Julio, NataliaFigueroa, RicardoPonce Oliva, Roberto2023-04-192023-04-192022Julio, Natalia, Ricardo Figueroa, and Roberto D. Ponce Oliva. "Advancing toward water security: addressing governance failures through a metagovernance of modes approach." Sustainability Science 17, no. 5 (2022): 1911-1920. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01125-yhttps://repositorio.udd.cl/handle/11447/7355Water security (WS) is a desirable goal of ensuring a sufcient quantity and quality of water for life-supporting processesand the development of society. However, achieving WS is a complex challenge that must be addressed in an integrated andinterdisciplinary way. Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) could be a means to achieve WS if it is supported by thedevelopment of an appropriate adaptive governance process that emphasizes more collaborative and coordinated actions andrecognizes river basins as complex social-ecological systems. In this paper, we analyze the relationship between WS and thehybrid conceptualization of hierarchical, market and network governance, namely metagovernance of modes. Here the threegovernance modes are best coordinated by a public metagovernor, who is a key actor in avoiding typical governance failures,helping it become an efective approach to implement adaptive river basin management. The context-specifc attribute ofmetagovernance of modes, and the situationally optimal mixtures that it provides, seem to make it the most suitable alterna-tive to deal with complexity, uncertainty and constant change. We propose that social-ecological components and processesin river basins must be integrated through sound combinations of these three governance modes, which could determine theadoption of a specifc adaptive management instrument, according to the problem to be solved. Further research is neededto understand how metagovernors could achieve better coordination and how to best address context-specifc interventionstrategies10 p.enWater securityMetagovernance of modesAdaptive managementRiver basinsArticlehttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01125-y