Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Resource Economics

Dissertation of Katrin Daedlow

Adaptive Governance in Social-ecological Systems: Lessons from German recreational fisheries (ADAPTFISH-2)

Start: 05/2006
End: 05/2013

This project deals with the governance structures (and consequential management systems) in German recreational fisheries. Governance structures are mechanisms of regulation by way of institutions and organizations that order and organize social-ecological phenomena. A starting point of the project is the question, how stakeholders and institutions organize and regulate the utilization of the resource fish by recreational anglers. By means of case studies, it is examined how the interplay between social and ecological systems is organized and whether the present governance structures facilitate or hinder adaptive management systems in German recreational fisheries. The governance structures are adaptive if they meet the following requirements: the ability to react to constantly changing social, economic, and ecological factors, to learn from previous experiences, and to efficiently adapt to constant changes. There is the assumption that the present feedback mechanisms within the coupled social-ecological system of recreational fisheries are weakly developed. They might be marginally able to ”absorb” the signals of the resource state (e.g. state and long term development of the fish stocks) or the state of the resource users (e.g. dissatisfaction by anglers about state and development of fish stocks), possibly caused by insufficient monitoring systems. One objective of the study is to examine this assumed relationship, e.g. to evaluate the institutions (“rules-in-use”) and behavioural patterns of the stakeholders in the management of the social-ecological system of recreational fisheries in Germany, and to make recommendations for the development or facilitation of adaptive management systems.


Researcher: Daedlow, Katrin

Cooperation Partners: Leibniz-Institut für Gewässerökologie und Binnenfischerei Berlin im Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V. (IGB), Arbeitsgruppe „Freizeitfischereimanagement“

Advisors: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Konrad Hagedorn, Prof. Dr. Robert Arlinghaus, Dr. Volker Beckmann

Funding: Pakt für Forschung und Innovation der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft

Publications and Presentations: see