravantes (El Colegio de Sonora, Mexico); and, Prof. Robert G. Varady (University of Arizona). It says:
“Water security and adaptive capacity are intrinsically connected in that achieving the former may depend on building the latter. In the case of highly uncertain and unpredictable phenomena—such as global climate change impacts—augmenting water security clearly requires strengthening adaptive capacity. Consequently, any attempt to quantify water security must include indicators of the adaptation actions that have been taken to increase adaptive capacity to possible threats not yet manifested as insecurity.
“At the same time, we need to better understand how interventions that increase water security now may limit future options for adaptation and transformation. These interdependent parameters of adaptive capacity and water security have generally been assumed to affect each other positively, though they may actually trade off or detract from each other.”
The article is a summary of their paper Advancing metrics: models for understanding adaptive capacity and water security, which was published in Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability in 2016.