# Understanding the governance of sustainability pathways: Hydraulic megaprojects, social-ecological traps, and politicized networks of action situations

Pablo Méndez, Floriane Clement, Guillermo Palau Salvador, Ricardo

Díaz-Delgado, Sergio Villamayor-Tomas

► To cite this version:

Pablo Méndez, Floriane Clement, Guillermo Palau Salvador, Ricardo Díaz-Delgado, Sergio Villamayor-Tomas. Understanding the governance of sustainability pathways: Hydraulic megaprojects, social-ecological traps, and politicized networks of action situations. Sustainability Science, 2023, 10.1007/s11625-022-01258-0. http://hal-03365127

HAL Id: hal-03365127

https://hal.science/hal-03365127

Submitted on 5 Sep 2023

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>
# Understanding the governance of sustainability pathways: hydraulic megaprojects, social-ecological traps, and power in networks of action situations

Pablo F Méndez, Floriane Clement, Guillermo Palau-Salvador, Ricardo Diaz-Delgado, Sergio Villamayor-Tomas

► To cite this version:

Pablo F Méndez, Floriane Clement, Guillermo Palau-Salvador, Ricardo Diaz-Delgado, Sergio Villamayor-Tomas. Understanding the governance of sustainability pathways: hydraulic megaprojects, social-ecological traps, and power in networks of action situations. Sustainability Science, 2022, 18 (1), pp.303-321. 10.1007/s11625-022-01258-0. hal-04182433

HAL Id: hal-04182433

https://hal.science/hal-04182433

Submitted on 17 Aug 2023

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>
# Understanding the governance of sustainability pathways: hydraulic megaprojects, social-ecological traps, and power in networks of action situations

Pablo F. Méndez<fnref n="1" /> Ⓒ · Floriane Clement<fnref n="2" /> · Guillermo Palau-Salvador<fnref n="1" /> · Ricardo Diaz-Delgado<fnref n="3" /> · Sergio Villamayor-Tomas<fnref n="4" />

Received: 2 August 2021 / Accepted: 31 October 2022 / Published online: 17 December 2022
© The Author(s) 2022

## Abstract

To enable sustainability pathways, we need to understand how social-ecological systems (SES) respond to different governance configurations, considering their historical, institutional, political, and power conditions. We advance a robust methodological approach for the integrated analysis of those conditions in SES traps. Our advancement consists of a novel combination of the networks of action situations approach with an agency-based polycentric power typology and the concept of discursive power. We test the approach by building on previous research on the Doñana estuary-delta SES (Guadalquivir estuary), which is characterized by a rigidity trap in the context of ecosystem and water governance. Specifically, we focus on a recent hydraulic megaproject involving deep dredging in the Guadalquivir estuary, finally canceled due to its broad negative socioeconomic and environmental repercussions. According to our analysis, certain governance, institutional, and informational mechanisms currently prevent further SES degradation in Doñana. However, key governance actors are caught in a lasting coordination failure prone to mutual defection strategies owing to power dynamics and discursive-institutional inertia. Although seemingly stable due to counteractive mechanisms among actors, this situation is at continuous risk of being unbalanced by powerful actors promoting large SES interventions such as deep dredging. Such interventions bear the systemic risk of strong suppression of SES functions, and a regime shift to a lock-in trap. This overall undesirable situation might be escaped through transformative policy designs that take into account meso-level mechanisms, such as discursive power and its role in non-decision-making, pragmatic inaction, and inefficient investment and infrastructure.

**Keywords** Water resource governance · Sustainability pathways · Social-ecological traps · Agency-based power · Discursive power · Networks of actions situations

Handled by Elke Kellner, Eidgenössische Forschungsanstalt für Wald Schnee und Landschaft, Switzerland.

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

## Introduction

Sustainability pathways have become more urgent than ever to safeguard our life-support systems (Coloff et al. 2021; Folke et al. 2021; UNEP 2021; Ely 2022). Understanding

<footnote>Pablo F. Méndez
pfmendez@ingenio.upv.es</footnote>

<footnote n="1">¹ Institute of Innovation and Knowledge Management, INGENIO (CSIC-Universitat Politècnica de València), Edificio 8E, Camino de Vera, S/N, 46022 Valencia, Spain</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² DYNAFOR, Université de Toulouse, INRAE, 24 Chemin de Borde-Rouge, Auzeville CS 52627, 31326 Castanet Tolosan Cedex, France</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ Remote Sensing and GIS Lab, Estación Biológica de Doñana, EBD (CSIC), Cartuja TA-10, Edificio I, Calle Américo Vespucio, S/N, 41092 Seville, Spain</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain</footnote>
the role of governance in change processes towards sustain-
ability is critical at both empirical–theoretical (how does
current change happen) and normative (how change ought
to happen) levels (Berkes 2007; Patterson et al. 2017; Turn-
heim et al. 2018; Donges et al. 2021; Pickering et al. 2022).
However, despite growing attention in the last decade, the
understanding of the role of governance and its underly-
ing processes remains underdeveloped (Muñoz-Erickson
et al. 2016; Patterson et al. 2017; Kellner 2021; Orach and
Schlüter 2021; Muiderman et al. 2022; Rocha et al. 2022).
In particular, interventions to foster sustainability path-
ways must reflect on how social–ecological systems (SES)
respond to different governance configurations, considering
their local arrangements of actors, institutions and power,
and historical legacies (Clark and Harley 2020).

Here we contribute to fill the gap in the literature regard-
ing the role of governance and its underlying processes in
fostering change towards sustainability, with a particular
focus on SES traps (Holling et al. 2002; Carpenter and
Brock 2008). We define governance broadly as the processes
through which actors create the conditions for social coordi-
nation, resource allocation, sharing power and making pol-
icy (based on Folke et al. 2005). SES traps are processes of
involution of social–ecological interactions (Boonstra 2016),
driven by strong feedback loops “with negative outcomes for
people and/or ecosystems” (Cumming 2017). We deal with
two SES traps: the rigidity trap (Herrfahrdt-Pähle and Pahl-
Wostl 2012; Enqvist et al. 2016; Stedman 2016; Méndez
et al. 2019) and the lock-in trap (Allison and Hobbs 2004;
Boonstra and de Boer 2014). Rigidity traps are character-
ized by a mutual reinforcement of power, politics, and profit
through the recurrent application of command-and-control
approaches (Holling and Meffe 1996) for resource and
ecosystem management. Eventually, these features hinder
potential for change, diminish SES resilience (i.e., the capac-
ity of a SES to absorb change and disturbance and avoid a
regime shift to undesirable sets of processes and structures),
and promote strong dependence on limited sets of resources
(Gunderson et al. 1995; Holling and Meffe 1996; Walker
and Salt 2006; Cox 2016). In a lock-in trap, the economic
sectors bear high sunk costs and so risk degrading SES func-
tions and the resource base until capital is totally removed,
thus dramatically diminishing economic returns, resource
yields, and overall potential for socioeconomic change (Alli-
son and Hobbs 2004). We assume that the rigidity and the
lock-in traps exist in an evolutionary continuum, whereby if
the former is pushed enough against resilience thresholds,
it can enter a self-reinforcing dynamic leading to a lock-in
trap and so suppresses the potential of change toward more
favorable situations (based on, e.g., Gunderson et al. 2017;
Reyers et al. 2018; Dornelles et al. 2020).

A general goal of SES traps studies is to understand
the causal mechanisms underlying the degree of rigidity

or lock-in of social situations producing environmental or
resource degradation (e.g., Steneck et al. 2011; Méndez et al.
2012; Enfors 2013; Haider et al. 2018). In the past decade,
increasing focus has been directed to analyzing the role of
historical, discursive, political, and power phenomena in the
emergence and persistence of traps (e.g., Beier et al. 2009;
Chapin et al. 2010; Méndez et al. 2012; Wrathall et al. 2014;
Enqvist et al. 2016; Laborde et al. 2016; Baker et al. 2018;
Graziano et al. 2019; Schlüter et al. 2019). However, within
current research, there is still a lack of systematization of
the interweaving influence of such phenomena over histori-
cal configurations and their outcomes (Méndez et al. 2019).
Advances are still challenged by the intractable nature of
different power forms (Boonstra 2016; Morrison et al. 2019;
Avelino 2021). A methodological engagement with the
effect of power as a property of both actors and structures
vis-a-vis historical, institutional (Boonstra 2016; Dewulf
et al. 2019) and discursive (Méndez et al. 2019) dynamics
can help uncover richer sources of resilience and transforma-
tive capacities in entrapped SES.

In this article, we explore a methodological approach
to integrate historical, institutional, discursive and power
factors for enhanced explanations of the governance con-
figurations of SES traps. Specifically, we combine three
different concepts: (1) the “Networks of Action Situations
(NAS) approach” (e.g., McGinnis 2011a; Kimmich and Vil-
lamayor-Tomás 2019; Möck et al. 2019; Basurto et al. 2020;
Kimmich et al. 2022 this issue); (2) the “polycentric power
typology” (Morrison et al. 2017, 2019; Mudliar 2020); and
(3) “discursive power” (Clement 2010). To test the approach,
we build on a long-term social–ecological research program
in the Doñana region, an estuary–delta SES (Guadalquivir
estuary, SW Spain). The Doñana SES is stuck in a rigidity
trap characterized by path dependence, strong command-
and-control management of water resources, the historical
loss of key SES functions, a pronounced development vs
conservation paradigm, and lack of mechanisms to facilitate
learning from management failures and environmental crises
(Méndez et al. 2012, 2019; see also perspectives from, e.g.,
Martín-López et al. 2011; Fernández-Delgado 2017; Green
et al. 2017). Our proposed approach is tested on a recent
hydraulic megaproject in the Guadalquivir estuary (hence-
forth “estuary megaproject”), and as such, brings an entirely
new analytical effort to the Doñana research program. As
we show below, the megaproject constituted a large inter-
vention bearing a substantial risk of pushing the Doñana
SES to a lock-in trap, thus hindering sustainability path-
ways. Although finally canceled, important lessons can be
derived from the megaproject using counterfactual reasoning
(Boonstra and de Boer 2014): what if deep dredging, a dis-
turbance of catastrophic magnitude, had been implemented?
Why and how did it take almost two decades for it to be
canceled? Under which governance configuration would it

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>
have operated? Given the above context, our exploratory
aims were:

* Methodological aim: to advance a novel approach that integrates rigorous institutional and power analysis via combining three conceptual components: the NAS approach, the polycentric power typology and discursive power.

* Research aim: to refine the explanatory mechanisms underlying Doñana's rigidity trap, to assess the risk of a lock-in trap and the prospects for fostering a sustainability pathway.<fnref n="1" />

Next, we describe our methodological approach, includ-
ing our unit of analysis (estuary megaproject), the concep-
tual components used and the methods employed to opera-
tionalize such components. We then present our results in
narrative form, followed by our discussion and conclusions.

Methodological approach

Unit of analysis: the estuary megaproject—the port awakens

The research presented here constitutes a third iteration of
the Doñana long-term social–ecological research program,
which follows an iterative adaptive inference protocol (based
on Holling and Allen 2002; see details in S1). As described
above, our unit of analysis is the Guadalquivir estuary
megaproject: a major hydraulic intervention for improving
the maritime access to Seville’s inland port, promoted by the
Port Authority in 2000 as part of its broader 2020 Strategic
Plan. After several years of shallow dredging, the estuary
megaproject proposed, among other measures, deeper dredg-
ing of the Guadalquivir estuary (Fig. 1) to allow for heavy-
ship navigation, based on the assumptions that (1) the best
development alternative for the port was to increase freight
traffic and to make the port accessible for larger and higher
tonnage ships (e.g., deeper draft vessels), thus improving its
connection to the Trans-European Transport Network (SPA
2013); (2) this infrastructure development would be key for
socioeconomic development at provincial level (e.g., genera-
tion of thousands of jobs; increasing cruise tourism) (Vargas
and Paneque 2015; Donadei 2020).

However, deep dredging posed large negative socioeco-
nomic and environmental impacts (Vargas and Paneque
2015), as identified through a study led by the Spanish

Research Council (CSIC study hereafter; CSIC 2010). This
study showed poor environmental and ecological conditions
in the estuary (e.g., biochemical pollution; high organic mat-
ter content and turbidity; non-stratified water body leading to
habitat reduction and decreased potential for fishing activi-
ties). Two main conclusions from the study were (1) over-
all resource optimization for both the socioeconomic and
conservation sectors is not possible—especially in the cur-
rent scenario of climate change; (2) the cumulative impacts
from deep dredging could worsen the environmental situa-
tion and socioeconomic prospects (CSIC 2010). Moreover,
the assumption of socioeconomic development resulting
from new infrastructures and enhanced maritime tourism
and trading has been convincingly argued as very specula-
tive (Sancho-Royo and Del Moral 2014, 2015; Vargas 2014;
Vargas and Paneque 2015). The megaproject was finally
canceled by the Spanish Supreme Court in 2019.

A key insight from previous research provides the basis
for our current approach in this iteration. Doñana’s SES “sta-
bility landscape” (Walker et al. 2004) is characterized by the
path-dependent rigidity trap (current domain) plus the lock-
in trap and a sustainability pathway (alternative domains)
(Fig. 2). The fast development of irrigation and rice agricul-
ture between the 1950s and the 1980s reduced the original
marshland surface area by ~80% (Fernández-Delgado 2017).
This process of natural capital destruction could have driven
the Doñana region directly into a lock-in trap (Allison and
Hobbs 2004). Instead, a rigidity trap with higher potential
for change materialized due to the creation of the Doñana
National Park in 1969, thanks to the innovative action of an
international coalition of institutional entrepreneurs (Fig. 2)
(Méndez et al. 2012)—also envisaged as a process of “eco-
logical diplomacy” (Camprubí 2020). In this conception, the
estuary megaproject appears as a disturbance posing (again)
a risk of a regime shift to a SES lock-in trap, which has less
potential for change due to high sunk and trajectory-shifting
costs (Fig. 2).

Conceptual components

Networks of action situations: a systems-based application

The action situation is a core component of actor-centered,
pluralistic institutional analysis frameworks focused on
understanding the micro-level of natural resources govern-
ance problems (Anderies et al. 2004; Hagedorn 2008; Pahl-
Wostl et al. 2010). Here, we conceive an action situation
as an analytical component, in the rational-choice tradi-
tion of the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD)
framework (Ostrom 2005), as the social space where: (1)
policies or institutions are designed or developed by actors
engaged in strategic interactions at multiple levels (opera-
tional, collective-choice and constitutional); (2) the patterns

<footnote n="1">¹ This research has been designed to inform the development of the policy analysis task of eLTER Research Infrastructure (https://elter-ri. eu/).</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 1** Geographical location of the Doñana social-ecological system and the main elements characterizing our unit of analysis (estuary megaproject) (modified from Méndez et al. 2019, under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 International License)</figcaption></figure>

of interactions, plus the decisions made and actions taken, shape certain internal or external outcomes associated with different payoffs for the different participating actors; (3) such outcomes feedback into the action situation and its context, potentially changing them and shaping future dynamics (based on Ostrom 2005; McGinnis 2011b). The action situation is a strong analytical device for seeking explanations within place-specific settings, addressing their biophysical, institutional, and cultural conditions (Ostrom 2005).

Recently, scholars have started to apply a relational perspective by applying a network of action situations (NAS) approach to analyze how and when situations affect each

other, thus stretching the explanatory power of the action situation component (McGinnis 2011a; Möck et al. 2019; Kimmich et al. 2022 this issue; Srigiri and Dombrowsky 2022). Formally, a network of action situations (NAS) constitutes an array of action situations differing in, e.g., degrees of proximity, function, and the game into which they theoretically fit (McGinnis 2011a; Kimmich 2013). More generally, four types of links across the NAS can be distinguished (Kimmich 2013; Hoffmann and Villamayor-Tomas 2022 this issue): biophysical transactions; information; institutions; and actors involved. The application of the NAS approach involves two initial steps: (1) the definition of a “focal action

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 2** Landscape of stability domains of the Doñana social-ecological system (SES) (inspired by figure in Bennett et al. 2021), including: the rigidity trap (grey trajectory; intermediate potential for SES change) as the current domain, and the lock-in trap (brown trajectory; lowest potential for SES change) and sustainability pathway (blue trajectory; highest SES potential), as alternative domains. The creation of Doñana National Park appears as an event that prevented the fall to a lock-in trap in 1969 and resulted instead in the realization of a rigidity trap; the estuary megaproject appears as a counterfactual event that might have led to a lock-in trap. Design credits: Sistèmika (Silvia Jiménez Izquierdo and Sonia Rodríguez Martínez)</figcaption></figure>

situation” (FAS) and the “adjacent action situations” affecting it; (2) the identification of the strategic games that might be at play, thus helping to unravel the foundational structure of dilemmas, conflicts, or coordination problems (Kimmich and Villamayor-Tomás 2019). The NAS-linked game models help to understand outcomes (e.g., equilibria) which would otherwise remain unexplained (McGinnis 2011a; Kimmich 2013).

Here, we used the micro-level NAS approach keeping a meso-micro analytical tension to connect logically with the Doñana research program. The latter works at meso-level, aggregating institutional, discursive, and power mechanisms

to explain processes and outcomes at SES level (e.g., SES traps), and deals with the macro properties of path dependence. Indeed, both emergence from bottom-up interactions and systems-to-micro effects are crucial to understand causality in SES (Schlüter et al. 2019). Path-dependent SES traps constitute an emergent phenomenon that results from micro-level actor interactions embedded in macro- or system-level trajectories (Boonstra and de Boer 2014). To that end, Boonstra and de Boer (2014; based on Elias 1978) propose game concepts to capture the essential features of path-dependent SES traps. Over time, player interactions shape the course of a game, each course gaining in autonomy over initial player choices in an unanticipated way, and which then repeatedly influences the future moves of individual players (Boonstra and de Boer 2014).

## A power typology

Power, both endogenous and exogenous to actor-centered phenomena, is increasingly being analyzed to understand its role in resource and environmental governance (Clement 2010; Theesfeld 2011; Epstein et al. 2014; Kashwan 2016; Morrison et al. 2017; Bennett et al. 2018; Brisbois et al. 2019; Cole et al. 2019; Mudliar 2020). Here, concerning the analysis of power relationships and dynamics, we drew on two conceptualizations: “discursive power” (Clement 2010) and the “polycentric power typology” established by Morrison et al. (2017, 2019; see Table 1). The discursive power notion was introduced into the IAD framework by Clement (2010) to systematize the analysis of how power shapes the decisions of actors located in action situations, factoring in the political-economic context. From a discursive power perspective, discourses hold a capacity to reinforce or undermine the credibility and legitimacy of institutions, and so are constitutive elements that can confer/drain power to/from institutions (i.e., discourses have power on their own) (Clement 2010). In a dynamic two-way interaction, discourses can mobilize power and function as drivers of policy and institutional dynamics, with actors’ values, interests, and beliefs

<table><caption>**Table 1** Polycentric power typology (Morrison et al. 2017, 2019; Mudliar 2020), including discursive power (Clement 2010) as a fourth type</caption><thead><tr><td>Type of power</td><td>Description</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Power by design</td><td>Power written in rules and incentives. Formal authority with capacity to make rules, allocate resources, undertake structural adjustment, redesign markets and administrative structures, to tax, and regulate resource use and externalities. Includes legal power, political power and administrative power</td></tr><tr><td>Pragmatic power</td><td>Discretion associated in implementing rules. Includes cooperation as well as false compliance, feigned ignorance, tokenistic behavior, non-decision-making, inability, and reluctance of formal government to implement policies, and lack of compliance</td></tr><tr><td>Framing power</td><td>Actors construct frames to manipulate, persuade, induce, sanction, and coerce the contest of top-down decisions and present them as illegitimate to subvert, disrupt, and avoid formal rules</td></tr><tr><td>Discursive power</td><td>Discourses exercise power by influencing how actors perceive reality and by constituting their interests and preferences. They also exercise power by limiting the range of institutions and policy options perceived as possible and acceptable</td></tr></tbody></table>
built in. In turn, power dynamics are shaped by the politi-
cal–economic context and the pre-existing institutional prac-
tices in which they are embedded (Clement and Amezaga
2013).

The polycentric power typology allows for a closer
examination of the power-laden conditions and various
power sources enabling actors to fulfill their interests and
achieve their goals (Morrison et al. 2019). Using that typol-
ogy (Table 1), we sought to complement our use of discurs-
sive power in previous research (Méndez et al. 2019) with
agency-based theories of power. By combining these two
conceptualizations of power with the NAS approach, we
sought to explore the role of power in explaining strategic
interactions among actors. In our view, whilst discursive
power allows the capture of power phenomena not easily
attributable to a specific group of actors, the polycentric
power typology allows the capture of actors’ agency and,
notably, their capacity to influence the way environmental
problems are framed and thus to change/reinforce discourses.
Here, the strengths of the polycentric power typology were
leveraged in the context of a command-and-control para-
digm. This paradigm was inherited from previous authori-
ties, and it continues to imbue the current multiple governing
authorities operating at different levels in Doñana.

Methods: operationalizing the conceptual
components

To operationalize our conceptual components, we followed
two main steps. First, we collected information to build a
historical profile of the estuary megaproject between 2000
and 2019. This was done through a critical review of (1) key
primary sources for direct evidence and historical data,
and (2) secondary sources for interpreted evidence and con-
text found in similar research (see sources consulted in S2).
Second, we performed our core analytical task by probing
the historical profile and concurrently constructing a quali-
tative narrative for reporting our results. To maintain a sys-
tems perspective and meso–micro tension in our exploratory
exercise, we decided a priori to identify and apply game-
theoretic logics to the core FAS situation (micro-level), and
to perform a more descriptive analysis of its adjacent NAS
dynamics (meso-level). Third, drawing on discursive power
and the polycentric power typology, we analyzed power
relationships over the whole NAS, letting the required
meso–micro tension to arise ex post. Analysis and narrative
construction proceeded through a cyclic recursive process
of information collection, interpretation, and inference (Yin
2018). Our focus was on (1) interactions within and between
action situations, and how and why such interactions might
influence SES outcomes, and (2) the risk of regime shift to
a lock-in trap and the prospects for a sustainability path-
way at Doñana SES level. Our procedure borrowed from

the analytic narrative approach (e.g., Levi 2004), in that it
specified how the narrative was assembled, and contributed
to explanation on a par with game-theoretic language and the
empirical material against which the proposed games were
evaluated (Mongin 2018).

Results

Our narrative first presents the identified Focal Action Situ-
ation (FAS), its linked Network of Action Situations (NAS)
and the initial conditions of the analysis. The narrative then
provides an analysis of the games that best approximate the
strategic interactions among FAS actors and their inter-
weaving with NAS dynamics. The narrative finishes with
the power analysis using the polycentric power typology and
discursive power.

Focal action situation, linked network of action
situations and initial conditions—the lock-in
menace

The FAS was composed of three main organizational actors
at operational level (i.e., directly affecting or affected by the
estuary megaproject): Port Authority (A₁), Rice Growers
(A₂) and Nature Stewards (A₃) (Fig. 3). Nature Stewards
encompassed actors with similar interests in preserving
healthy ecosystem processes and functionality in the Gua-
dalquivir estuary (e.g., fisheries sector), the Doñana marshes
(e.g., National Park) and Veta la Palma (e.g., sustainable
aquaculture operation) (see Fig. 1 for geographical location
and S1 for further description). Those actors are represented
here mainly by the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) and
in key governance structures such as the Doñana Participa-
tion Council. The FAS was then linked to a NAS composed
of six main action situations. Closer to the FAS, at collec-
tive-choice level, we identified three specific action situa-
tions: water planning (AS<sub>wp</sub>), knowledge generation (AS<sub>kg</sub>)
and governance (AS<sub>govc</sub>). At a higher constitutional level,
we identified three broader action situations operating top-
down: government (AS<sub>gov</sub>), ruling (AS<sub>rui</sub>) and supranational
authority (AS<sub>sup</sub>). See Fig. 3 for detailed descriptions.

Analysis concentrated on the period 1985–2000. In 2000,
the estuary megaproject proposed four major measures (SPA
2013):

1. The construction of a new lock through enlarging the old lock that connected the estuary and the commercial quay.

2. Deep dredging of the estuary to increase its depth (from 6.5 to 8 m on average) and width (from 60 to 90 m on average) along the whole course of the navigable canal.

3. Maintenance of the deep dredging for 20 years.

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 3** Focal Action Situation of the estuary megaproject, linked Network of Action Situations, main interrelationships and actors’ descriptions</figcaption></figure>

4. Auxiliary infrastructure (e.g., new bridges, port infrastructure, road and rail communication network).

For our analysis, the relevant measures were (1) the new lock, named “Sea Gate,” and (2) the “deep dredging measure” (DDM; never implemented). These measures are
now subsequently contraposed to (1) the status quo “shal-
low dredging measure” (sqSDM; subcontracted by the Port
Authority for maintenance since 1985), and (2) a potential
sustainability pathway.

Before 2000, the FAS actors seemed to have co-existed
in a quite stable pattern of strategic interactions. This stable
state was characterized by a local use of water resources
that (arguably) did not imply net short-term deterioration of
overall quality, nor an excessive withdrawal by any single
actor that significantly reduced availability for others. We
argue that this was due to existing infrastructure, governance
and institutional mechanisms that contributed (and still con-
tribute) to the minimization of impacts and the de-escalation
of conflictive situations. Key mechanisms included (based
on Del Moral 1991; González-Arteaga 2005; Méndez et al.
2019; See also SES boundaries in S1):

* A massive hydraulic-irrigation infrastructure that allows for command-and-control water management across sectors.

* The coordination of estuary water intakes required for rice cultivation with (1) salinity wedge control through managed freshwater discharges from upstream and headwaters dams, and (2) maintenance shallow dredging.

* The aquaculture operation, which has the ability to con-
trol water quality through sluice gates and internal recir-
culation.

* The protection of the Doñana marshes both legally and physically through surrounding natural levees and artificial embankments equipped with sluice gates.

* Governance bodies such as the Doñana Participation Council, through which conflicts, if not resolved, are at least made explicit and liable to closer inspection.

* No destabilizing large megaprojects or developments in a region already saturated by hydraulic infrastructure and that was probably close to its limits in terms of agricultural economic yield.

Subsequently, three pertinent insights were gained. First,
the FAS stable state characterized water resources/wet-
lands governance and the rigidity trap in Doñana to a large
extent pre-2000, and it currently remains the status quo, as
DDM was never implemented. We thus conjecture that: pre-
1985 the three FAS actors were (and still are) enmeshed
in a rather regularized pattern of expectations and strategic
interactions posing no immediate risk of large irreversible
socioeconomic impacts or environmental degradation in the
short term. Second, in 1985, sqSDM gave the Port Author-
ity a first-mover advantage and increased the probability of
DDM, thus setting the initial conditions to destabilize the
FAS state. Third, in 2000, DDM posed a looming systemic
risk at SES level, jeopardizing a stable situation with higher
potential to achieve a sustainable pathway in a less costly

way than (counterfactually) a world where DDM had been
implemented—probably leading to a lock-in trap. We termed
this situation “grey equilibrium” (see game-based descrip-
tion below). Prompted by these insights, we applied our
game-theoretic NAS approach and power analysis.

Focal action situation games and network of action
situations dynamics—a knowledge hope

A pattern of uncooperative behavior (2000–2010)

We merged the estuary megaproject’s historical profile with
our description of NAS dynamics, to show such dynamics
vis-a-vis key influencing events and linkages (Fig. 4). We
identified three relevant cycles characterizing NAS dynam-
ics (we describe the most important linkages; for further
details see Fig. 4):

1. A governance cycle (2000–2007) that originates in AS<sub>govc</sub>, triggered bottom-up by the prescriptive report of the Doñana Participation Council rejecting the estuary megaproject (δ<sub>21</sub>, AS<sub>govc</sub>), and the participatory decision to create the Estuary Scientific Commission (δ<sub>4</sub>, AS<sub>govc</sub>). The cycle closed with the commissioning of the CSIC study (δ<sub>5</sub>, AS<sub>kg</sub>).

2. A government cycle (2010–2014) that originates in AS<sub>gov</sub>, triggered by the publication of the CSIC study (δ<sub>612</sub>, AS<sub>kg</sub>), which set into motion national (δ<sub>7</sub>, AS<sub>gov</sub>) and supranational (δ<sub>9</sub>, AS<sub>sup</sub>) governmental reactions in response to the study plus formal complaints from Nature Stewards (e.g., δ<sub>8</sub>, FAS).

3. A final ruling cycle (2015–2019) triggered by the inclusion of DDM in the two subsequent Guadalquivir River Water Plans of 2013 (δ₁₀, AS<sub>wp</sub>) and 2016 (δ₁₄, AS<sub>wp</sub>), both of which entailed sentencing against such inclusion by the Spanish Supreme Court in 2015 (δ₁₃, AS<sub>rul</sub>) and 2019 (δ₁₆, AS<sub>rul</sub>), respectively.

The entry point for our analysis was the informational-
institutional linkage δ₆₁₂ created between AS<sub>kg</sub> and the FAS
through the 2011 CSIC study (Fig. 4). With such linkage
absent, the FAS, between 2000 and 2010, seems to fit a one-
shot game of conflict. Here defection and free riding on estu-
ary water resources were the chosen behaviors of the Port
Authority, and such behavior was passively supported by the
River Authority through its water planning functions, AS<sub>wp</sub>
(Fig. 4). The game approximates a prisoner's dilemma where
the Port Authority sets an action course (defection strategy)
to its own advantage, choosing to maximize economic tar-
gets irrespective of the strategies of the Rice Growers and
Nature Stewards. Between 2000 and 2010, those two actors
also had their own defection strategies—which, to the best
of our knowledge, they still have in 2022. Rice Growers had

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_11.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 4** Dynamics of the Network of Action Situations of the estuary megaproject vis-à-vis the megaproject's historical profile. Such dynamics evolved between 2000 and 2010 through three relevant</figcaption></figure>

cycles (governance, government and ruling) and resulted in a major shift in the underlying rules of the game within the Focal Action Situation after 2010
<figure><img src="image_12.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 5** Stag-hunt game model of the Focal Action Situation in extensive form. The game progresses from the start of the game (Ø) to four terminal histories describing the sequential structure of actors’ decision-making. The differing preferences of actors are represented by the structure of their payoff functions for each of the terminal his-</figcaption></figure>

a strong lobbying power to achieve the construction of an alternative hydraulic megaproject granting water resources upstream of the Port or from other basins. Nature Stewards had the capacity to isolate wetlands and the aquaculture operation from the biophysical conditions in the estuary via engineering means (e.g., sluice gates, see S1).

In this situation, the prospects for cooperation and keeping the status quo “grey equilibrium” were limited. But the relevance of this analysis does not lie in how well the situation adjusts to a prisoner’s dilemma, but in how the estuary megaproject appears to have concurrently induced three things. First, the launch of the megaproject caused the (somewhat hidden) “grey equilibrium” to emerge in 2000. Without the megaproject’s launch, such an equilibrium might have gone unnoticed for either the playing actors or any external observer. Second, the realization of that equilibrium induced an unstable prisoner’s dilemma, making the Port Authority’s overall development strategy highly vulnerable. The other two players became rapidly aware of the risk posed by the Port Authority’s first-mover advantage, and the Nature Stewards in particular chose to fight back throughout the NAS governance cycle (Fig. 4). Third, this fightback stance made possible the CSIC study, which then induced a game shift in 2011.

In 2011, the CSIC study ($\delta_6 l_2$, $AS_{kg}$, Fig. 4) and additional studies questioning the assumptions of socioeconomic growth underlying the estuary megaproject changed the underlying rules of the game. We argue that, in 2011, the FAS actors entered a coordination game resembling a

tories, which can be characterized by three outcome equilibria: turbid equilibrium (achieved by the Nature Stewards “surrendering the SES”), grey equilibrium (maintained by the Port Authority “striking back”) and blue equilibrium (characterized by all actors “working with nature”)

stag-hunt (assurance) game (Fig. 4, game shift) (see, e.g., Mielke and Steudle 2018). As we show below, the stag hunt continues to reflect the prisoner’s-dilemma situation (i.e., propensity to defect from the “grey equilibrium”), but it also reflects two other equilibria that would have not materialized in the absence of a knowledge input such as the CSIC study. The latter shifted a situation dominated by imperfect information and possible payoffs from the actor’s defect strategies, to a more informed situation with the potential to achieve a higher equilibrium dominated by risk—but also more rewarding if considering overall socioeconomic welfare at SES level. However, as we show next, this situation was characterized by a coordination failure among actors—a failure that, to the best of our knowledge, still characterizes the situation in 2022.

## An escapable coordination failure (2011–2019)?

We reflect on our argument about the game shift using an extended-form game model (Fig. 5; shift also marked in Fig. 4). To simplify our causal interpretation, we combined Rice Growers and Nature Stewards into a single actor $A_{2+3}$, but diagnosed separately their different interests, behaviors, and influence over SES outcomes. The differing preferences of actors are represented by the structure of their payoff functions (Fig. 5), for which there seem to be three outcome equilibria. Each equilibrium results from a respective terminal history describing the sequential structure of decision-making from the start of the game Ø (Fig. 5):
* “Strike back” ($H_A$): the Port Authority chooses to “disengage” from the rest of actors, hence precluding the finding of a coordinated SES-level solution. Such a choice thus means a proactive role in keeping the status quo “grey equilibrium” which shows intermediate payoffs (2,2) associated with past prisoner’s-dilemma-like strategic interactions. This equilibrium situation keeps open the possibility of “fight” responses from both the Nature Stewards (hard responses) and Rice Growers (lukewarm responses, due to their plan B megaproject). In game-theoretic terms, actors continue their uncooperative behavior and “choose” to hunt hare to secure a more certain gain, i.e., the “grey equilibrium” is payoff dominant. This equilibrium also reflects on a terminal history in which the estuary megaproject was never put forward, i.e., “doing nothing” beyond sqSDM ($H_A'$).

* “Working with nature” ($H_B$): the Port Authority chooses to “engage” with the other actors to find a coordinated solution at SES level. This choice, therefore, means a potential collective bet to coordinate the achievement of a “blue equilibrium” showing the highest payoffs (3,3). This equilibrium situation would arise from new strategic interactions emerging in the FAS and spreading to, or facilitated by, its linked NAS, to secure a robust sustainability outcome and pathway. Here, we do not discuss in detail the governance configuration or policy instruments required for the “blue equilibrium,” but use it as a likely future scenario in which we speculate that all actors would be better off—although not without taking certain risks. Indeed, if the actors coordinate, they “choose” to hunt stag and seek riskier long-term gains at SES level: the “blue equilibrium” is, therefore, risk dominant.

* “Surrender the SES” ($H_C$): the Nature Stewards choose to “acquiesce” to the estuary megaproject and DDM is implemented. This choice thus means a below sub-optimal “turbid equilibrium,” potentially showing the lowest payoffs for all actors (hunt precluded). Based on existing evidence (see main text and S1), we assume that in this equilibrium situation: the purported socioeconomic benefits of the estuary megaproject are highly speculative and are not achieved; the Rice Growers manage to lobby effectively for a new megaproject granting their required resources but in doing so create similar allocation issues elsewhere; the estuary ecosystems become highly degraded; and the protected wetlands remain disconnected from their natural dynamics; therefore, failing to achieve their original hydro-ecological functions.

The peripheral terminal histories $H_C$ and $H_A'$ reflect on counterfactual decision events, with $H_C$ representing an unlikely, but still possible scenario. For our explorative research here, two central histories, $H_A$ and $H_B$, are the most

relevant, as they reflect on the actual sequence of decision events and the likeliest potential outcomes of the stag-hunt game (Fig. 5). These two outcomes are both Nash equilibria: players choosing to hunt stag and move towards the “blue equilibrium” risk that other players choose not to cooperate and hunt hare (risk dominance); non-cooperating players maintain the “grey equilibrium,” foregoing potential payoffs of successful stag hunts whilst securing a lower payoff (payoff dominance) (Skyrms 2008). Therefore, in terms of best response strategies, the decision sequences leading to $H_A$ and $H_B$ are “strategies from which no one finds it unilaterally convenient to deviate” (Conte and Paolucci 2002, p.52).

As argued above, the FAS, between 2000 and 2011, was configured around the “grey equilibrium,” stabilized by a series of governance and institutional mechanisms that certainly come with advantages to prevent further SES degradation. The “grey equilibrium” is, however, characterized by a fragile stalemate among actors underlain by a sub-optimal payoff structure that, with a sufficient disturbance level (e.g., DDM), can develop into a below-sub-optimal outcome (“turbid equilibrium”). Such a shift could lead to a tighter and more reactive command-and-control of water resources for two reasons. On the one hand, the shift might entail higher risks and uncertainties posed by uncharted biogeochemical and physical conditions in the estuary. On the other hand, the “turbid equilibrium” would have resulted in an asymmetric social dilemma in water appropriation. Such a result would see a shift from non-consumptive to consumptive water use by the Port Authority, due to the net quantity subtraction implied in increased freshwater discharges from headwater dams to control for the quality (e.g., salinity and turbidity levels) required by the other actors. The Rice Growers, however, were already lobbying for their own alternative megaproject (defect strategy) for provision/allocation from upstream waters (Vargas 2014). If materialized, such a megaproject would probably have created subtractability problems and new dilemmas with upstream actors. For the Nature Stewards, the impacts would have been mixed. For example, concerning the Doñana marshes, DDM would have entailed a higher uncertainty for the decision to fully reopen them to natural dynamics (see S1). In relation to the estuary’s ecosystems, it would have been disastrous (see CSIC study). Regarding the aquaculture operation, it would have entailed a medium risk, due to its capacity to recirculate water inside the operation to control for quality (see S1).

If looked at through a purely rational-choice game-based lens, the sub-optimal and stalemate “grey equilibrium” seems to emerge, with actors interacting, yet unconscious of their overall (tragic) strategic situation. Since 2000, FAS actors seem to have been interacting as if their interests were aligned to produce a stable equilibrium with regularized gains from uncooperative behavior. Through the lens of a stag-hunt game, which factors in the CSIC study as
an informational input reducing overall uncertainty in the system, it is striking the persistence of the Port Authority in resolutely maintaining its defect strategy, a strategy potentially leading to the “turbid equilibrium.” Considering the poor socioeconomic prospects of the estuary megaproject, the knowledge provided by the CSIC study and the Supreme Court’s rulings, the Port Authority appears as though it was behaving irrationally. This seemingly irrational behavior was compounded by the existence of the nearby more competitive and accessible seaport of Cádiz, and by probable high sunk and maintenance costs derived from DDM (e.g., regular deep dredging, corrective measures for large environmental impacts). If finally built, the megaproject’s infrastructure would have more than likely become unfit for purpose and inefficient, i.e., a white elephant, even more so in a context of accelerating climate change (see, e.g., Zittis et al. 2019), e.g., leading to an uncertain water supply–demand ratio upstream and potentially reduced volumes in the headwater regulatory reservoir system.

In our view, the current trajectory of the game is highly dependent on the two available choices for the Port Authority to either “disengage” or “engage” as described above. If the Port Authority disengages, not yielding to the evidence of the negative impacts of deep dredging after the ruling cycle, nor seeking alternative coordinated solutions for the Port’s function contributing to overall socioeconomic welfare, it might proactively be putting itself on a collision course—approximating, e.g., a chicken game—with the other two actors, especially with the Nature Stewards. The latter would probably not change their strategy, as they currently have precedent legal and knowledge-based mechanisms to prevent harmful interventions entailing systemic risks. If these mechanisms were to fail in the future, due to no further “fight” responses from the Nature Stewards, and the “deep dredging” measure was to be implemented due to a choice to “acquiesce” (i.e., full realization of “surrender the SES” terminal history), then all three actors would fall into a massive coordination failure. Such a failure is characterized by a below-sub-optimal payoff structure in which actors are worse-off environmentally, probably leading to economic loss and requiring a complex readaptation of expectations and strategies.

Understanding or even predicting how the game might end, and informing how to escape the current coordination failure, requires a more nuanced explanation of the Port Authority’s seemingly irrational behavior potentially leading to the “turbid equilibrium,” i.e., an apparent odd game outcome. Below, we show how the polycentric power typology and insights from previous research drawing on discursive power cast some “rationality” to the Port Authority. Further, those types of power contributed to a more refined explanation of the current situation in terms of the inertia of the

current stalemate “grey equilibrium” within the FAS and the risk of regime shift from a rigidity to a lock-in SES trap.

## Enter power into the analysis—the rise of hydraulics

Our power analysis was guided by questions concerning the Port Authority’s persistence of DDM and the River Authority’s tolerance of such a measure. The Port and the River Authority wielded power by design, backed by their respective national government mandates to promote maritime trading and water use planning. Formal authority operationalizes resource allocation, infrastructure development, infrastructural adjustments, and regulation of resource use. The critical issue is that both Authorities executed their mandates despite general disproof and lack of support for the estuary megaproject. Thus, a more nuanced interpretation points to a discretionary use of legal and administrative backing, i.e., pragmatic power. The Port Authority’s pragmatic power stemmed from misdirected power-by-design, through feigning ignorance of the megaproject’s negative forecasted impacts. The behavior of the River Authority was clearly marked by a non-decision-making attitude, running counter to EU regulations that are superordinate to the Authority’s planning competencies (inclusion of DDM in two subsequent Water Plans, $\delta_{10}$ and $\delta_{14}$, AS<sub>wp</sub>; Fig. 4). The inclusion of DDM as a “complementary measure” in the River Authority’s 2013 Water Plan ($\delta_{10}$, AS<sub>wp</sub>; Fig. 4) is striking, as such measures must be conducive to “good environmental status,” a key aim of the European Union’s Water Framework Directive. Paradoxically, DDM would have surely needed its own “complementary measures” to counteract the large socioeconomic and environmental impacts foreseen by the CSIC study (Vargas and Paneque 2015). The Port Authority also showed framing power in using questionable grounds to characterize the estuary megaproject as a panacea for socioeconomic development and in presenting the “complementary measure” issue as a “procedural defect” (Diario de Sevilla 2015; El Mundo 2015). This might be seen as an attempt to disrupt formal rules, such as the new knowledge requirements for the Environmental Impact Assessment ($\delta_7$, AS<sub>gov</sub>; Fig. 4). We found no evidence of use of framing power on the part of the River Authority, but the question remains of whether it was acting in collusion with the Port Authority. Why was the Sea Gate built before DDM was implemented (i.e., why the cart was put before the horse)? Were both the “complementary measure” and the Sea Gate acting as Trojan horses?

Our analysis above illuminated “how” both authorities operationalized their persistent (Port Authority) and tolerant (River Authority) behaviors but answering “why” provided us with a more robust explanation. Why such behavior given the mounting evidence that DDM would not bring about the argued benefits? Why not change the approach and search for

<figure><img src="image_13.png" /></figure>
alternative solutions? Why bring into play the agent-based power sources identified above? Based on previous research, we argue that discursive power was both overarching and funneled through those power sources, albeit differently for each Authority. In Doñana, previous research evidences a hegemonic hydraulic mission discourse operating from the political–economic context at national level (e.g., Méndez et al. 2019). This discourse operates through two meso-level mechanisms: (A) it mobilizes discursive power top down, imbuing institutional arrangements across multiple levels, and (B) it signals increasing-returns mechanisms that prompt bottom-up strategic reactions from actors at lower levels. We assessed that (A) influenced the River Authority more markedly, further explaining its tolerant behavior, and (B) influenced the Port Authority, leading it to become heavily invested in potentially inefficient large infrastructure. We reason as follows.

In our analysis, discursive power seems to be acting as an overarching frame. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the hydraulic mission discourse has defined Spanish water policies to a large extent, steering regional socioeconomic development in a particular direction, and relying on large public hydraulic infrastructure and irrigation agriculture (Swyngedouw 1999; Saurí and Del Moral 2001; López-Gunn 2009; Font and Subirats 2010; Castán-Broto 2015; Swyngedouw 2015; Vargas and Paneque 2015; Kimmich and Villamayor 2019; Donadei 2020). Key features of such a discourse are: increasing water provision (supply side) through state intervention via economic planning and modernization; massive public funding of large hydraulic infrastructures; passive concern for both water quality and hydrological system conditions; low water prices for final users under the assumptions of net returns on investments to national wealth; hegemony of technocratic elites and civil engineering corps; and the paradigm of nature as an object to be dominated and modified (Saurí and Del Moral 2001; Swyngedouw 2015; Vargas and Paneque 2015).

Discursive power, imbued by the above features of the hydraulic mission discourse (mechanism A above), legitimated, in this case, the use of pragmatic power by the River Authority, i.e., misdirected power-by-design. From a different angle, the estuary megaproject would have been improbable without discursive power persistently structuring the perception of reality of both the River and Port Authorities. Indeed, the latter appears as the last in a row of socioeconomic actors responding to opportunities and constraints deeply embedded in upper level institutional arrangements, which, in turn, were infused by cognitively powerful ideas stemming from the hydraulic-mission discourse. Such a discourse constrained the Port Authority’s choices and its course of action; hence, it was perhaps not behaving irrationally, but manifesting a logical strategic behavior that was embedded within larger structural and discursive

forces (based on Schwartz 2004, unpublished manuscript). Indeed, mechanism B above constitutes the continuation of the hegemonic hydraulic-mission discourse to signal massive increasing returns downstream. It thus induces large hydraulic interventions such as the estuary megaproject, for example, through:

1. *Large setup costs (i.e., the inertia of sunk costs)* arising after the spending of public funds for the construction of the Sea Gate (€163 million; Vargas and Paneque 2015). This created a high payoff for further Port Authority investment in the estuary megaproject as a single option for the estuary’s future. In other words, such setup costs could not be recovered unless the full estuary megaproject had been fully implemented through the execution of DDM.

2. *Learning effects*, due to the knowledge gained in the recursive operation of the estuary’s navigable canal (e.g., combining shallow dredging and light ship traffic since 1985), leading to higher efficiency and higher returns from continuing the same type of operation over time.

3. *Adaptive expectations*, whereby the increasing prevalence of the selected choice created a self-reinforcing mechanism, thus increasing its prevalence (1985–2019).

## Discussion

Several key insights can be derived from our results. We have evidenced how the dynamics of meso-level mechanisms (discursive power, signaled increasing returns) in the Doñana SES interweave with micro-level FAS strategic interactions and agency-based (polycentric power typology) forms of power. Hydraulic-mission discursive power seems to be imprinted in the rationality of central actors in Doñana’s water governance, showing the capacity of hegemonic discourses to influence actors’ agency-based pragmatic power. This pragmatic power, in turn, has materialized in water policies and planning, showing how feigned ignorance and non-decision-making can increase the likelihood of large interventions posing risks of high environmental deterioration and suppression of key SES values. Our research thus contributes to fill a key gap in action-situational institutional analysis, which currently fails to accurately capture inaction and non-decisions, thus missing related forms of power imbalances at play—even when incorporating “politicized” variables such as discursive power (Brisbois et al. 2019).

In Doñana, key power fronts at local level seem to recurrently counteract each other over time. Despite the existence of formal bodies with actual capacity for central coordination (such as the Doñana’s Participation Council or the Guadalquivir River Authority), they seem unable to direct
governance to escape the current stalemate (“grey equilib-
rium”) situation or the system-level rigidity trap. This cre-
ates a space where any actor with a first-mover advantage
might grab power and intervene within the SES, potentially
leading others or all to be worse-off, and thus decreasing
overall SES welfare. But more relevant for our case, any
actor moving first, supported by forceful discourses and
institutional arrangements, seems to get immediately coun-
teracted by other actor(s) supported by the very same mecha-
nisms. While this power-counteraction mechanism seems to
neutralize large perturbations in the short-term, nothing truly
prevents the weakening of current governance controls, the
results of which might lead to the authorization of larger,
riskier interventions. As we have shown above, the inertia
of increasing-returns mechanisms and the hydraulic mis-
sion discourse is sometimes sufficient a risk (e.g., Sea Gate
and “complementary measures”). Further, this power-coun-
teraction mechanism is impeding coordination to trigger a
sustainability pathway—i.e., precluding increasing returns
from sustainability coordination effects. Interestingly, past
research in Doñana has shown how this mechanism can be
productively filled, whether through entrepreneurial action
to (1) develop rice agriculture (1950s–1980s), or (2) as a
counteraction to create the Doñana National Park (1969),
potentially preventing the fall into a lock-in trap (Méndez
et al. 2019; see Fig. 2). Therefore, Doñana’s power-counter-
action mechanism constitutes a double-edged sword: it can
enable agency from an actor coalition to prevent a locked-in
situation (but stabilizing rigidity), but can also block col-
lective agency (i.e., coordinated collective action) from all
relevant actors to pursue a SES sustainable outcome. Our
insights resonate with recent understanding on discursive-
institutional inertia mechanisms underlying the dominance
of actors’ groups in water governance (Williams 2019; see
also Méndez et al. 2022). Furthermore, our insights align
with research showing how the passivity of authorities can
be a cause of water resources degradation and entrenchment
of rigidity traps, and how such passivity can effectively be
counteracted by social movements inducing individual
agency (Enqvist et al. 2016).

Our meso-micro analytical tension, which deals with the
macro-level properties of the path dependence notion used
in previous Doñana research, led us to a final key epistemo-
logical insight with normative implications. In path depend-
ence logics, to sustain a certain path, whatever the scale
of analysis and/or mechanisms identified, at least *one* of
these mechanisms (e.g., contextual factors, positive/nega-
tive externalities) must act to decrease the relative attractive-
ness of alternative paths (Arrow 2000; Kay 2005; Vergne
and Durand 2010). Premature assessments based solely on,
e.g., a rational-expectations standard alone, and obviating
contextual (institutional, discursive, power, etc.) conditions,
might end up concluding local irrational behaviors, cognitive

biases or small-random historical accidents. This, in turn,
might result in not getting the incentives or the rules right
(Bowles 2009), which then leads to a wider misaligned insti-
tutional fit for resolving problems at SES level (Epstein et al.
2015) or framing innovative policies to trigger a sustain-
ability pathway. In Doñana, as our results show, two meso-
level mechanisms (discursive power and increasing returns),
aggravated by the power-counteraction mechanism argued
above, still serve to decrease the attractiveness of sustainable
alternatives at present. Therefore, we must go beyond micro-
level institutional analysis to adequately inform the design of
policy instruments which trigger collective action towards
more sustainable outcomes (e.g., high “blue equilibria”).

Indeed, power imbalances might have macro- or meso-
level contextual or historical origins and be “congealed” in
current institutional arrangements that purposive actors use
as vantage points (Kashwan 2016), thus operating “below
the radar of institutional analyses” (Ingalls 2017). It would
therefore be advantageous to work at the intersection of
post-structuralism and rational-choice institutionalism to
understand how people self-organize to overcome govern-
ance challenges (Bennett et al. 2018), by, e.g., seeking philo-
sophical middle ground (Clement 2010). Cox (2019) argues
for a focus on the dynamics and disparities of power and
authority, codified through “the language of institutions”
(e.g., property rights), and making best use of institutional
path dependence (e.g., historical institutionalism à la North
1990). According to Cole et al. (2019), we need “combined”
frameworks systematizing the analysis of “hidden” struc-
tures of power and human agency. Instead of viewing them
as an analytical contingency, such structures are significant,
as they can shape or be shaped via collective action and can
enable or prevent change (Cole et al. 2019; Méndez et al.
2019). An epistemological connection between power-cen-
tric and actor-centric institutional approaches can indeed be
very productive in gaining insights on the interconnections
between macro- and micro-level processes and outcomes
(Knight 1992). Here, we have shown how interpretations
from game-theoretic micro-level analyses of strategic
interactions and agency-based power relationships can be
strengthened by logically connecting with previous meso-
level analyses which combined post-structural power, and
rational-choice and historical institutionalism (Méndez et al.
2012, 2019).

Conclusions

Understanding the governance of sustainability pathways in
SES traps is imperative, since the wrong configuration might
lead from escapable to inescapable states (e.g., from a rigid-
ity to a lock-in trap). It is critical to understand how histori-
cal, institutional, discursive and power factors interweave
and can create or hinder governance configurations more favorable to fostering sustainability pathways. Here, we have contributed to such understanding through a novel combination of the NAS approach, the polycentric power typology and the concept of discursive power. We have shown how certain institutional (e.g., forceful legal frameworks) and informational (e.g., new knowledge generation) mechanisms within a NAS can result in a governance configuration that prevents further SES degradation. However, underlying these apparent robust governance configurations, key actors can be caught in lasting coordination failures and fragile sub-optimal equilibria situations prone to mutual defection strategies. While if persisting over time such strategies might seem irrational, they become more explicable in the presence of meso-level mechanisms involving power dynamics and discursive-institutional inertia. These situations are constantly at risk of being unbalanced by powerful actors promoting large SES hydraulic and technocratic interventions, backed also by the inaction of tolerant authorities. Such interventions bear systemic risks of governance falling to below sub-optimal equilibria situations, characterized by a strong suppression of SES functions and values, and the high sunk- and trajectory-shifting costs of a lock-in trap.

Coordination failures among water governance actors in SES must be pushed to higher equilibria—termed here “blue equilibria”—situations, more conducive to enable collective action for fostering sustainability pathways. Those situations present greater risks for all actors involved, as they might require relinquishing economic maximization goals and power grabbing at all levels. Instead, mutually agreed solutions to resource use problems must be favored, including the establishment of regional development goals and bio-physical limits to resource use. Determining the conditions for fostering such situations and minimizing risks for the actors involved is a matter of further prospective research on the transformative potential of specifically tailored policy mixes. However, based on our results, we can be certain that inaction and non-decision making can perpetuate a rigidity trap which lacks the flexibility and learning capabilities that ward-off the risk of falling to undesirable situations such as a lock-in trap. An integrated NAS-power approach such as the one presented here, which combines action-situation institutional analysis with discursive and agency-based power forms, has shown to be well equipped to inform policy and institutional designs through the targeting of richer sources related to meso- and micro-level causality of actors’ behaviors and collective-action dilemmas. Such policy and institutional designs could thus be more effective in inducing new baseline governance configurations more prone to working with nature and nurturing sustainability pathways at SES level.

**Supplementary Information** The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01258-0.

**Acknowledgements** Pablo F. Méndez gratefully acknowledges funding from the European Commission through the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation under Grant Agreement No. 871128 to eLTER PLUS Project. The work of Sergio Villamayor-Tomas was supported by the Ramon y Cajal Fellowship (RyC-2017-22782), from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, through the “Maria de Maeztu” Programme for Units of Excellence (CEX2019-000940-M). The authors greatly appreciate the comments made by David Barberá, Melf-Hinrich Ehlers and Jill Tellier who reviewed initial drafts of the manuscript and helped strengthen it.

**Funding** Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature.

**Data availability** The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this research are available within the article and its supplementary materials.

**Open Access** This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

## References

Allison HE, Hobbs RJ (2004) Resilience, adaptive capacity, and the “Lock-in Trap” of the Western Australian agricultural region. Ecol Soc 9(1):3. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss1/art3/

Anderies JM, Janssen MA, Ostrom E (2004) A framework to analyze the robustness of social-ecological systems from an institutional perspective. Conserv Ecol 9(1):18. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss1/art18

Arrow K, Daily G, Dasgupta P, Levin S, Mäler KG, Maskin E, Starrett D, Sterner T, Tietenberg T (2000) Managing ecosystem resources. Environ Sci Technol 34(8):1401–1406. https://doi.org/10.1021/es990672t

Avelino F (2021) Theories of power and social change. Power contestations and their implications for research on social change and innovation. J Polit Power. https://doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2021.1875307

Baker D, Murray G, Agyare AK (2018) Governance and the making and breaking of social-ecological traps. Ecol Soc 23(1):38. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-09992-230138

Basurto X, Bennett A, Lindkvist E, Schlüter M (2020) Governing the commons beyond harvesting: an empirical illustration from fishing. PLoS ONE 15:e0231575. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231575

Beier C, Lovecraft A, Chapin III (2009) Growth and collapse of a resource system: an adaptive cycle of change in public lands governance and forest management in Alaska. Ecol Soc 14(2):5. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-02955-140205
Bennett A, Acton L, Epstein G et al (2018) Embracing conceptual diversity to integrate power and institutional analysis: Introducing a relational typology. Int J Commons 12:330–357. https://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.819

Bennett EM, Biggs R, Peterson GD, Gordon LJ (2021) Patchwork Earth: navigating pathways to just, thriving, and sustainable futures. One Earth 4:172–176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.onear.2021.01.004

Berkes F (2007) Community-based conservation in a globalized world. Proc Natl Acad Sci 104:15188–15193. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0702098104

Boonstra WJ (2016) Conceptualizing power to study social-ecological interactions. Ecol Soc 21(1):21. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-07966-210121

Boonstra WJ, de Boer FW (2014) The historical dynamics of social-ecological traps. Ambio 43:260–274. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-013-0419-1

Bowles S (2009) Microeconomics: behavior, institutions, and evolution. Princeton University Press, Princeton

Brisbois MC, Morris M, de Loë R (2019) Augmenting the IAD framework to reveal power in collaborative governance—an illustrative application to resource industry dominated processes. World Dev 120:159–168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.02.017

Camprubí L (2020) Birds without borders. Hist Stud Nat Sci 50:433–455. https://doi.org/10.1525/hsns.2020.50.4.433

Carpenter S, Brock W (2008) Adaptive capacity and traps. Ecol Soc 13(2):40. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-02716-130240

Castán-Broto V (2015) Innovation territories and energy transitions: energy, water and modernity in Spain, 1939–1975. J Environ Plann Policy Manag 18:712–729. https://doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2015.1075195

Chaffin BC, Garmestani AS, Gunderson LH et al (2016) Transformative environmental governance. Annu Rev Environ Resour 41:399–423. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-110615-085817

Chapin FS, Carpenter SR, Kofinas GP et al (2010) Ecosystem stewardship: sustainability strategies for a rapidly changing planet. Trends Ecol Evol 25(4):241–249. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2009.10.008

Clark WC, Harley AG (2020) Sustainability science: toward a synthesis. Annu Rev Environ Resour 45:331–386. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-012420-043621

Clement F (2010) Analysing decentralised natural resource governance: proposition for a “politicised” institutional analysis and development framework. Policy Sci 43:129–156. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-009-9100-8

Clement F, Amezaga JM (2013) Conceptualising context in institutional reforms of land and natural resource management: the case of Vietnam. Int Commons 7(1):140–163. https://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.338

Cole DH, Epstein G, McGinnis MD (2019) The Utility of combining the IAD and SES frameworks. Int J Commons 13:244. https://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.864

Colloff MJ, Gorddard R, Abel N et al (2021) Adapting transformation and transforming adaptation to climate change using a pathways approach. Environ Sci Policy 124:163–174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2021.06.014

Conte R, Paolucci M (2002) Reputation in artificial societies. Springer US, Boston

Cox M (2016) The pathology of command and control: a formal synthesis. Ecol Soc 21(3):33. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-08698-210333

Cox M (2019) Using the Ostrom Workshop Frameworks to study the commons. In: Hudson B, Rosenbloom J, Cole D (eds) Routledge handbook of the study of the commons. Routledge, New York, pp 27–37

CSIC [Spanish National Research Council] (2010) Methodological proposal to diagnose and predict the consequences of human

Activities in the Guadalquivir estuary. Institute of Marine Sciences of Andalusia, Cadiz, Spain

Cumming GS (2017) A review of social dilemmas and social-ecological traps in conservation and natural resource management. Conserv Lett 00:1–15. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12376

Del Moral L. (1991) La obra hidráulica en la cuenca del Bajo Guadalquivir (siglos XVIII-XX). Gestión del agua y organización del territorio. Publicaciones de la Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, España. https://doi.org/10.12795/9788447220908

Dewulf A, Karpouzoglou T, Warner J et al (2019) The power to define resilience in social–hydrological systems: toward a power-sensitive resilience framework. Wires Water 6:e1377. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1377

Diario de Sevilla (2015) El Puerto admite que "no ha hecho bien las cosas" con el dragado del río. [Last accessed: 9th February, 2022]. https://www.diariodesevilla.es/sevilla/Puerto-admite-hecho-cosas-dragado_0_897210301.html

Donadei M (2020) Coaliciones y conflictos alrededor de las cuestiones socioambientales: Hacia visiones integradas e integradoras. El caso del estuario del Guadalquivir. Ciudades 23:115–136. https://doi.org/10.24197/ciudades.23.2020.115-136

Donges JF, Lucht W, Cornell SE et al (2021) Taxonomies for structuring models for World-Earth systems analysis of the anthropocene: subsystems, their interactions and social-ecological feedback loops. Earth Syst Dyn 12:1115–1137. https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1115-2021

Dornelles AZ, Boyd E, Nunes RJ et al (2020) Towards a bridging concept for undesirable resilience in social-ecological systems. Global Sustain 3(e20):1–12. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2020.15

Elias N (1978) What is sociology? Hutchinson, London

El Mundo (2015) La sentencia sobre el dragado. [Last accessed: 9th February, 2022]. https://www.elmundo.es/andalucia/2015/03/15/5504959022601d3b248b4570.html

Ely A (2022) Transformative pathways to sustainability learning across disciplines, cultures and contexts. Routledge, London

Enfors E (2013) Social-ecological traps and transformations in dryland agro-ecosystems: using water system innovations to change the trajectory of development. Glob Environ Chang 23:51–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.10.007

Enqvist J, Tengö M, Boonstra WJ (2016) Against the current: rewiring rigidity trap dynamics in urban water governance through civic engagement. Sustain Sci 11:919–933. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-016-0377-1

Epstein G, Bennett A, Gruby R et al (2014) Studying power with the social-ecological system framework. In: Manfredo MJ, Vaske JJ, Rechkemmer A, Duke EA (eds) Understanding society and natural resources: forging new strands of integration across the social sciences. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 111–135

Epstein G, Pittman J, Alexander SM et al (2015) Institutional fit and the sustainability of social-ecological systems. Curr Opin Environ Sustain 14:34–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2015.03.005

Fernández-Delgado C (2017) Doñana natural space: the uncertain future of a crown jewel in Europe’s protected areas. Case Stud Environ 1(1):1–12. https://doi.org/10.1525/cse.2017.000570

Folke C, Hahn T, Olsson P, Norberg J (2005) Adaptive governance of social-ecological systems. Annu Rev Environ Resour 30:441–473. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.energy.30.050504.144511

Folke C, Polasky S, Rockström J, Galaz V, Westley F et al (2021) Our future in the Anthropocene biosphere. Ambio 50:834–869. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-021-01544-8

Font N, Subirats J (2010) Water management in Spain: the role of policy entrepreneurs in shaping change. Ecol Soc 15(2):25. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-03344-150225

El arroz en las marismas del Guadalquivir. Evolución y problemática actual. Publicaciones de la Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, España
Graziano M, de Groot G, Pilato L et al (2019) Fostering urban transformations in Latin America: lessons around the ecological management of an urban stream in coproduction with a social movement (Buenos Aires, Argentina). Ecol Soc 24(4):13. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11226-240413

Green AJ, Alcorlo P, Peeters ET et al (2017) Creating a safe operating space for wetlands in a changing climate. Front Ecol Environ 15:99–107. https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1459

Greif A, Kingston C (2011) Institutions: rules or equilibria? In: Schofield N, Caballero G (eds) Political economy of institutions, democracy and voting. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg, pp 13–43

Gunderson LH, Holling CS, Light SS (1995) Barriers and bridges to the renewal of ecosystems and institutions. Columbia University Press, New York

Gunderson L, Cosens B, Chaffin B et al (2017) Regime shifts and panarchies in regional scale social–ecological water systems. Ecol Soc 22(1):31. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-08879-220131

Hagedorn K (2008) Particular requirements for institutional analysis in nature-related sectors. Eur Rev Agric Econ 35:357–384. https://doi.org/10.1093/erae/jbn019

Haider LJ, Boonstra WJ, Peterson GD, Schlüter M (2018) Traps and sustainable development in rural areas: a review. World Dev 101:311–321. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.05.038

Herrfahrdt-Pähle E, Pahl-Wostl C (2012) Continuity and change in social–ecological systems: the role of institutional resilience. Ecol Soc 17(2):8. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-04565-170208

Hoffmann P, Villamayor-Tomas S (2022) Irrigation modernization and the efficiency paradox: a meta-study through the lenses of Networks of Action Situation. Sustainability Science, accepted

Holling CS, Allen CR (2002) Adaptive inference for distinguishing credible from incredible patterns in nature. Ecosystems 5:319–328. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-001-0076-2

Holling CS, Meffe GK (1996) Command and control and the pathology of natural resource management. Conserv Biol 10(2):328–337. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1523-1739.1996.10020328.x

Holling CS, Gunderson LH, Peterson GD (2002) Sustainability and panarchies. In: Gunderson LH, Holling CS (eds) Panarchy: understanding transformations in human and natural Systems. Island Press, Washington, D.C., pp 63–102

Ingalls ML (2017) Not just another variable: untangling the spatialities of power in social–ecological systems. Ecol Soc 22(3):20. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-09543-220320

Kashwan P (2016) Integrating power in institutional analysis: a micro-foundation perspective. J Theor Polit 28(1):5–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/0951629815586877

Kay A (2005) A critique of the use of path dependency in policy studies. Public Admin 83:553–571. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0033-3298.2005.00462.x

Kellner E (2021) The controversial debate on the role of water reservoirs in reducing water scarcity. Wires Water 8:e1514. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1514

Kemp R, Rotmans J, Loorbach D (2007) Assessing the Dutch energy transition policy: how does it deal with dilemmas of managing transitions? J Environ Plann Policy Manag 9:315–331. https://doi.org/10.1080/15239080701622816

Kimmich C (2013) Linking action situations: Coordination, conflicts, and evolution in electricity provision for irrigation in Andhra Pradesh, India. Ecol Econ 90:150–158. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2013.03.017

Kimmich C (2016) Can analytic narrative inform policy change? the political economy of the Indian electricity-irrigation nexus. J Dev Stud 52:269–285. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2015.1093119

Kimmich C, Villamayor-Tomas S (2019) Assessing action situation networks: a configurational perspective on water and

energy governance in irrigation systems. Water Econ Policy 5(01):1850005. https://doi.org/10.1142/S2382624X18500054

Kimmich C, Baldwin E, Kellner E, Oberlack C, Villamayor-Tomas S (2022) Networks of action situations: a systematic review of empirical research. Sustainability Science, accepted

Kiser LL, Ostrom E (2000) The three worlds of action: A metatheoretical synthesis of institutional approaches. In: McGinnis MD (ed) Polycentric games and institutions: readings from the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, pp 56–88

Knight J (1992) Institutions and Social Conflict. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Laborde S, Fernández A, Phang SC et al (2016) Social–ecological feedbacks lead to unsustainable lock-in in an inland fishery. Glob Environ Chang 41:13–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.08.004

Leach M, Rockström J, Raskin P et al (2012) Transforming innovation for sustainability. Ecol Soc 17(2):11. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-04933-170211

Levi M (2004) An analytic narrative approach to puzzles and problems. In: Shapiro I, Smith RM, Masoud TE (eds) Problems and methods in the study of politics, 1st edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 201–226

López-Gunn E (2009) Agua para todos: a new regionalist hydraulic paradigm in Spain. Water Altern 2(3):370–394. http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/alldoc/articles/vol2/v2issue3/66-a2-3-5/file

Martín-López B, García-Llorente M, Palomo I, Montes C (2011) The conservation against development paradigm in protected areas: valuation of ecosystem services in the Doñana social–ecological system (southwestern Spain). Ecol Econ 70:1481–1491. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2011.03.009

McGinnis MD (2011a) Networks of adjacent action situations in polycentric governance. Policy Stud J 39(1):51–78. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2010.00396.x

McGinnis MD (2011b) An introduction to IAD and the language of the Ostrom workshop: a simple guide to a complex framework. Policy Stud J 39(1):169–183. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2010.00401.x

Meadowcroft J (2007) Who is in charge here? governance for sustainable development in a complex world. J Environ Plann Policy Manag 9:299–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/15239080701631544

Méndez PF, Isendahl N, Amezaga JM, Santamaría L (2012) Facilitating transitional processes in rigid institutional regimes for water management and wetland conservation: experience from the Guadalquivir Estuary. Ecol Soc 17(1):26. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-04494-170126

Méndez PF, Amezaga JM, Santamaría L (2019) Explaining path-dependent rigidity traps: increasing returns, power, discourses, and entrepreneurship intertwined in social–ecological systems. Ecol Soc 24(2):30. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10898-240230

Méndez PF, Fajardo-Ortiz D, Holzer JM (2022) Disrupting the governance of social–ecological rigidity traps: can pluralism foster change towards sustainability? Adv Ecol Res in Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.aecr.2022.04.011

Mielke J, Steudle GA (2018) Green investment and coordination failure: an investors’ perspective. Ecol Econ 150:88–95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.03.018

Möck M, Vogeler CS, Bandelow NC, Schröder B (2019) Layering action situations to integrate spatial scales, resource linkages, and change over time: the case of groundwater management in agricultural hubs in Germany. Policy Stud J. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12377

Mongin P (2018) Analytic narratives. In: Diebolt C, Haupert M (eds) Handbook of cliometrics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 1–33
Morrison TH, Adger WN, Brown K et al (2017) Mitigation and adaptation in polycentric systems: sources of power in the pursuit of collective goals. *Wires Clim Change* 8(5):e479. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.479

Morrison TH, Adger WN, Brown K et al (2019) The black box of power in polycentric environmental governance. *Glob Environ Chang* 57:101934. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.101934

Mudliar P (2020) Polycentric to monocentric governance: power dynamics in Lake Victoria's fisheries. *Env Pol Gov*. https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.1917

Muiderman K, Zurek M, Vervoort J et al (2022) The anticipatory governance of sustainability transformations: hybrid approaches and dominant perspectives. *Glob Environ Change* 73:102452. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102452

Muñoz-Erickson TA, Campbell LK, Childers DL et al (2016) Demystifying governance and its role for transitions in urban social-ecological systems. *Ecosphere* 7:e01564. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.1564

North DC (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Orach K, Schlüter M (2021) Understanding the dynamics of fish politics: the role of diverse actor interactions in transformations towards co-management. *Environ Sci Policy* 124:195–205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2021.06.010

Ostrom E (2005) Understanding institutional diversity. *Princeton University Press*, Princeton

Pahl-Wostl C, Holtz G, Kastens B, Knieper C (2010) Analyzing complex water governance regimes: the management and transition framework. *Environ Sci Policy* 13(7):571–581. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2010.08.006

Patterson J, Schulz K, Vervoort J et al (2017) Exploring the governance and politics of transformations towards sustainability. *Environ Innov Soc Trans* 24:1–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2016.09.001

Pickering J, Hickmann T, Bäckstrand K et al (2022) Democratising sustainability transformations: assessing the transformative potential of democratic practices in environmental governance. *Earth Syst Governance* 11:100131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esg.2021.100131

Plummer R, Baird J, Farhad S, Witkowski S (2020) How do biosphere stewards actively shape trajectories of social–ecological change? *J Environ Manag* 261:110139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvm.an.2020.110139

Reyers B, Folke C, Moore M-L et al (2018) Social–ecological systems insights for navigating the dynamics of the anthropocene. *Annu Rev Environ Resour* 43:267–289. https://doi.org/10.1146/annur.ev-environ-110615-085349

Rijke J, Farrelly M, Brown R, Zevenbergen C (2013) Configuring transformative governance to enhance resilient urban water systems. *Environ Sci Policy* 25:62–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2012.09.012

Rocha J, Lanyon C, Peterson G (2022) Upscaling the resilience assessment through comparative analysis. *Glob Environ Chang* 72:102419. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102419

Sancho-Royo F, Del Moral L, (2014) Estuario del Guadalquivir. Observatorio de las Políticas del Agua (OPPA), Evaluación del Primer Ciclo de Evaluación. Fundación Nueva Cultura del Agua. http://www.conama.org/conama/download/files/conama2014/STs%202014/1996969113_asociado_Informe%20OPPA.pdf

Sancho-Royo F, Del Moral L, 2015. Dragado del estuario del Guadalquivir: Plan Hidrológico, sentencia del Tribunal Supremo y cambio de rumbo. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.4782.6802

Saurí D, Del Moral L (2001) Recent developments in Spanish water policy. Alternatives and conflicts at the end of the hydraulic age.

Geoforum 32:351–362. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-7185(00)00048-8

Schlüter M, Haider LJ, Lade SJ et al (2019) Capturing emergent phenomena in social–ecological systems: an analytical framework. *Ecol Soc* 24(3):11. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11012-240311

Schlüter M, Lindkvist E, Basurto X (2021) The interplay between top-down interventions and bottom-up self-organization shapes opportunities for transforming self-governance in small-scale fisheries. *Mar Policy* 128:104485. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2021.104485

Schwartz H, (2004) Down the wrong path: Path dependence, increasing returns, and historical institutionalism. *Mimeo*, University of Virginia: Department of Politics. http://www.people.virginia.edu/~hms2f/Path.pdf

Skyrms B (2008) Trust, risk, and the social contract. *Synthese* 160:21–25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-006-9075-3

SPA [Seville Port Authority] (2013) Memoria 2013. Spanish Port System, Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Spanish Government

Srigiri SR, Dombrowsky I (2022) Analysing the water-energy-food nexus from a polycentric governance perspective: conceptual and methodological framework. *Front Environ Sci* 10:725116. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.725116

Stedman RC (2016) Subjectivity and social–ecological systems: a rigidity trap (and sense of place as a way out). *Sustain Sci* 11:891–901. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-016-0388-y

Steneck RS, Hughes TP, Cinner JE et al (2011) Creation of a gilded trap by the high economic value of the maine lobster fishery. *Conserv Biol* 25:904–912. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2011.01717.x

Swyngedouw E (1999) Modernity and hybridity: nature, regeneration-ismo, and the production of the Spanish waterscape, 1890–1930. *Ann Assoc Am Geogr* 89(3):443–465. https://doi.org/10.1111/0004-5608.00157

Swyngedouw E (2015) Liquid power. Contested hydro-modernities in twentieth-century Spain. *MIT Press*, Cambridge

Theesfeld I (2011) Perceived power resources in situations of collective action. *Water Altern* 4(1):86–103. https://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/alldoc/articles/Vol4/v4issue1/129-a4-1-6/file

Turnheim B, Wesseling J, Truffer B et al (2018) Challenges ahead: understanding, assessing, anticipating and governing foreseeable societal tensions to support accelerated low-carbon transitions in Europe. In: Foulds C, Robison R (eds) Advancing energy policy: lessons on the integration of social sciences and humanities. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 145–161

UNEP (2021) Making Peace with Nature: A Scientific Blueprint to Tackle the Climate, Biodiversity and Pollution Emergencies. Nairobi. https://www.unep.org/resources/making-peace-nature

Vargas J (2014) Consecuencias del megaproyecto de dragado de profundización en el sistema socio-ecológico del estuario del Guadalquivir, España. *Agua y Territorio* 4:23–34

Vargas J, Paneque P (2015) Major hydraulic projects, coalitions and conflict. *Seville's Harbour and the Dredging of the Guadalquivir* (Spain). *Water* 7(12):6736–6749. https://doi.org/10.3390/w7126658

Vergne JP, Durand R (2010) The missing link between the theory and empirics of path dependence: conceptual clarification, test-ability issue, and methodological implications. *J Manag Stud* 47(4):736–759. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2009.00913.x

Walker BH, Holling CS, Carpenter SR, Kinzig A (2004) Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social–ecological systems. *Ecol Soc* 9(2):5 http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art5/

Walker BH, Salt D (2006) Resilience thinking: sustaining people and ecosystems in a changing world. *Island Press*, Washington DC
Wrathall DJ, Bury J, Carey M et al (2014) Migration amidst climate rigidity traps: resource politics and social-ecological possibilism in Honduras and Peru. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 104:292–304. https://doi.org/10.1080/00045608.2013.873326

Yin RK (2018) Case study research and applications: design and methods, Sixth edition. SAGE, Los Angeles

Zittis G, Hadjinicolaou P, Klangidou M, Proestos Y, Lelieveld J (2019) A multi-model, multi-scenario, and multi-domain analysis of regional climate projections for the Mediterranean.

Reg Environ Change 19:2621–2635. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-019-01565-w

**Publisher's Note** Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.