چكيده به لاتين
Water systems fall in category of complex and human-natural systems. In recent years and with
increasing understanding of such systems, scholars figured out that to be able to study and deal
with these systems, holistic and multi-disciplinary approaches are needed. Traditional and single
disciplinary approaches which see issues and problems through pure engineering and
technological lens, are insufficient in case of dealing with such systems and even can lead to
irreversible consequences. Due to dynamic and non-linear interactions in these systems, changes
and uncertainties are inherent; Changes like climate change, population growth, changes in
political relations, reveal the necessity of paying more attention to adaptation in water resources
management debate. Successful adaptation to these change requires that humans challenge their
“complete (or sufficient) knowledge” presumption and adopt approaches that lead to learning and
enhancing our understanding of these systems. One of the approaches that has been proposed to
do so, is Adaptive Management. Adaptive Management can increase the capacity of water
systems to deal with uncertainties and complexities by its emphasis on learning. On the other
hand, transboundary water resources account for almost half of earth’s freshwater flow, thus play
a great role in water management debate. Indeed, their transboundary nature adds to their
complexity and makes management of these water resources much more challenging. Hirmand
river is one of these water resources that is shared between Iran and Afghanistan. Due to its
extreme importance to both sides, it has been source of conflict and argue in scientific and
political debate. The present study, uses library research and descriptive method to investigate
the concepts of Adaptation, Adaptive Capacity and Adaptive Management and then tries to offer a
practicable framework for Adaptive Management in Hirmand basin. The stepwise framework in
composed of 8 steps, including: 1- Identification of uncertainties in the basin; 2- Identification of
stakeholders in the basin and assessing the horizontal cooperation and vertical coordination
among them; 3- Proposing a Joint Fact-Finding process for stakeholder participation; 4-
Identification of management objectives (which are essential in terms of learning); 5-
Identification of management alternatives and framework for prioritizing them; 6- Proposing a
monitoring system design for evaluating outcomes of the implemented actions; 7- Assessing the
conditions of Learning the basin and factor influencing it; 8- proposing Adaptive Pathways to
review and revision in action. Generally speaking, the conditions in the basin are in no favor of
enabling adaptation to climate change at all and requires serious and immediate actions.
