Adaptive rationales and social-ecological complexity on insular tourism regions vulnerable to water stress

The aim of this thesis is to enhance our understanding of the complex relationship between humans and the natural environment and to investigate decisionoriented approaches that can navigate social ecological complexity and promote sustainable development. The water-tourism complex and, more specifically, the link between water stress, tourism, climate change vulnerability, and water governance, constitute the empirical domain through which this thesis achieves its aim. The island of Rhodes in the Aegean is the laboratory (or case study) where the theoretical framework of the thesis is being applied for an empirical analysis that informs the theory. This thesis is organized into three chapters, written in the form of academic papers. The first paper uses the concept of complex systems as an analytical framework and, connecting it to planning theory, considers the implications of complexity into building planning mechanisms capable to respond to contemporary social and ecological challenges. It argues in favour of a ‘complexity turn’ in planning through the adaptive rationale (i.e. an additional, both normative and analytical, trajectory in planning theory, in the interplay between certainty and uncertainty). The second paper focuses on the complexity of the social and environmental relationships through the water-tourism complex. Following a social-ecological systems approach, it seeks to reply to the question of how water demand and governance interact with environmental dynamics to increase the vulnerability to water stress of insular tourism destinations. The analysis uses the island of Rhodes in Greece, as case study. The third paper further elaborates on the ‘adaptation pathways’ construct, originated in climate change research, by framing it to the management and governance of water resources in insular tourism regions vulnerable to water stress. This paper seeks to investigate the potential contribution of the ‘adaptation pathways’ framework in the building of adaptive Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and governance approaches, which promote resilience to water stress and overall sustainable development for the islands under consideration. The theoretical analysis in the third paper is complemented with considerations on the tourism islands of the Southern Aegean Region in Greece using Rhodes again as an example. The thesis is based on a mixed research approach of secondary data collection and stakeholder interviews. The analytical framework is characterized by an interdisciplinary investigation on: complexity sciences, complex systems, planning theory, social-ecological systems, vulnerability, resilience, water and tourism, tourism studies, island studies, water management and governance, and climate change adaptation research. The main results of the thesis refer to: a) contribution to the definition of the adaptive rationale by calling for issue-driven adaptive approaches conceptualized through normative sustainability and nourished by post-normal science, b) development of the Water-Tourism Social-Ecological Systems (SESs) framework for the investigation of water stress issues in insular tourism regions through a SES approach, and c) suggestion of the ‘adaptation pathways for Water-Tourism SESs’ approach as an additional lens to frame adaptive and integrated water-related decision-making for insular tourism regions bringing on board a place-centred perspective and based on the principles of the adaptive rationale.