Carolyn (Tally) Palmer
Rhodes University, South Africa
Biography
Carolyn (Tally) Palmer has a research trajectory from aquatic ecology and environmental water quality, together with water law and policy development, to a commitment to the transformative capacity of engaged, transdisciplinary action research praxis, based on a conceptual faming of complex social-ecological systems. Her concept of Adaptive Integrated Water Resource Management includes the recognition that participatory governance – people at the interface of knowledge production, practice and politics creates a sustainability platform and pathway that can be the foundation of local to at least national scale climate-change adaptation. At the interface of sustainability science, policy, and practice it is practice that most often fails. Carolyn brings a coherent set of transdisciplinary case studies from across South Africa to argue that participatory governance can be a key lever to embed climate change adaptation practice, making the most of linked research and development interventions.