Socio-Hydrological Pathways to Water–Food Resilience: Integrating Climate, Wetlands, Governance, and Conflict–Cooperation Dynamics

Abstract

The two-way feedback between societies and water systems is investigated using the socio-hydrology framework. This study evaluates how climate change and wetlands governance, as well as feedbacks, generate socio-hydrological pathways in the human–water system. The paper draws comparative lessons from six contrasting basins: Ganga– Brahmaputra, Kuttanad and Bundelkhand within India, and the Mississippi, Murray–Darling and Rhine outside of it to highlight how floods, droughts, wetland degradation and responses of institutions produce diverse adaptation and maladaptation trajectories. Results of this analysis indicate that, alongside hydroclimatic variability, resilience outcomes also result from governance structures, institutional path dependence, unequal access to water, and conflict–cooperation dynamics shaping water allocation and long-term vulnerability. Wetlands, playing an important role as ecological buffers, are under-represented in sociohydrological studies despite their significance for agricultural sustainability, ecological resilience, and water security. The review has identified four major gaps in the existing approaches: limited incorporation of cultural and institutional dynamics, weak characterisation of ecological thresholds, weak integration of multi-level governance, and neglect of hydro-political and conflict–cooperation processes. In this regard, we present an expanded socio-hydrological framework that can link hydrological science to governance analysis, remote sensing and dynamic modelling in order to further understand resilience pathways of wetland-dependent and agri-food systems under climate change.