摘要：Many international efforts have been made to encourage integrated water resourcesmanagement through recommendations from both the academic and the aid and development sectors.Recently, it has been argued that integrated water resources management can help foster better adaptationof management and policy responses to emerging water crises. Nevertheless, few empirical studies haveassessed how this type of management works in practice and what an integrated water management systemimplies for institutional adaptation and change. Our assessment of the Israeli water sector provides oneview of how they can be shaped by an integrated structure in the water sector. Our analysis of recent effortsto adapt Israel's water management system to new conditions and uncertainties reveals that theinterconnectedness of the system and the consensus decision-making process, led by a dominant actor whocoordinates and sets the policy agenda, tends to increase the complexity of negotiations. In addition, thephysical integration of water management leads to sunk costs of large-scale physical infrastructure. Boththese factors create a path dependency that empowers players who receive benefits from maintaining theexisting system. This impedes institutional reform of the water management system and suggests thatintegrated water resources management creates policy and management continuity that may only beamenable to incremental changes. In contrast, real adaptation that requires reversibility and the ability tochange management strategies in response to new information or monitoring of specific managementoutcomes
关键词：integrated water resources management; institutional change and adaptation; water policy;Israe
