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The Growing Importance Of Social Learning In Water Resources Management And Sustainability Science, Claudia Pahl-Wostl, Erik Mostert, David Tàbara

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The perceptions of what is required for sustainable water resources management and sustainability science in general have undergone major changes over the past decade. Initially, water resources management followed an instrumental “prediction and control” approach, dominated by technical end-of-pipe solutions. Pollution control, for example, relied primarily on waste water treatment instead of source control, and flood management was based on dykes and reservoirs rather than non-structural measures such as land-use zoning. This approach has yielded important results, but it came at a price. In many places, the natural dynamics of the river environment have been destroyed. Moreover, this approach no …