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Paper short abstract

This paper examines adaptive water governance in Ladakh to show how climate uncertainty is governed through contested forms of knowledge and authority, highlighting interactions between state-led adaptation frameworks and community-based water practices in a high-altitude, climate-vulnerable region.

Paper long abstract

Climate change adaptation is often approached as a technical and managerial challenge, privileging expert-driven frameworks and standardised policy tools. This paper reframes adaptation as a governance process shaped by uncertainty, authority, and contested knowledge. Focusing on adaptive water governance in Ladakh, a high-altitude and climate-vulnerable borderland region, it examines how climate uncertainty is governed through interactions between state-led adaptation initiatives and historically embedded community water practices.

Drawing on field-based research and policy analysis, the paper examines how different forms of knowledge are mobilised, translated, and prioritised within formal governance arrangements. Rather than treating community-based knowledge as either marginal or inherently emancipatory, it critically examines how such knowledge is selectively recognised within technocratic adaptation frameworks, shaping decision-making authority and producing uneven governance outcomes. These interactions generate hybrid institutional arrangements characterised by ongoing negotiation rather than stable or coherent adaptation pathways.

By situating adaptive water governance within broader debates on knowledge, authority, and climate justice, the paper contributes to development studies scholarship on governing uncertainty in marginal and environmentally sensitive regions. It demonstrates how dominant adaptation models often obscure the political dimensions of knowledge use, while community-based practices continue to influence governance without fundamentally reshaping authority structures. The Ladakh case challenges universalist assumptions about climate adaptation and underscores the importance of examining how power and legitimacy are constituted through adaptation governance in the Global South.

Keywords:

Climate uncertainty, adaptive water governance, knowledge and authority, climate justice, Global South, environmental governance.