The dynamics of linked social-ecological action situations reveal governance changes in the Austrian Danube

The situation-centered network approach was developed to examine the interdependencies among multiple decision-making situations and their functions in shaping environmental governance outcomes. The approach has been extended to conceptualize ecological situations and incorporate a temporal dimension to uncover the development of (un)successful institutional settings over time. However, little is known about the dynamics of social-ecological interactions in transforming governance processes, outcomes, and network configurations within situation-centered networks over time. This paper operationalizes a more dynamic perspective that builds on the Social-Ecological Action Situations (SE-AS) framework to uncover which social-ecological-institutional dynamics explain governance changes in a river-floodplain landscape located along the Danube east of Vienna, over the past four decades. Our approach emphasizes how outcomes of key social and ecological interactions serve as drivers that trigger responses, which in turn generate new pressures and reactions in subsequent governance periods. We introduce a novel conceptualization of the ecological Action Situation (AS) as river-floodplain landscape interactions, capturing how riverine dynamics interact with the governance system to produce policy-relevant outcomes in nature conservation and economic benefits. Our findings reveal the complex social-biophysical dynamics involved in resolving conflicts within the social and social-ecological ASs, ultimately contributing to the emergence of a polycentric, participatory, and adaptive governance system. Specifically, we find that riverine connectivity responds quickly to restoration measures, whereas navigability in the main channel, determined by water levels, exhibits more fluctuations despite bedload-related management. Furthermore, changes in ecological dynamics triggered responses within social ASs, which produced institutions that, in turn, shifted operational activities and ecological dynamics. While this approach is useful in tracing dynamic processes underlying longer-term governance changes, a deeper understanding of how such network dynamics unfold may require methodological extensions through analytic history and narrative approaches for counterfactual analysis, and comparative studies across other riverine governance contexts.