Water scarcity and droughts threaten humans and nature. Germany has traditionally had abundant water, with infrequent conflicts over usage. However, global temperatures are rising and recent summers have seen more droughts, falling groundwater levels, and forest loss. This has increased awareness about preparing for climate change's effects on water management. A variety of actors is involved in the management or governance of water resources, including representatives from the private sector (e.g., farmers or industry associations), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (e.g., environmental groups), water providers, governmental agencies or political actors in legislative or executive institutions. To achieve water security, civil society, communities, political decisionmakers, water managers and all other actors involved have to be included. Collaborative governance has emerged as a promising method to address these challenges, in line with a new orientation towards participatory approaches in environmental governance, and more specifically in water resource governance. We contribute to research on water resource governance with an interdisciplinary study that brings together knowledge from political and environmental sciences. Using cross-impact-balance (CIB) analysis, governance networks and complex policy decision-making processes are analysed combined with storylines for future climate scenarios to find efficient strategies for water resilience, adaptive capacity building and carbon reduction to support informed decision-making.
