Convened by Martin Mickelsson and Roland Barthel, University of Gothenburg, Department of Earth Sciences, and  Catharina Landström, Chalmers University

Ground- and surface water are critical resources for shaping sustainable futures, yet they remain under-governed and vulnerable to intensifying climate pressures. Rising water scarcity and more frequent floods expose systemic weaknesses, where adaptive responses are often blocked by entrenched lock-ins across social, economic, infrastructural, and institutional domains. Understanding and addressing these governance barriers is key to enabling just and resilient water futures. This panel explores how governance systems both enable and constrain pathways of adaptation to hydrological extremes. Social lock-ins—such as public perceptions of water abundance, cultural expectations that municipalities guarantee water supply, and resistance to increased water taxation—limit the space for demand management and investment in adaptive infrastructure. Economic lock-ins, including dependence on water-intensive practices, pressure for development in protected areas, and competition among municipalities, reinforce unsustainable water use. Infrastructural legacies, from outdated drainage systems to energy-intensive desalination plants, further constrain flexibility, embedding technological path-dependencies that may sideline ecosystem-based solutions. Finally, policy and institutional lock-ins—fragmented responsibilities, conflicting mandates, and municipal trilemmas between policymaking, monitoring, and implementation—generate gaps between planning and action, with no single actor accountable for long-term sustainability. These reinforcing loops demonstrate how governance challenges are not only technical but systemic, requiring integrated strategies. Breaking lock-ins demands a combination of public engagement to shift norms, economic instruments to realign incentives, infrastructural redesign suited to new hydrological realities, and governance reforms that clarify mandates and integrate responsibilities across scales. The panel invites contributions that analyse such dynamics across diverse contexts, offering insights into barriers, leverage points, and innovations. By linking global debates on sustainability and adaptation with locally grounded governance practices, we aim to co-develop pathways that negotiate ecological integrity, social equity, and human needs in building resilient water futures.