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Balancing Stability and Flexibility in Climate Crises Governance: Lessons From Brazil's Water Sector

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: ABSTRACT Climate‐induced crises such as droughts and floods increasingly strain public institutions, particularly where authority is fragmented and decisions must be made under urgency and uncertainty. This article examines Brazil's river‐basin monitoring rooms as procedural instruments of water crisis governance. Adopting a pragmatist lens that links practical authority and policy instrumentation , we analyze two cases—São Francisco and Paraíba do Sul—using a qualitative, multi‐source research design. We show that monitoring rooms enable flexible, real‐time coordination by combining technical forecasting with structured, bounded deliberation. Their authority is built in practice through recurrent mechanisms: problem‐solving under uncertainty, translation of hydrological and energy data into accessible terms, and sustained relational work that supports trust and compliance. Monitoring rooms complement basin committees by bridging urgent crisis response with longer‐term governance, and they have become institutionalized through repeated crisis use. The discussion situates these findings within collaborative governance and policy instrumentation debates, and highlights how similar procedural arenas in other domains (e.g., wildfire or pandemic response) can make governance more workable under stress.

Source: Review of Policy Research

DOI: 10.1111/ropr.70077

Authors: Carolina Milhorance, Marina Lazarotto Andrade, Pierre Louis Mayaux, Jean‐François le Coq